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The Urbanist

With an influential audience of city mayors, urban planners and architects, this is Monocle’s guide to making better cities, be it new technology, state-of-the-art subways or compact apartments. Nominee in the Smartest Podcast category of the 2019 British Podcast awards.

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Obstacles to innovation:

We assess some novel city plans and the obstacles that they have to overcome, from safer autonomous cars to dying downtown cores. We then look at what happens when the best features in a design phase are ignored once built.

Latest episodes

EpisodeDateDescriptionDownloadPlay
6071 Jun 2023
31 min

Obstacles to innovation: 

We assess some novel city plans and the obstacles that they have to overcome, from safer autonomous cars to dying downtown cores. We then look at what happens when the best features in a design phase are ignored once built.

DownloadPlay
29 May 2023
5 min

Tall Stories 359: The Fiat Tagliero Building, Asmara: 

Isabella Jewell explores how colonialism shaped the distinctly Italian architecture of the Eritrean capital.

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60625 May 2023
36 min

Sadie Morgan and tackling homelessness: 

Sadie Morgan discusses the shortlist for the forthcoming Davidson Prize, how our cities can help rough sleepers and how good planning can improve every aspect of urban life, from housing to infrastructure. Plus: a look at Los Angeles’s solutions to homelessness.

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22 May 2023
7 min

Tall Stories 358: Villa Mairea, Pori: 

Petri Burtsoff takes us to one of Alvar Aalto’s most famous buildings: a modernist demonstration of what mass housing was lacking at the time.

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60518 May 2023
29 min

Chasing zero: 

Cities around the world are making commitments to reduce their net carbon emissions to zero. But what are the steps being taken to ensure this goal is achieved, and who is leading the race towards a greener urban future?

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15 May 2023
4 min

Tall Stories 357: Verkehrskanzel, Berlin: 

Paige Reynolds visits a relic of Berlin’s infrastructure that speaks to our cities’ less automated histories.

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60411 May 2023
30 min

Better community policing: 

Monocle’s Chris Cermak reports from the Professionalizing Law Enforcement-Community Engagement Training Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, to explore how police can better interact with the communities they serve and gain their trust.

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8 May 2023
10 min

Tall Stories 356: Cermak Road, Chicago: 

Chris Cermak looks into the local Chicago history that is invoked by his relatively rare surname.

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6034 May 2023
29 min

The fate of the department store: 

In this special roundtable discussion, The Urbanist debates what is best for our grand old department stores. Should they be revitalised, repurposed or removed? Henrietta Billings from SAVE Britain’s Heritage and Toby Pentecost of the property developer Candour join us to consider the options.

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1 May 2023
4 min

Tall Stories 355: The Barnes Dance: 

David Stevens investigates a particularly well-choreographed way to cross the road.

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60227 Apr 2023
28 min

Planning ahead: 

We explore the virtues of second cities as master-plan test-beds, speak to a Ukrainian mayor hoping to build back better after the war and look into how virtual reality can improve the way our buildings sound.

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24 Apr 2023
6 min

Tall Stories 354: Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia: 

Conor Faulkner visits the City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia’s best-known piece of modern architecture, to explain its bumpy creation story.

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60120 Apr 2023
30 min

City lessons from Salone del Mobile: 

We explore some of the promising plans and inspiring ideas for our cities that we have heard while floating around the exhibition halls of this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan.

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17 Apr 2023
6 min

Tall Stories 353: Çamlıca Tower, Istanbul: 

Hannah Lucinda Smith admires a beautiful piece of telecommunications infrastructure in the hills of Istanbul.

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60013 Apr 2023
33 min

The Urbanist Book Club: 

We convene another meeting of the Urbanist Book Club to highlight two titles that have caught our eye: ‘Carmageddon’ by Daniel Knowles and ‘Why Public Space Matters’ by Setha Low.

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