The Urbanist
Monocle’s guide to better cities. Explore urban innovation, cutting-edge infrastructure, and compact living with insights from planners, architects, and city leaders.
Latest Episodes
City streets
City streets: we take a look at cities from the ground up, learning how much it costs to set up new a street, why one developer is eager to give new life to one of Lisbon’s oldest neighbourhoods, discover a hidden road in the heart of Manhattan and get a…
Suburban revival
Suburbs: how to bring them back to life, what a ‘sprawl index’ says about a city and what happens when neglected ’burbs fight back. Join us as we head to Istanbul, Washington DC, New York and London.
Building resilient cities
Resilient cities: how do you build a city that lasts? Seeking out stories of strong leadership, the right infrastructure (call in the landscape architect!), to communities whose bonds endure catastrophe, we visit San Francisco, Da Nang, Hong Kong and Calgary.
Icons and iconoclasts
Icons and iconoclasts: do cities need popular icons to unite them? What of the cities that have none? We visit Madrid, Vienna, Sydney, London and Lisbon to find out.
The Build Report
Build: The Urbanist reports from the Bilbao Urban Innovation and Leadership Dialogues conference, hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS).
Number wars
Number wars: whether it’s securing the right prefix for your phone number or naming a business according to the trendiest postcode – why do we care so much about our city digits?
Peace and quiet
Peace and quiet: how do we find a little calm in the big, loud city. From a fruitless hunt in the construction capital of Shanghai to an ode to mindfulness with meditation expert Andy Puddicombe. Plus, the wristwatch that could change your life.
Exploring trains
Trains: we explore the history of trains in cities in locations such as Beirut, Buenos Aires, Sydney, LA and New York. Plus, a love story that unfolded from London to Paris on the Eurostar.
Weather
Weather: how an oyster can help protect a city from hurricane damage, we look at Vancouver’s wet-weather architecture slip-up, and meet a very enthusiastic weatherman, to learn how the oncoming forecast affects all elements of urban life.
Documenting the city
Documenting the city: how we record our urban areas, from the museum curator with a collection you can’t display to a documentary film that’s both fantasy and fiction, along with maps, photographs, audio and more – what sides of the city are we trying to preserve and create through documenting…
