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
The urbanist dictionary
Word games: what’s in an urbanist’s dictionary and how does language affect how we see our cities? From branding slogans to the word on the street, we look into the identity of the places we live.
Cabbie culture
Taxi ranking: niche companies, turf wars and obsessions from the front seat. We explore cabbie culture from restaurant recommendations to why you can’t beat the Knowledge.
The guide to living in Hong Kong
Hong Kong: why the city is becoming a creative hub and how to live among the world’s largest collection of skyscrapers.
The deal with sharing
Share deal: a special episode looking at car sharing, office sharing, table sharing and mingling in cities around the world.
Sex in the city
Sex: it’s always on the agenda. From red-light districts becoming design hubs and drag queens going mainstream to how to manage São Paulo’s love motels, we tour the world looking at cities between two sheets.
Cars and cities
Cars: Whether it’s daytime deliveries for your business or late-night taxis home after the last metro has run, there’s a place in our cities for cars. In this episode we talk Moscow traffic jams, visit the town Volkswagen built and find out why Turin wants to go electric.
The boring rich
Rich is boring: we look at Zürich, Vancouver, London, Milan and New York to ask why rich cities or neighbourhoods can seem like the ones with the least going on.
Debunking urban myths
City myths: what happens when what we think of cities turns out to be untrue? From superstitions to bogus branding, we visit London, Jerusalem, Milan, Zürich and Toronto.
Mapping cities
Maps: we hear about the man who made New York a grid, find out why some Swiss prefer a relief and learn about Beirut through one of its first maps.
The controversy over gentrification
Gentrification: we speak to critics and champions, and visit Warsaw, Budapest, San Francisco, Madrid and Tel Aviv to ask about the role of people, architecture and history in the ever-controversial process.
