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
Urban mental health
We investigate what effect the urban environment has on city dwellers’ mental health – from high stress to increased isolation – and explore some of the ways in which cities can provide a solution to these problems.
Driving change
We explore how the age of technology is having an influence on our roads and how one country is trying to reduce its dependence on cars.
Small Cities Index
We discuss the Small Cities Index from Monocle’s latest edition of ‘The Forecast’ and explore two different examples of adaptive reuse – one from Hamilton, Ontario, and another from London, UK.
Destigmatising density
Urban density is an inevitable issue for our cities. As more and more people move into urban areas, we need to know how to do density right and make it welcoming on a human scale. We report from the annual Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat conference, which this…
Urbanism in the UAE
Being a young nation presents its own set of challenges but it also provides ample opportunity to innovate when thinking about the future of cities. We meet the CEO of URB, who’s dreaming up planet-friendly, utopian cityscapes, and tour Expo City Dubai to explore the site’s sustainable ambitions.
Active cities
How can urban environments encourage city dwellers to be more active? From urban design to office architecture, we investigate some of the key players making an effort to keep people moving.
Community development through hip-hop
We discuss how hip-hop has improved cities around the world, explore plans for a new coastal-redevelopment megaproject in Athens and find out how to mitigate the effects of floods in our urban environments.
Utopian Hours 2023
Monocle’s Carlota Rebelo reports from the Utopian Hours urbanism festival in Turin. We hear how a “disobedient picnic” ignited change in Brussels, tour the Royal Green Walk, talk about reclaiming the streets from cars and how timber can help build more sustainable cities.
Urban Transformation Summit
Monocle’s Carlota Rebelo reports from the World Economic Forum’s Urban Transformation Summit in Detroit. We hear about a new innovation district in Milan, Boston’s 24-hour city ambitions and the master plan for AlUla in Saudi Arabia. Plus: creating pocket forests and mobility in San Diego.
Saint-Gobain’s Benoit Bazin
We sit down with Saint-Gobain’s CEO, Benoit Bazin, to hear about his journey, passion for enhancing quality of life in our cities and how sustainability lives at the heart of everything the company does.
