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
Food and identity
Food can be a big part of a city’s identity. But as cities adapt to technology and changing demographics, is the food tradition changing too? We head to Paris, Cairo and Hong Kong to have a look at what’s on the menu.
Topography and mobility
Topography versus urbanism: how a young Spanish mayor has reconnected the city, a look at Rio de Janeiro’s cable car system and a preview tour of Seoul’s new sky garden.
Pollution
We hear how Helsinki is keeping its coastline clean, ask if a high-rise could help solve Melbourne’s air and water quality problem and report from Macedonia, which has two of the top-three most-polluted cities in Europe.
‘The New Urban Crisis’
From gentrification to unaffordability, how do you fix a city in crisis? We speak to Richard Florida about his book ‘The New Urban Crisis’. We’re also in Paris to look at the mayor’s plans for an abandoned railway.
Urban violence
Are certain cities synonymous with certain crimes? We speak with urban activists from three different regions about dealing with violence and ask if design can change the way the public perceives the police.
‘Frontier City’ and missing links
We speak to Shawn Micallef about his new book ‘Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness’, hear about Melbourne’s missing rail link and ask if Paris will be able to connect the city to its suburbs.
The built environment and Toronto’s missing middle
This week we talk to Sarah Williams Goldhagen on the way our built environment shapes us, hear about Toronto’s missing middle and New York’s latest addition: a floating food forest.
Something old, something new
We discuss China’s plans to build a brand-new city three times the size of New York, hear how Serbia’s capital is preparing for a cycling revolution and examine the project trying to “beautify” Cairo’s downtown.
Sensory urbanism
How can we improve the way we interact with our cities? This week we explore a ‘sensory’ waterfront in Seattle, hop on a smelling tour of Austria’s capital and ask if Lisbon is tackling noise as it should.
Loneliness
Cities are busy beasts but being constantly surrounded by people doesn’t necessarily prevent us from feeling lonely. The hustle and bustle of city life can be overwhelming, especially for newcomers – so what’s the best way to tackle urban loneliness?
