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
Can a building be bad?
This week we look at controversial built environments, often the legacy of dictatorships and fascism, and how cities around the world have dealt with their pasts.
Tall Stories 252: Cinemateca, Montevideo
We visit the new home for the national film archive of Uruguay.
Urban lighting
We might not think about it very often but high-quality urban lighting is a determining factor in how we experience our cities. In this episode we look at the history of light in urban environments, how they can make places safer and even nighttime design. Plus: how crucial lighting is…
Tall Stories 251: Precollinear Park, Turin
We stop by a linear park constructed along a stretch of unused tram lines, conceived by the Torino Stratosferica collective.
Building back equally
We rewrite that most recent of urbanist battle cries and look at how to build back equally.
Tall Stories 250: UN headquarters, New York
Christopher Cermak charts his journey from model UN to reporting on the real thing and explains what the organisation’s New York HQ means to the city.
The future of US transportation
With a new administration in residence at the White House and cities beginning to recover from the pandemic, is there some hope on the horizon for transport in the United States?
Tall Stories 249: The Beirut River, Lebanon
Adib Dada explains a unique planting method that is turning a plot of land on the banks of the Beirut River into what’s now known as Beirut’s Riverless Forest.
Diary of a year in lockdown
Monocle’s editor in chief Andrew Tuck opens up his diary charting the past 12 months, as the UK marks a year since it first entered into lockdown.
Tall Stories 248: The nightclub
We look at the night-time economy’s importance to a city, and the power of a good dance floor.
