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
Letters from the city
How a city handles a pandemic reveals much about its character. As urban centres around the world begin to reopen, Monocle’s correspondents send us letters from their own outposts.
Tall Stories 207: Deutsches Haus, Ho Chi Minh City
James Chambers brings us the story of a building complex in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City that forms a symbol of relations between Vietnam and Germany.
Coronavirus and mobility
The pandemic has reshaped the way that we move around our cities. Public transport usage is at an all-time low, cycling is on the rise and pedestrians have been reclaiming the streets and pavements. Could this be an opportunity for actual change in the places we live?
Tall Stories 206: The Internet of Nature
Nadina Galle tells us about her work on the ‘Internet of Nature’ and how much we can learn from the biological networks that exist in our cities.
Our relationship with food
We are joined by author Carolyn Steel to assess how we interact with food and what we might do after the pandemic to improve our relationship with what we eat.
Tall Stories 205: The corner shop
Monocle’s Nic Monisse takes us on a stroll to his neighbourhood corner shop to pick up some milk, eggs – and a little bit of gossip.
The public realm
As some countries start to relax restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic, we assess how our view of the public realm has changed – and how it might look in the future.
Tall Stories 204: The balcony
Chiara Rimella laments the absence of a house feature that’s common in her native Italy but sadly missing from many of the UK’s architectural plans.
Big interview: Jan Gehl
Andrew Tuck brings you a special interview with Jan Gehl, perhaps the world’s best-known urban designer. Now 83, he’s waiting this pandemic out while isolating at home, enjoying spring from his garden. Sometimes all you need to steady your outlook is someone with a longer vision than yourself.
Tall Stories 203: Argumento, Rio de Janeiro
Our Latin America correspondent Lucinda Elliott takes us to a bookshop in Ipanema that just celebrated its 40th birthday and remains an important hub for Rio’s book-loving residents.
