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
Green New Deal
We unpack what this bold proposal is all about and find out how it wants to tackle both inequality and climate change at the same time.
Tall Stories 166: Chain of Lakes
Minneapolis is home to the Chain of Lakes: a park system designed in the early 20th century that links together the city’s five biggest lakes. We look at how it has influenced the city – from its culture to the built environment.
Catching up
We speak to Lisa Helps, the mayor of Victoria, about her ambitious transport agenda and Clarkston’s mayor Ted Terry about refugees. Plus: can The Tide, a project by the studio behind New York’s High Line, change London?
Tall Stories 165: The Kiwi bach
The bach plays a leading role in New Zealanders’ summer holidays. Monocle 24’s David Stevens takes us to his family’s bach on Waikanae Beach to assess why this classic Kiwi dream might be starting to fade.
Wellbeing and cities
We discuss wellbeing in our urban environments. Reporting from the inaugural Wellbeing Cities Forum in Montréal, we examine how to live well in a city and dissect the social, economic and cultural aspects of urban life.
Tall Stories 164: Stonewall’s legacy
Stonewall is the most influential event in US gay-rights history; in 2016, Barack Obama made the site of the uprising a national monument. So why are many places that are critical to LGBT history under-documented and overlooked?
Lessons from the Quality of Life Conference
Now that Monocle’s fifth annual Quality of Life conference has wrapped up in Madrid, we look back at some of the wisdom we took home with us and ponder how we can use these lessons to effect change in our own urban environments.
Tall Stories 163: Moscow street art
Wander into a Moscow courtyard and you’ll often come across characters made of rusty metal tubes, bits of wood or, perhaps, an old washing machine. With its striking simplicity, this grassroots street art is a uniquely Russian phenomenon – but it might be on the brink of vanishing forever.
Spotlight: Madrid
As we gear up to host our fifth annual Quality of Life Conference in Madrid, we look at the Spanish capital’s urban plans, promises and problems. Our man in the city, Liam Aldous, brings us this week’s special episode.
Tall Stories 162: Toronto Raptors and the city
The ascent of Toronto’s basketball heroes – the Raptors are this year’s NBA champions – has revealed much about the city. In many ways, the team reflects one of the world’s most diverse urban centres.
