
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

Conflict and the city: protest
In part one of our series looking at conflict and the city, we explore protests, their effect on the built environment and how activism is shaped by the public realm.

Urban transformation in the US
This week, we take the temperature of urban development in the US and check in with a few projects currently under way. We explore The Underline in Miami, Hazelwood Green in Pittsburgh, Detroit’s tallest…

Who holds the power in our cities?
We look at democracy in urban areas and examine city planning and the impact of voter choice. How can decision making in cities become more open and inclusive? Plus: we go back to the…

Sustainable building materials and circular construction
As global urban development continues at pace, the need to use sustainable materials and building techniques in our cities increases. How is innovation helping the construction industry to reduce its impact on the environment?…

Transforming Heal’s, Dutch high-rise housing and innovation hubs
We explore the newly transformed spaces in the historic Heal’s department store in London, investigate the new building frontiers required to tackle the Netherlands’ housing needs and find out what makes an effective innovation…

The Chiefs – Hong Kong
A few on-stage highlights from Monocle’s The Chiefs conference in Hong Kong, from Kevin Mark Low on architectural benchmarks and Noni Purnomo on tackling traffic to Yuta Oka on small-scale hospitality that revitalises communities.

Guerilla gardening, winter cycling and vacancy tax
Green thumbs can help to transform communities. We speak to an activist and horticulturist about how gardening has had a positive effect on his neighbourhood – and helped it to heal after tragedy. Then:…

Are sports developments for the good of the community?
How can sporting developments bring about community change and have a lasting legacy, while driving equality and protecting the environment? Our guests, Lindsay Johnston, Kevin Owens and Angus Campbell, discuss all of this and…

Mipim 2024
We’re in Cannes to report from the world’s leading property fair, Mipim, where more than 20,000 property professionals have gathered to discuss the future of our cities and the built environment.

The Sustainable Cities in Action Forum
We are in Dubai for the Sustainable Cities in Action Forum, which sees more than 500 guests discuss heat resilience, climate mitigation and adaptation in the Global South.