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
Tall Stories 31: The Kingsway
It was a road that was designed to deliver some imperial swagger to London but today there’s something depressing about The Kingsway. Wouldn’t it have been better if the Edwardians had left us a knot of alleys and streets instead?
Water
We learn how Unesco is trying to save Thailand’s landmarks from floods, discover Seattle’s innovative way of catching stormwater and head to Lesotho to profile Africa’s biggest water-transfer project. Plus: ‘Water: California’, a new photo series by photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz, commissioned by the Syngenta Photography Award.
Tall Stories 30: urban fox
A fox is perhaps the most famous form of urban wildlife, with an estimated 30,000 living in towns and cities across the UK. On this week’s ‘Tall Stories’ our contributing editor Andrew Mueller puts on his fluffy tail and explores what goes on in the mind of a fox that…
City animals
We meet some friendly otters in Singapore, go on a night out with some Spanish bats and board a plane via JFK’s new animal terminal, the Ark. Plus: falcon-spotting in London with the ‘grandmother of peregrines’.
Tall Stories 29: London’s protected views
We uncover the system of protected views that continues to stymie London’s vertical growth.
Hit the john!
There’s very little glamour in the way cities get rid of human waste. But it is important to see how they are doing this around the world: from loos at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro and the new public facilities in Madrid to a public toilet playing classical music…
Tall Stories 28: Honest Ed’s
We take a tour of one of Toronto’s most fabled discount department stores, first opened in 1948.
Green spaces
Parks and gardens can provide a much needed escape from the day-to-day rush in a city. This week we discover London’s newest community garden south of the river, head to the outskirts of Vienna for a members-only green living experience and catch up with the Nature Society of Singapore.
Tall Stories 27: Belgrade’s Genex Tower
It could be one of the city’s icons but Belgrade’s Western Gate is not quite as it should be. Also known as the Genex Tower, this relic of the Tito era is the first notable structure seen by many visitors on their way into Serbia’s capital.
Historic preservation, cycling and 100 Resilient Cities
We talk to Stephanie Meeks, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, about the quest to revitalise historic buildings in the US. Plus: architecture’s influence on the way we learn, cycling in Hong Kong and part two of our interview with Michael Berkowitz, president of 100 Resilient Cities.
