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Welcome to What is The Future For Cities podcast; my name is Fanni, and today we will celebrate the first birthday of the podcast! First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for joining me on this adventure. I am really grateful for your support. And I am especially thankful for my interviewees who took the time to appear on the podcast and share their ideas and insights. Stay tuned for a special announcement at the end of the episode! But now, let me give you a summary of what we have learned throughout this one year! So, let’s jump right into it!

I think we have learned many things, but most importantly, that better ideas and actions are needed for cities going into the future. The current establishment, design, and management of cities are not good to sustain. Cities need to be understood differently for them to have a better future. So what does this different understanding mean? Well, first and foremost, cities are more than the simple built environment we see around us. The city as an entity is a network of different networks, it is constituted of the buildings, roads, transportation networks, people, nature, trade, employment, and many other aspects, which are also in connection with each other. The city is a complex collaboration across these aspects, although this collaboration could be enhanced for the better future of cities.

Naturally, this future of cities is also an amazing concept. The episodes so far established that each city needs to have their own future, based on their own characteristics. With this differentiation we can retain the urban character, the uniqueness of a place. Additionally, the future is so uncertain that the vision for it cannot be anything rigid, it needs to allow for changes over time by proper foresight planning. Because our actions today create the future.

We have also heard ideas about sustainability, regeneration, smartness, resilience and many more to improve our urban areas. However, these ideas are ambiguous in research and practice. The research episodes presented a vast landscape of meaning for sustainability and smartness for example, while the interviews proved that people have even more differing ideas. This is not necessarily wrong and problematic because cities need differences across locations, demographics, geography, and other characteristics. But when talking about such ideas, we need to make it clear what we mean by them.

Smartness for example was identified with pure technology or people’s local knowledge and expertise. Some interviewees highlighted that data in and of itself is not smart, we need to work with it to provide information and insights. With those, we can make evidence-based decision about what and how to improve. Smartness can turn into problem solving skills with people’s involvement, which sounds a fascinating approach. We heard examples of urban smartness through technology use or people’s participation in cities, changing the meaning of smartness over time to fit the populace’s needs.

Sustainability meant also various things, like simple better energy management or the use of renewable energy sources. However, sustainability can mean so much more, according to our episodes. It can be the attention to present and future needs, without jeopardising either but making sure both are met. It can be about water sustainability and sharing opportunities, and or individual sustainability. We also learned specific steps everyone could take to become more sustainable. Some people even talked about special solutions which could enhance urban sustainability, such as hempcrete.

Besides these terms, there were many other discussed throughout the year. We heard about healthy cities with the inclusion of biophilia and natural experiences, such as beauty, joy, belonging and comfort. Neurodiversity, disabilities and service provision were also mentioned as needing special attention in urban planning. With increasing technology use, interviewees also warned about and advocated for better data management, privacy and more respectful use of technologies and surveillance.

Cities are places for people, for everyone, therefore, everybody has a place in them and everybody can do something amazing within. People, me, you, and everyone, need to be more engaged in urban areas and we also learned how each individual can influence the whole system even with the smallest actions. Opportunities are present with digital data sharing and e-governance solutions or even to make renting and apartment living a more comfortable experience for all involved.

Just some statistics: the interviews are more interesting to you than the research episodes, which is fair. The most listened to episode was Number 18 with María José Yanez and we talked about the Nightingale model and what they do differently in the development industry. Number 6 with Daniel Prohasky and Number 21 with Bridgette Engler were also fascinating for you. Interestingly, the most listened to research episodes were number 43 about shifting from sustainability to regeneration and number 20 about the antifragile concept.

And some insights to the future. I am planning great interviews for your, we will have guests talking about urban mental health and participatory design, or economic geography and landscape design with holistic perspectives over the ages, for example. Around the 100^th episode there will be some special interviews, so stayed tuned for those as well.

Finally, our website for the podcast is up and running to create a lively community around the future of cities! So head over to WTF4Cities.com and check it out!!! The previous episodes are all uploaded, so you can find anything which was interesting from this episode, and the future ones will also appear there, with comment section. If you have any idea how to make the podcast and the community better, let me know.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. I am so grateful for your joining me on this adventure either as a listener or an interviewee as well, I thank you for your attention to this topic.
2. Cities need changes for better future and there is no one idea which could fit every city.
3. People, everyone, even us can create change in cities, even if it is for the smallest impact, because that will influence the city, so make sure that our impacts are for a better future.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What would you like to hear more about? I would like to create a great experience for you, not just for me, so please, let me know if there is something you would be really interested in.
2. Which was your favourite approach?
3. What can you do in your own area to make your city and its future better?

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