Category: Weekly reflection
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Why cities must become regenerative: From doing less harm to actively healing
This week on the What is The Future for Cities? podcast, we explored a powerful shift in how we think about architecture and cities – moving beyond merely sustainable design (doing less harm) to truly regenerative approaches that actively restore ecosystem services and reconnect humans with nature. Through a research debate on the 2019 “Biodiver-Cities”…
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Governance, adaptability and the future of rapidly growing African cities
This week on the What is The Future for Cities? podcast, we examined one of the defining features of rapid urbanisation in Africa: the governance of informal settlements. Through a research debate on a 2025 scoping review (Episode 435R) and a conversation with spatial practitioner Carina Tenewaa Kanbi (Episode 436I), we explored the practical challenges,…
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Outdated rules, housing capacity and the changing role of city planners
This week on the What is The Future for Cities? podcast, we explored one of the most pressing and complex challenges facing cities today: the relationship between housing supply, regulation, and affordability. Through a research debate (episode 433R) on how land-use rules affect housing costs and a wide-ranging conversation (episode 434I) with Keith Cooke from…
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From the floating island project to heterarchy: Why creating new cities is hard
This week on the What is The Future of Cities? podcast we explored one of the most ambitious ideas in contemporary urbanism: the possibility of creating entirely new types of cities and governance systems. Through a research debate (episode 431R) on the Floating Island project in French Polynesia and a detailed conversation (episode 432I) with…
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Labour markets, spontaneous order, and the danger of rigid plans: Lessons from Alain Bertaud
What if most of what we think we know about planning successful cities is actually getting in the way of their success? This week on the What is The Future for Cities? podcast we investigated one of the most important – and often misunderstood – ideas in urbanism: that cities are, at their core, labour…
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Living with water instead of fighting it: 5 lessons from amphibious architecture and rethinking our relationship with nature
What if instead of building ever-higher walls to keep water out, we designed our homes and cities to rise gracefully with it? This week on What is The Future for Cities? podcast we explored exactly that question through two episodes. Episode 427R delivered a lively research debate on the 2016 paper “Thriving with Water: Developments…
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Building anti-fragile cities: From cracked foundations to seven-generation thinking
What if the real problem isn’t the leaking roof but the cracked foundation beneath it? This week on What is The Future for Cities? podcast we explored exactly that question through two powerful episodes. Episode 425R brought a research debate summarising the upcoming book The Energy Foundation by AJ Perkins and Fanni Melles, while Episode…
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Reclaiming our cities: What if streets belonged to people again?
This week on the What is The Future for Cities? podcast the two episodes felt like they were speaking directly to the same big idea: how do we turn our streets back into places for people, not just cars? Episode 423R dove into the research debate on scaling Barcelona’s superblock model city-wide, while Episode 424I…
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Green growth, innovation and abundance: Major takeaways for the future of cities
This week the What is The Future for Cities? podcast explored one of the most important questions facing cities: can we grow our economies while successfully addressing climate change, or must we deliberately reduce consumption? Episode 419R presented a sharp research debate grounded in the 2025 paper by Phoenix Eskridge-Aldama, Aden Stern, Anna Vaughn and…
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Adaptive urban furniture as a pathway to resilient and antifragile cities
This week the What is The Future for Cities? podcast moved from big-picture African creative economies to the small but powerful scale of everyday street furniture. We examined how ordinary benches, shelters and bus stops can evolve into active participants in urban resilience in episode 417R and 418I. Rather than remaining passive objects, these elements…
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