Challenger Cities EP83: A Little Piece of Switzerland in the Derbyshire Hills

Challenger Cities EP83: A Little Piece of Switzerland in the Derbyshire Hills

This is a lovely episode with Thomas Ableman (a returning guest!) that is mostly about an amazing project he and a few volunteers recently secured funding to go and deliver called Mini Switzerland in the Derbyshire hills. We often hear about how it's not possible to deliver high quality public transport because there simply aren't enough people to make it worthwhile. That makes a lot of people feel quite clever in saying no to it. But then go an explain how Switzerland works then. If a nation that has some of the most challenging geography, and not particularly huge numbers of people, can deliver frequent, integrated, efficient and enjoyable transport to villages with as little as 300 people half-way up a mountain ... then I don't think we've got much excuse in the UK, US and Canada. We also talk quite a lot about trams, and how despite me really not being a fan of Andy Burnham, the fact a man that is probably best known for trams and yellow buses actually might make them an important topic for Westminster government to take more interest in.

Challenger Cities EP82: The Purpose is Not the Function with Sam Peart

One of the best people I met last year was Samantha Peart. We were in Copenhagen for a few days and of our fellows group, I have to say she asked the best questions. She’s also exceptionally good at getting you to question your assumptions or reflect on why you might think what you’re thinking. And that really comes through in this conversation, with real examples that have had a massive impact on projects and places. I’m such a fan of hers, that I even let her destroy the magic wand question. Because she makes an excellent point about it. So if you’re involved in any sort of urbanism, placemaking or infrastructure project. This really is one you need to have a listen to.

Challenger Cities EP81: A Chair in the City and a Stool at the Rouge with Ken Greenberg

If you liked our episode with Ilana Altman about The Bentway, then you'll like this one with Ken Greenberg, because he's part of that origin story. Ken is a legend in Toronto urbanism circles, as someone who did pioneering work in his early career in the city and then took it to the likes of St. Paul and Boston in the US. We set up this episode to discuss work he's doing around the newly free'd up airport lands in Pickering, ON and his vision to turn this into a new part of the Rouge National Urban Park. It's a conversation that we hope can breathe life and optimism into the Toronto urban discourse, as many of the components of what Challenger Cities need is right there. It just needs unleashing.

Challenger Cities EP80: The Materials of Cities with Saurabh Mangla

This is a bit of a different episode because we're talking about what cities are made of, rather than how we make our cities. I had the pleasure of meeting Saurabh Mangla on a day where I was hot, tired and just wanted a beer. But getting the story of his materials lab and how he's working to explore how cities use their materials more effectively, efficiently and in many ways, delightfully is a good reviver. We talk about Singapore, India and how material resources can be an excellent way for cities to demonstrate their Challenger mindset.

Challenger Cities EP79: The Best Practice Industrial Complex with Gerald Babel-Sutter

Gerald Babel-Sutter is the founder of Urban Future, a 14-year-old event that has grown from a workshop for ten city officials in Graz to a gathering of 2,000 people from 290 cities in 48 countries. The premise hasn't changed: get the actual project managers in a room, not the communications directors, and ask them to talk honestly about what went wrong. In this conversation we cover how a frustrated city official's complaint over a beer became the founding logic of one of Europe's most distinctive urbanism events, why Oslo's deputy mayor told a room full of city planners to never call anything a car-free city centre, what Helsingborg's annual fuck-up of the year award reveals about institutional culture change, and why Istanbul — four religions, sixteen million people, a more open visa regime — is where Urban Future is heading in April 2027. Gerald also makes a case that the knowledge flows in urbanism run almost entirely in the wrong direction, and that who gets a visa to attend whose conference is one of the most consequential questions in the field that nobody is talking about. https://urban-future.org/ [https://urban-future.org/]