398. Urban Planning for Social Justice in Lat...

Safa Charafi, Founder and CEO of Urban Inclusion, challenges Eurocentric and colonial approaches to urban planning, arguing for cities shaped by local knowledge, lived experience, and fairer power structures. The conversation explores how dominant Western models have erased indig ...  Show more

Audio note: Recorded in a busy event hall. Some background noise remains, despite AI-based noise reduction.Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Mayor of Kuala Lumpur and former Executive Director of UN-Habitat, shares her perspective on what it really means to build a smart city today.The conve ...  Show more

What does it mean to settle, to be in a settled place? This week’s guest, AbdouMaliq Simone has dedicated his work to investigating the specifics of urban organization as they are created by people. In this erudite and globally-positioned conversation, Ayana and AbdouMaliq medita ...  Show more

Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban ...  Show more

What makes some cities world class? Increasingly, that designation reflects the use of a toolkit of urban planning practices and policies that circulates around the globe. These strategies—establishing creative districts dedicated to technology and design, “greening” the streets, ...  Show more

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Why we need to write about difficult topics. Four American towns trying to save themselves. The structural processes behind poverty. A discussion of the book The Fight to Save the Town. Today’s book is: The Fi ...  Show more