Depave Paradise

In this episode, Roman and historian Imani Perry follow the Webster Blue Back Speller from the early days of the United States, to the heart of Black intellectual life. Through the lives of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Roman and Imani uncover how a single object bec ...  Show more

Love it or hate it, one buzzing horn changed the sound of the World Cup forever. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by ...  Show more

Sponge cities use natural features to slow down, soak up and reuse flood water. Yu Kongjian nearly drowned as a boy when his village flooded, but it inspired him to come up with the sponge city concept. It’s now being rolled out across China. In Singapore too, parks and lakes are ...  Show more

Older American cities have a dirty problem — outdated sewer systems that use a single pipe to carry both sewage and stormwater to treatment facilities. As population growth and climate change have increased both sewage and stormwater, those pipes can get filled to capacity, and t ...  Show more

From London to Tokyo, climate change is causing cities to sink -- and our modern concrete infrastructure is making us even more vulnerable to severe flooding, says landscape architect and TED Fellow Kotchakorn Voraakhom. But what if we could design cities to help fight floods? In ...  Show more

“People can’t go to work, can’t cook. We aren’t even sure if the water that’s brought in by trucks is clean. Enough is enough.” Residents of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa have been dealing with water shortages for months. A long drought and ageing infrastructure are b ...  Show more