Resilient Futures Podcast (Future Cities)
Explore every episode of Resilient Futures Podcast
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
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| 01 Apr 2019 | Resilient Hospitals | 00:41:04 | |
Hospitals are critical to the health of any city, providing essential care to the communities that they serve. Unlike many other buildings, hospitals can't simply close and send everyone away during an extreme event since it would be dangerous to the patients in need to critical care. In this month's episode, Stephen Elser interviews two leaders from the CannonDesign firm, whose work includes designing hospitals to be resilient to a wide variety of disturbances. We discuss what it means for a hospital to be resilient, the use of landscaping to create "healing environments", and the importance of tailoring a design strategy to meet specific needs. We also hear about their past work in Nantucket Island, Miami, Houston, and Manhattan and the types of design used in those cases. | |||
| 01 Mar 2022 | What Makes Infrastructure Sustainable? | 01:06:23 | |
Discussions about infrastructure are often centered on the opinions and prevailing ideas within engineering, but other disciplines have valuable insights on what infrastructure is and what it can be. In this first installment of the 2021 Infrastructure and the Anthropocene series, Professor Mikhail Chester of Arizona State University (ASU) interviews his ASU colleague, Professor Chuck Redman, who looks at infrastructure from a more anthropological and social sciences perspective. Topics discussed include whether to think of infrastructure as permanent or impermanent, the ways existing infrastructure shapes future path dependencies, and inserting values into the pursuit of resilience. | |||
| 01 Apr 2022 | Infrastructure for Visible Cities | 01:20:47 | |
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| 01 May 2022 | Environmental Justice and Green Infrastructure | 00:50:42 | |
Green infrastructure features are often celebrated as multifunctional solutions in cities, with an array of benefits that they could provide. However, the implementation of green infrastructure can also cause disservices, including gentrification when green infrastructure features are implemented without a plan for how those features will interact with existing systemic issues. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Fushcia-Ann Hoover about her research on environmental justice issues surrounding green infrastructure. She tells us about her path towards interdisciplinary research, recommendations for cities to envision more equitable green infrastructure implementation, and her business, where she helps researchers and planners alike to center environmental justice in their work and to see the connections between people and the environment.
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| 01 Jun 2022 | Every Tree Tells a Story - Cadder Primary School & The Lost Woods | 00:52:35 | |
This month’s podcast is brought to you by the children of Cadder Primary School in Glasgow and the Lost Woods Project to tell you all about their work on Every Tree Tells a Story in the run up to COP26 and work to create the Glasgow Children's Woodland. | |||
| 04 May 2019 | SETS Infrastructure | 00:38:14 | |
Both infrastructure disasters and infrastructure funding bills are back in the news, so | |||
| 01 Jul 2022 | Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty & Green Infrastructure | 00:29:14 | |
In this month's episode, Dr. Alysha Helmrich sits down with Marissa Webber, a PhD Candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss her recent publication: A Review of Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty Applications Using Green Infrastructure for Flood Management. We also introduce our new sponsor, NATURA. | |||
| 01 Aug 2022 | Heat Risk | 00:44:38 | |
This month's episode, Heat Risk, explores the risk of heat exposure in Phoenix, AZ but has relevance across the globe with the current heat waves being experienced. Dr. Alysha Helmrich interviews Dr. Yuliya Dzyuban and Adora Shortridge about their recent studies on heat risk in Phoenix, and she discusses the Phoenix Office of Heat Response and Mitigation with the director, Dr. David Hondula. | |||
| 01 Sep 2022 | Local Labs of Urban Informality (Spanish) | 00:58:51 | |
This month's episode is initially being published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. On September 15th, we will be publishing a dubbed English version. | |||
| 15 Sep 2022 | Local Labs of Urban Informality (English) | 00:37:14 | |
This month's episode was initially published in Spanish -- the co-hosts' native language. Today, we are publishing a dubbed English version. | |||
| 03 Oct 2022 | Democratizing Visualization for Climate Justice | 00:46:52 | |
Whose voice counts? Whose visualization informs the design of cities? And how do we collaborate in nurturing resilient equitable futures? Join a conversation led by Ananth Udupa between Duván López, Mathieu Feagan, Melissa Moreno, Theresa O’Neil, and Daniela Moreno.
Follow the hosts on Twitter: @duvanhernan @MathieuMatt @ttttheresa @DanielaGarMo --- If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the NATURA project at natura-net.org. | |||
| 01 Nov 2022 | Justice in Sustainability Pathways | 00:45:38 | |
Distributive, procedural, recognitional justice are vital for nature-based solutions, but these dimensions of justice have multiple and conflicting meanings. Drs. Katinka Wijsman and Marta Berbés-Blázquez explore how political theory and philosophy help in understanding differences and conflict. They present five key justice questions for researchers and practitioners to reflect with. One major takeaway? Praxis and reflectivity are crucial to balancing the act of practicing justice.
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| 01 Dec 2022 | Carbon Banking within Urban Spaces | 00:42:55 | |
The built environment has significantly contributed to climate change, and it is becoming increasingly clear that net-zero carbon emissions is not enough. Phil Horton and Alysha Helmrich discuss the importance of carbon capture and explore how cities may play a role in carbon banking. In this episode, we will discuss the role that buildings and urban infrastructure will play in carbon draw-down and decarbonization through: end-to-end carbon accounting, building material innovations, and emergent alignment and coordination across critical stakeholders and agencies in the future of our urban environments.
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| 01 Jan 2023 | Developing and Deploying Disruptive Ideas | 00:35:10 | |
Dr. Mikhail Chester hosts Dr. Stephanie Pincetl, whose work engages a multitude of disciplines (from engineers to urban planners to economists) to advance urban sustainability science and decision-making for water, energy, transportation, and land use systems. She explores how understanding and synthesizing these diverse systems surrounding our complex urban systems opens opportunities for future alternatives. | |||
| 01 Feb 2023 | Environmental Justice and Air Quality | 00:32:53 | |
Dr. Christina H. Fuller shares her work on environmental health and justice, particularly examining how air quality varies down to a block-level across communities. She provides insights on conducting participatory research within frontline communities and advocating for more inclusive environmental justice research. Dr. Fuller also discusses her diverse work experiences from industry, non-profits, consulting, and academia. | |||
| 01 Mar 2023 | Centralization and Decentralization for Resilient Infrastructure | 00:28:22 | |
Pervasive across infrastructure literature and discourse are the concepts of centralized, decentralized, and distributed systems, and there appears to be growing interest in how these configurations support or hinder adaptive and transformative capacities towards resilience. There does not appear to be a concerted effort to align how these concepts are used, and what different configurations mean for infrastructure systems. This is problematic because how infrastructure are structured and governed directly affects their capabilities to respond to increasing complexity. Dr. Alysha Helmrich recommends a multi-dimensional framing of de/centralization through a network-governance perspective where capabilities to shift between stability and instability are paramount and information is a critical mediator. | |||
| 01 Apr 2023 | Dynamic Criticality for Infrastructure Prioritization | 00:39:22 | |
Dynamic Criticality is the idea that organizations must constantly reform their priorities in the face of volatile environments to maintain an adaptive state. Infrastructure research has yet to identify competencies that might aid infrastructure organizations in achieving dynamic criticality. Ryan Hoff discusses how competencies from other organizations can inform how infrastructure managers can better prepare their organizations to shift priorities in the face of disturbances. Follow our guest on Twitter: @RyanMHoff | |||
| 01 May 2023 | Expanding Ecological Connectivity toward Resilient Socio-ecological Landscapes | 01:02:13 | |
Dr. Catherine de Rivera leads a conversation with Carole Hardy and Eric Butler. They dive into the social, ecological, and technological aspects of connectivity with an emphasis on the benefits of ecological connectivity. This podcast is rooted in work co-produced with researchers and practitioners from Portland, Oregon. This episode also features Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, Leslie Bliss-Ketchum, Jennifer Karps, and Lori Hennings. | |||
| 01 Jun 2023 | Can I Recycle This? | 00:42:00 | |
On this month's episode of the Future Cities podcast, Alysha Helmrich interviews her colleague, Katherine (Kat) Shayne. Kat Shayne is the CEO of Can I Recycle This? (CIRT). A start-up homed in Athens, GA that helps cities, counties, businesses, and individuals properly dispose of products. Kat shares her own journey in sustainability that led her to creating CIRT and describes CIRT's mission and goals. You can learn more about CIRT at www.cirt.tech. You can also learn more about the Circularity Informatics Lab at https://www.circularityinformatics.org/. | |||
| 01 Jul 2023 | Future of Urban Hydrology | 00:31:04 | |
On this month's episode of the Future Cities Podcast, Dr. Alysha Helmrich hosts Dr. Virginia Smith, who explores the future of urban hydrology. She covers a lot of ground! From the magnitude of flood impacts, the differences between hydrology and urban hydrology, the stakeholders in urban flooding, data collection and management for stormwater, integration of AI in stormwater management, and social vulnerability and equity. Tune in to hear all the details! https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1038/s41598-020-65232-5.pdf https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1752-1688.12656 https://ascelibrary.org/doi/full/10.1061/JSWBAY.0000945 https://ascelibrary.org/doi/full/10.1061/JSWBAY.0000958 https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/JSWBAY.0000986 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-23214-9
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| 01 Aug 2023 | Green Infrastructure: Opportunities, Challenges, and the CUGIC | 00:46:57 | |
Urban green infrastructure has the ability to make cities more sustainable. However, the exact implementation of green infrastructure and the choices that must be made during implementation are still topics for discussion. Recently, the Consolidated Urban Green Infrastructure Classification (CUGIC) was published as a tool to help policymakers, practitioners and researchers assess the state of their urban green infrastructure relevant to urban biodiversity, human well-being, and ecosystem services. In this podcast, Joeri Morpurgo (Leiden University), Dirk Voets (Head remote sensing, Cobra-Groeninzicht), Ciska van Alphen (Policy officer, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality), and Jacco Schuurkamp (Senior policy officer, Municipality The Hague) discuss the challenges and opportunities for implementing green infrastructure and how CUGIC helps! Follow our guests on Twitter! | |||
| 01 Sep 2023 | The Power of Identity: Bringing Our Whole Selves to Research | 00:57:27 | |
Academic research, no matter how scientific, can be deeply personal. Pursuing a PhD in a field like urban resilience demands an unwavering dedication to the topic driven by a genuine care for the issues at hand. While this passion can help motivate scholars, it is practically very difficult to bring one’s full self into academic endeavors, even when an institution explicitly recognizes that individuals’ unique perspectives and experiences can enrich their research and shed new light on complex problems. In this episode, Madison Horgan (PhD student, Arizona State University) interviews fellow ASU scholars Dr. Michele Clark and Taína Diaz-Reyes (PhD student) about how programs such as ASU’s Earth Systems Science for the Anthropocene Graduate Scholars Network (ESSA) can help create safe spaces for researchers, especially black, Indigenous, and people of color, who have unique and incredibly important perspectives on resilience and science, to bring their whole selves to their research. | |||
| 01 Oct 2023 | Turning a new leaf: an introduction to the Resilient Futures Podcast | 00:25:13 | |
Join co-hosts Dr. Alysha Helmrich and Dr. Todd Bridges as they introduce themselves and the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, reintroduce the show, and try to define resilience! (Previously named the Future Cities podcast -- same content, new branding!) | |||
| 15 Nov 2023 | Promoting Resilience: Interdisciplinary Expertise and Collaboration | 00:40:51 | |
On interdisciplinary collaboration, promoting resilience projects and disaster management strategies with Executive Director of ASCE, Tom Smith Pathways to Resilient Communities - Pathways to Resilient Communities (1).pdf (asce.org) ASCE 73 Sustainable Infrastructure Standard - ASCE releases groundbreaking standard for sustainable infrastructure | ASCE ASCE-NOAA Workshops and Report - New ASCE-NOAA report details tangible needs, progress toward climate-resilient infrastructure | ASCE ASCE Future World Vision - Home | Future World Vision ASCE INSPIRE Conference - Home | ASCE INSPIRE 2023 ASCE 7 Supplement - New addition to the ASCE/SEI 7-22 Standard protects buildings from a 500-year flood event | ASCE ASCE Report Card - America's Infrastructure Report Card 2021 | GPA: C- ASCE Code of Ethics - Code of Ethics | ASCE G20 Policy Brief - T20_PolicyBrief_TF3_-Investments-Climate-Resilient-Infrastructure.pdf (orfonline.org) Plot Points Podcast and new ASCE Book - The infrastructure system resilience big picture starts with incremental progress | ASCE | |||
| 15 Dec 2023 | An Interconnected World: Why Biodiversity Matters in Engineering | 00:43:03 | |
Alysha and Todd are joined by Kyle McKay (USACE Research Civil Engineer) and Charles van Rees (Conservation Scientist at UGA) to discuss BIODIVERSITY- and spoiler alert, it's a lot bigger than bugs and bunnies. Resources: | |||
| 15 Feb 2024 | Equitable Engineering: Nature-based Solutions in the Global South | 00:58:58 | |
Alysha and Todd speak with Marta Berbés-Blázquez and Stephanie Cruz Maysonet from the University of Waterloo about the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in the Global South. NbS research has primarily taken place in the Global North. The group discusses how to build solutions that satisfy the ecological, economic and sociopolitical needs of the Global South. Berbés-Blázquez introduces the idea of "urban labs," spaces for communities to engage in place-based experimentation. Cruz Maysonet then speaks to practitioners Tischa Muñoz Erickson (San Juan, Puerto Rico) and Mercy Borbor-Cordova (Guayaquil and Duran, Ecuador) about their work with communities and project management. Stephanie's participation was financially supported by the Waterloo Climate Institute. Learn more here: https://uwaterloo.ca/climate-institute/ | |||
| 15 Mar 2024 | Special Guest: Rachel Jacobson on Climate Resiliency in the Army and Beyond | 00:35:11 | |
This month features a special guest. The Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, visited UGA for the Southeast Defense Communities Resilience Workshop this week. During her busy visit to Athens, she stopped by to chat with Alysha and Todd about climate resilience in the U.S. Army: on military bases, in outreach projects and construction, and overseeing climate policies. | |||
| 15 Apr 2024 | Expect the Unexpected: Resilience and Life Advice from the Late Bronze Age | 00:48:12 | |
This month, anthropologist and historian Dr. Eric Cline and USACE research social scientist Dr. Ben Trump come together with hosts Alysha and Todd to explore large-scale regional destabilization and collapse in the Late Bronze Age. | |||
| 15 May 2024 | Implementing Change: Progress on Climate Resilience in Atlanta, Georgia | 00:48:07 | |
This month, we're welcoming practitioners from Atlanta Regional Commission: Katherine Zitsch, Deputy COO, and Jon Philipsborn, Climate and Resilience Manager. | |||
| 06 Aug 2019 | Resilience to Floods and Heat in Hermosillo, Mexico | 00:48:00 | |
This month, we sit down with two PhD candidates from Arizona State University, Jason Sauer and Yuliya Dzyuban, to talk about their recent trip to Hermosillo, Mexico. We learn the difference between "enchilada" and "enchilado", how temperatures differ in new and old buses, and the unique ways in which people from Hermosillo react to flooding in their city. Despite lacking some of the resources that residents of other cities might have, locals in Hermosillo illustrate a strong capacity to react to and cope with extreme events. Yuliya and Jason wrap up the episode with haikus about their research! | |||
| 17 Jun 2024 | Urban Morphology: Buildings, Streets, and the People In Between | 00:38:17 | |
This month, our host Alysha Helmrich and her guest Lynn Abdouni are coming to you live from halfway across the world. | |||
| 21 Aug 2024 | UGA's Resilient Future: Creating Space for Nature-based Solutions | 00:35:38 | |
Introducing Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Director of the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Georgia and farmer, guitar player, and dad (not in that order.) | |||
| 16 Sep 2024 | Water in the USA: Affordable, Accessible, Clean Water for All? | 00:45:20 | |
Water is a natural resource all of us rely on, but there's a lot of thought and work that goes into being able to turn on your tap. How do we make sure water is accessible to everyone? Who does a water source belong to? And why is getting water out West so complicated? | |||
| 16 Oct 2024 | The Resilient Future of Solar Power | 00:37:07 | |
Lauren McPhillips didn't always dream of being a professor, but she knew she loved solving problems. After earning three degrees in Earth systems science and environmental engineering at Cornell University, McPhillips completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Arizona State University, where she met our host Alysha. Now, she's working on ecological and water resources engineering problems from green stormwater infrastructure to solar implementation. In her position as a researcher and assistant professor at Penn State's Institute for Energy & the Environment, she studies how best to implement solar power across ecosystems while preserving ecosystem services in proposed solar fields. Solar farms get a lot of pushback due to their potential to interrupt ecosystems, whether they're just taking up important habitat space or actually causing harm through increased erosion or stormwater runoff. But McPhillips argues that, when done carefully, solar power could be just the nature-positive energy solution we need. Lauren's Haiku: Guest Bio: https://iee.psu.edu/people/lauren-mcphillips | |||
| 15 Nov 2024 | Greening the cul-de-sac: How can we encourage nature-positive residential developments? | 00:40:28 | |
Big, leafy shade trees, burbling creeks, and access to recreation in beautiful natural areas: most people intuitively know that these kinds of natural amenities create pleasant communities, and houses located close to these kinds of resources tend to sell for more than those without. What folks often aren't thinking about is the fact that these resources have other benefits too--including filtering stormwater, sequestering carbon, and cooling neighborhoods. But how can we use policy to help encourage developers to adopt these policies from the start? And how can policy backfire in helping create equitably distributed natural resources for communities? | |||
| 18 Dec 2024 | Building Biodiverse Urban Gardens | 00:33:51 | |
How big does an urban garden need to be to support pollinators and other important insects? What kinds of plants lead to the most biodiverse space? How should homeowners manage their gardens to support the natural world? | |||
| 07 Sep 2019 | Hurricanes, and Wetlands, and Nutrients – Oh My! | 00:40:26 | |
In this month's episode we sit down with Matt Smith, a PhD candidate at Florida International University, to talk about Hurricane Dorian and some of his research comparing urban wetlands in Portland, Oregon and Valdivia, Chile. He tells us about storm surges, sea level rise, and the comprehensive Miami-Dade County Hurricane Readiness Guide. Wetlands, as it turn out, are valuable infrastructure surrounding Miami for dealing with sea level rise and mitigating the effects of hurricanes. He also found through his research that urban wetlands in Valdivia and Portland had fairly similar nutrient dynamics. Matt contends that more cities ought to explicitly consider wetlands in their resiliency plans as key infrastructure solutions capable of improving water quality, mitigating floods, and more. | |||
| 18 Feb 2025 | It's All Connected: A Framework for Intertwined Infrastructure Systems | 00:32:39 | |
This month's guest is someone close to home for our team- meet Alysha's PhD student, Negin Shamsi! Negin gives an overview of her first first-author publication, titled, "Interdependency classification: a framework for infrastructure resilience." Check out the new paper here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2634-4505/adac89/pdf Negin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/negin-shamsi-b6736b160/ | |||
| 01 Apr 2025 | Sustainable Neighborhoods: How Athens Land Trust Combines Conservation and Community | 00:46:59 | |
Emmanuel Stone was raised to love good food: his mother, a restaurant owner, inspired him to teach culinary arts, learn about agriculture, and emphasize the importance of whole foods. This led him to Athens Land Trust: an organization that simultaneously encourages conservation and community in Athens, GA where UGA is located. | |||
| 01 Oct 2019 | Air Quality and Microbes in Philadelphia | 00:46:28 | |
This month's guest, Justin Stewart (@thecrobe), studies air quality and atmospheric microbial communities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He tells us about how he got interested in microbes and about some of the challenges of studying these organisms in the air. He explains how several components of air quality (including ozone, PM2.5, and microbes) vary across the city, how they can affect human health and ecosystem function, and how those air quality might change in the face of extreme weather events and climate change. We discuss what the city has done to combat poor air quality (spoiler: not much) and whether microbes could actually play a role in helping to make the air safer for everyone to breathe. | |||
| 01 Nov 2019 | Solid Waste Buildup and Threats to Flood Resilience | 00:51:13 | |
We're not the Mob but we here at Future Cities still care a lot about waste management! Co-host Jason Sauer talks with Dr. Erin Rivers (@soilandthecity) about how solid waste, AKA trash, is potentially exacerbating flood risk in cities by clogging up green and gray drainage infrastructure. We discuss trash reduction and removal efforts in Baltimore (Mr. Trash Wheel!) and beyond, and how a reframing of who is responsible for trash has benefits far beyond our work on green infrastructure and urban resilience. Apologies for in advance for the cuts at the beginning: I (Jason Sauer) was sick when I recorded this and had to cut out a lot of noise my sinuses were creating. TMI! | |||
| 02 Dec 2019 | Digging Our Own (Climate) Graves: Understanding Barriers to Green Infrastructure Development | 00:33:23 | |
In this episode, Dr. Marissa Matsler (@oh_the_urbanity) talks with Dr. David Manuel-Navarrete about the evolutionary forces working against wider adoption of green infrastructure in cities today. They discuss his recent publication in Anthropocene titled "Intentional disruption of path-dependencies in the Anthropocene: Gray versus green water infrastructure regimes in Mexico City, Mexico", in which he uses human niche theory to analyze the feedback loops which encourage cities to continue investment in grey infrastructure at the expense of green infrastructure solutions that could help with the social and environmental challenges of climate change. Dr. Manuel-Navarrete shares more about his case study research in Mexico City and his transdisciplinary approach to science. This interview is wide-reaching touching on historic infrastructure transitions, the ways in which humans differ from termites, the need to bring the subjective and the objective together in scientific inquiry, and a hopeful message describing how we can work collaboratively to change our current destructive path dependencies. You can listen to Dr. Manuel-Navarrete discuss some of these topics in Spanish in our previous episode, Paradigmas Insostinebles en Nuestras Ciudades. | |||
| 01 Jan 2020 | Infrastructure and Climate Change | 00:35:01 | |
Climate change is a large source of uncertainty for infrastructure managers. It is easy to feel immobilized by future uncertainty, however, that does not have to be the case. In this podcast, the hosts interview a city practitioner, social scientist, and climate modeller to understand how infrastructure managers integrate climate modelling data into the decision process.
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| 20 Jan 2020 | Current Events Minisode: Infrastructure and Climate Change | 00:09:02 | |
In our first current events minisode, Tessa Martinez and Alysha Helmrich discuss the Australian wildfires and their implications on Sydney’s infrastructure. They then explore Portland’s new way of filtering their water supply before it reaches the sewers- rain gardens! | |||
| 06 Feb 2020 | Greening Phoenix Through Urban Agriculture | 00:49:05 | |
We talk with two researchers, Dr. Nazli Uludere Aragon and PhD student Michelle Stuhlmacher (@MFStuhlmacher on Twitter) about their recent publication, “Urban agriculture’s bounty: contributions to Phoenix’s sustainability goals.” The researchers explain what Phoenix’s sustainability goals currently are, how and where to develop agriculture in a desert city. We talk about how urban agriculture in Phoenix can get so-called food desert communities access to fruits and vegetables that they do not currently have, and how to balance demands for low water usage with a desire for a greener city. | |||
| 19 Feb 2020 | Current Events Minisode: Urban Agriculture | 00:18:32 | |
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and Jason Sauer discuss Arizona’s goal of getting rid of their 43 food deserts. They then talk about the local Phoenix business, Agriscaping, and how they are making a difference in Arizona’s urban agriculture! Check out these links to the learn more about the two topics discussed! https://modernfarmer.com/2019/10/phoenix-looks-to-snuff-out-food-deserts/ https://agriscaping.com/ | |||
| 04 Mar 2020 | Urban Ecology to Improve Our Cities | 00:36:20 | |
In this episode, we explore the field of urban ecology and the challenges of doing social-ecological research. Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Dr. Dan Childers, a professor at Arizona State University and director of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program. Dan emphasizes how important it is to be willing to learn the language and approaches of other disciplines on order to do better urban ecological research. But urban ecology didn’t always have an interdisciplinary approach, and the social aspects of cities were frequently ignored. Dan describes what he calls the “prepositional journey” from an ecology *in* cities to an ecology *of* cities to an ecology *for* cities. He discusses what some of the major challenges are in pursuing urban sustainability and what CAP LTER (@caplter) is doing to address those challenges in order to create more positive futures for the city of Phoenix. Learn more about CAP LTER at their website by following this link. | |||
| 19 Mar 2020 | Current Events Minisode: Urban Ecology | 00:16:56 | |
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and PhD candidate, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser), discuss the Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, and how it relates to city life. They then talk about green spaces and how they have a role in decreasing depression and improving human livelihood! Here are the links to the two topics discussed! https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/20/630615148/replacing-vacant-lots-with-green-spaces-can-ease-depression-in-urban-communities | |||
| 06 Apr 2020 | Trees to Help Cities Breathe | 00:36:51 | |
We all know that trees provide all sorts of benefits to people, right? But different trees provide different benefits and trees will only provide those benefits if we can make sure they stay healthy. In this episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Jenna Rindy (@msjerindy), a PhD student at Boston University, about her research urban tree research. She tells us about how two species of oak tree vary in how much soot they remove from the air, and why that's so important for human health. We then discuss how human-caused fragmentation of forests affects tree health, and how that in turn affects us. We wrap up with a brief conversation about some challenges that climate change brings to urban forests. | |||
| 21 Apr 2020 | Current Events Minisode: Trees to Help Cities Breathe | 00:16:46 | |
As their first topic, Tessa Martinez and Stephen Elser discuss an article on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge being opened up to oil drilling and how that can potentially affect habitats. They then talk about how planting trees can be a tool to slowing down climate change. These are the links to the two topics discussed! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions | |||
| 01 May 2020 | Resilience in the Face of COVID-19 | 00:54:05 | |
Cities are at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic, but what happens in cities once a pandemic takes hold? What systems are failing? Are cities prepared to simultaneously deal with this pandemic and extreme weather events like hurricanes and heat waves? Can we ever return to any semblance of "normal" and if not, how can we transform to create more positive futures? Today, we hear from a group of experts as they reflect on what the COVID-19 pandemics means for our public health systems, critical infrastructure, the research being done in cities, and ultimately – urban resilience. | |||
| 01 Jun 2020 | Biomimicry and Infrastructure Resilience | 00:38:13 | |
In today’s rapidly evolving climate, and amid unprecedented technological disruptions, engineers and designers seek infrastructure solutions that are resilient to both known and unknown future conditions. This podcast explores the use of biomimicry to provide examples and guidance for resilient infrastructure systems, spanning theory and practice. We evaluate opportunities for improving design, prompted through consideration of Life’s Principles. Collaborators (in order of appearance): Alysha Helmrich, Dr. Samuel Markolf, Dr. Nancy Grimm, Dr. Mikhail Chester, Dr. Cheryl Desha, and Dr. Samantha Hayes. | |||
| 01 Jul 2020 | No Such Thing as a Vacant Lot | 00:44:36 | |
Dr. Elsa Anderson stops by the show to talk with us about vacant lots and urban biodiversity, or how urban areas can provide spaces for many species of plants and animals. Dr. Anderson has worked on plant diversity in cities as diverse as Chicago, Illinois and Berlin, Germany. Her recent publications explore how different management strategies of vacant lots in cities, actions as simple as mowing or installing fences, or as complex as erecting a wall to divide two political philosophies, can impact plant communities for years to come. Find her on Twitter at @ElsaAnderson16 and Instagram @elsaa1016. | |||
| 01 Aug 2020 | The Many Names of Urban Nature | 00:46:33 | |
There are many ways to refer to nature in cities: urban green space, nature-based solutions, green infrastructure… But which name is best? Does it really even matter what names we used to describe urban nature? In this episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Dr. Dan Childers (director of @caplter) about some of the issues with various terms to describe urban nature, and a relatively new term that he prefers: urban ecological infrastructure. Then, we hear from Jason Sauer (@JasonRSauer) about a term he uses to describe his own study system: "heritage" wetlands. Learn how the words we use can change our research approaches and the perspectives that we adopt. | |||
| 12 Sep 2020 | Building Smart, Affordable Communities | 00:52:48 | |
Roughly 1.6 billion people across the world live in inadequate, unsafe, and overcrowded shelter. In this episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) interviews Alan Marcus, the Chief Digital Strategy Officer of Planet Smart City, about what his company is doing to address the global housing crisis by building smart and affordable communities across the world. For Planet Smart City, "smart" is all about thinking in terms of services and how people engage at the community level. By optimizing their use of space, they are able to create more communal areas and other amenities while keeping costs down. We also learn about their process of building trust with the communities where they build, how they incorporate knowledge about climate change, and some details about some of their new developments in Brazil. | |||
| 15 Sep 2017 | Welcome to the Future Cities Podcast! | 00:09:32 | |
The Future Cities Podcast is dedicated to exploring the ways that cities are making themselves more resilient to extreme weather events. In this episode, our hosts, Stephen Elser, Jason Sauer, and Vivian Verduzco introduce themselves and the work that they do as a part of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network. We also hear from other members of the network about topics that we'll discuss more in later episodes. | |||
| 02 Oct 2020 | Pedestrian Deaths in America | 00:44:35 | |
Pedestrian deaths in the United States have risen by 50% since 2009, with over 6,000 pedestrians dying in 2018 alone. In this month's episode, Stephen Elser (@stephen_elser) talks with our guest, Angie Schmitt (@schmangee), about her recent book addressing some of the factors that have led to this silent epidemic. She explains how marginalized groups tend to be most vulnerable to traffic violence and how systemic racism keeps these communities in dangerous situations. She tells us how design principles in our cities have totally changed over time from being pedestrian-focused to being car-focused, and what that means for pedestrian safety. They also discuss what role autonomous vehicles play in current and future conditions on our streets and how the cars we drive affect pedestrian safety. | |||
| 01 Oct 2017 | Innovation and Social Equity | 00:35:48 | |
What does social equity look like in a resilient city? In this episode, graduate students and postdocs reflect on the relationship between 'green' projects and processes of displacement and gentrification. In particular, we talk about our own roles in addressing environmental justice, as we embark in research on urban resilience to extreme weather events. If you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 Nov 2017 | Financing Urban Resilience | 00:22:01 | |
Urban resilience projects are all well and good, but how do we actually implement them? This episode focuses on the financial aspects of getting projects off the ground and different financing options for cities to consider. Joyce Coffee leads the discussion as our two guests, Shalini Vajjhala and Stacy Swann, bring their expertise from the world of finance to help shed some light.
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Shalini Vajjhala is the founder and CEO of re:focus partners, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, and a former USEPA Special Representative leading the US-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability.
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Stacy Swann is the founder and CEO of Climate Finance Advisors, the Vice-Chairperson of the Board for the Montgomery County Green Bank, and a former senior advisor on climate finance to the US Department of the Treasury.
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Joyce Coffee is the founder and president of Climate Resilience Consulting and a Senior Sustainability Fellow at the Global Institute of Sustainability.
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This episode is a highly edited version of about 1.5 hours of material from an online seminar on the topic of financing urban resilience. If you'd like to hear the full discussion and see the accompanying slides, please send us an e-mail at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com.
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And, as always, if you have any questions about what you've heard or suggestions for future episodes, please send us an e-mail or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 20 Dec 2017 | Taller de Escenarios en Hermosillo, México | 00:40:59 | |
En este episodio presentamos una de las actividades más importantes de la red de resiliencia urbana a eventos extremos (UREx). Expertos dentro de la red nos platican el concepto e importancia del taller de escenarios y también sus experiencias con las diferentes ciudades que han llevado acabo la actividad. La Dra. Tischa Muñoz nos comparte su experiencia en la ciudad de San Juan Puerto Rico, y relata la utilidad de estos talleres para los centros urbanos y las diferentes entidades de la municipalidad. También presentamos algunas experiencias en el taller de escenarios llevado a cabo en Hermosillo sonora y algunas visiones de los participantes. In this episode we talk about one of the most important activities in the Urban Resilience to Extreme Events Sustainability Research Network (UREx-SRN). Experts from the network talk about the concept and importance of scenario workshops and their experiences at these workshops across the network cities. Dr. Tischa Muñoz-Erickson shares her experience in the San Juan, Puerto Rico workshop and describes the utility of the workshop for the urban municipality and other actors involved. We also present some comments from participants of the Hermosillo scenario workshop and their perspectives for building a more resilient city | |||
| 01 Nov 2020 | Learning to Live With Water in New Orleans | 00:49:53 | |
New Orleans, Louisiana faces ecological challenges, but also social challenges in learning to adapt to climate change and to adopt new water management techniques. The existing stormwater infrastructure isn’t cutting it, but new methods have been slow to be implemented. Robert Lloyd(@RL_Grey) discusses why, then interviews Jessica Dandridge, Executive Director of the Water Collaborative, who is one of the people helping to move the Big Easy into a more sustainable and resilient future. City of New Orleans Resilience & Sustainability - https://nola.gov/resilience-sustainability/ | |||
| 01 Jan 2018 | Green Gentrification | 00:46:56 | |
Jason Sauer and Marissa Matsler talk with Nathan McClintock about green gentrification in the context of urban agriculture in Portland, Oregon. They discuss some of the forces that cause it, like racialized othering, as well as other problems that arise in discussions of valuing green spaces. | |||
| 01 Feb 2018 | Climate Risk and Resilience: Lessons from the 2017 Hurricane Season | 00:37:19 | |
The 2017 hurricane season was a record-setting year for hurricanes. Hurricane Harvey dumped more rain on Houston than ever recorded in any US city. Hurricane Irma was the longest-lasting powerful hurricane or typhoon ever recorded worldwide. Hurricane Maria is regarded as the worst natural disaster on record for Puerto Rico and was the second in a line of powerful hurricanes to hit the island in a span of just 2 weeks. Hurricane Ophelia was the strongest eastern Atlantic hurricane on record. Are hurricanes getting stronger and more frequent? Could this be attributed to climate change? Was the 2017 hurricane season evidence for a new normal of hurricane strength and frequency? What exactly do we mean by an extreme event? How should we rebuild our coastal cities to be resilient to more intense hurricanes? Listen in as UREx SRN graduate fellow Robert Hobbins interviews several researchers in the UREx SRN about their thoughts regarding each of these critical questions. | |||
| 01 Mar 2018 | Humedales como Infraestructura Verde en Valdivia, Chile | 00:46:01 | |
¿Qué es una infraestructura ‘verde’? ¿Qué la puede hacer la por mi ciudad? ¿Por qué estoy mucho más emocionado de aprender sobre infra verde que formas de infraestructura más tradicionales? Stephen Elser y Jason Sauer contestan a todas estas preguntas en este episodio y se centran en la infra verde de los humedales en la ciudad de Valdivia de Chile. Hablan con el director del consorcio local de sostenibilidad, Cristóbal Lamarca de Activa Valdivia, e investigador local de humedales, Ignacio Rodríguez del Centro de Humedales Río Cruces, sobre cómo los humedales le dan a Valdivia un carácter urbano único, aumentar la biodiversidad de la ciudad, proporcionar espacio recreativo, y son una forma de infraestructura verde que los ciudadanos luchan. … Puede obtener más información sobre Activa Valdivia en su sitio web (http://www.activavaldivia.cl) o en Twitter (@ActivaValdivia). … Puede obtener más información sobre el Centro de Humedales Río Cruces en su sitio web (http://www.cehum.org) or en Twitter (@centrohumedales). … Si tiene preguntas o sugerencias para episodios futuros, envíenos un correo electrónico a futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com o encuéntrenos en Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 Mar 2018 | Wetlands as Green Infrastructure in Valdivia, Chile | 00:35:13 | |
What is ‘green’ infrastructure? What can it do for my city? Why am I definitely way more excited to learn about it than I am more traditional forms of infrastructure? Stephen Elser and Jason Sauer answer all of these questions in this episode, and focus on green infrastructure in the form of wetlands in the city of Valdivia, Chile. They talk to local sustainability consortium leader, Cristóbal Lamarca of Activa Valdivia, and local wetlands researcher, Ignacio Rodríguez of the Centro de Humedales Río Cruces (translated: the Río Cruces Center of Wetlands), about how the wetlands imbue Valdivia a unique urban character, increase the city’s biodiversity, provide recreational space, and are a form of infrastructure that people rally around. … You can learn more about Activa Valdivia at their website (http://www.activavaldivia.cl) or on Twitter (@ActivaValdivia). … You can learn more about the Centro de Humedales Río Cruces at their website (http://www.cehum.org) or on Twitter (@centrohumedales). … If you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 Dec 2020 | Community Organizing for Wetland Conservation and the Green Commons | 00:57:22 | |
Host Jason Sauer (PhD candidate, ASU) talks with researcher Heidy Correa (Master of Science, Universidad Austral de Chile) about a grassroots community organization in Valdivia, Chile, that was instrumental in the spread of a wetland conservation ethos across the city. Counter to the work that we often highlight in this podcast, this wetland conservation effort started with a single person and spread upward to academics and politicians through the dedication and hard work of this community, rather than starting with experts or specialists at the top and moving downward. We also talk about “natural heritage,” the importance of the “green commons,” and how “commoning” can be used to articulate and make legitimate the ways in which individuals and communities value their environment and identity. | |||
| 06 Apr 2018 | Poems for Resilient and Equitable Cities | 00:42:47 | |
Local Phoenix poets including Kimberly Koerth, Jacob Friedman, Rashaad Thomas, and Anna Flores read original poetry about Resilience, Equity, and Diversity (RED) in cities as part of the UREx La RED Poetry Competition. The first half of the episode features the poems, the poets' inspirations, and what the poets hoped the audience would take away by listening to it. The second half of the episode features a discussion with several of the poets on the power of poetry as a tool for making our cities more resilient and equitable places to live. If you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 May 2018 | Defining Resilience | 00:46:33 | |
We hear the term used all over the place: in music, on TV, in books– but what IS resilience? In this episode, we discuss resilience from the Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) perspective. To understand what resilience means from this perspective, we interviewed urban resilience experts from each of these three disciplines. Dr. Nancy Grimm is a professor of ecology in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU) and a co-director of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN). Dr. Marta Berbes is a postdoctoral fellow in the UREx SRN. Dr. Dan Eisenberg received his PhD in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at ASU and he studies resilience and network science. | |||
| 01 Jan 2021 | Coastal Resilience in the Hudson Valley | 00:44:44 | |
The Hudson River flows from the alpine peaks of New York State’s Adirondack Mountains to the harbor of New York City. Its tidal valley includes diverse suburban communities and post-industrial cities that will face new challenges from sea level rise and amplified storms as climate changes over the next few decades. In this episode, George Scott interviews Dr. Klaus H. Jacob, an expert in disaster risk at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (@LamontEarth), Ryan Palmer, the Director of the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak (@slccurb/@sarahlawrence), and Jessica Kuonen, the Hudson Estuary Resilience Specialist at New York Sea Grant (@nyseagrant) to learn more about how these communities are planning to enhance their resilience to climate-related coastal threats. | |||
| 01 Jun 2018 | Eventos Extremos | 00:25:09 | |
¿Que son los eventos climáticos extremos?, el Dr. Agustín Robles, líder académico de la ciudad de Hermosillo en la Red de Resiliencia Urbana a Eventos Extremos (UREx) nos explica que son estos y por que es importante estudiarlos. También en este episodio la Dra. Olga Barbosa nos explica que tipo de acciones y proyectos se llevan acabo en la red y como es que esta contribuye a mejorar nuestras ciudades. Pon mucha atención tal vez tu recuerdes tu experiencia durante un evento extremo como lo hace una profesionista de Ciudad Obregón Sonora. … Si tiene preguntas o sugerencias para episodios futuros, envíenos un correo electrónico a futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com o encuéntrenos en Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 20 Jun 2018 | Paradigmas Insostenibles en Nuestras Ciudades | 00:23:58 | |
¿Te has preguntado si la ciudad en la que vives es realmente sustentable?, ¿Que tipo de paradigmas amenazan la resiliencia de nuestras ciudades a condiciones futuras?, ¿Podremos seguir aplicando las mismas filosofías de crecimiento y desarrollo en nuestras ciudades? En este programa el Profesor David Manuel Navarrete nos comenta sobre algunos puntos de reflexión acerca de la conceptualización de nuestras ciudades y viejos paradigmas ponen en riesgo elementos esenciales de una buena calidad de vida en ciudades y prevalencia de su equilibrio ante eventos extremos de clima. Nuevas maneras de pensar son necesarias para afrontar retos en nuestras ciudades. … Si tiene preguntas o sugerencias para episodios futuros, envíenos un correo electrónico a futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com o encuéntrenos en Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 Jul 2018 | Green Stormwater Management in Three U.S. Cities | 00:41:11 | |
In this episode, Stephen Elser sits down with Drs. Lauren McPhillips and Marissa Matsler to talk about their recent paper published in Frontiers in Built Environment entitled "Temporal Evolution of Green Stormwater Infrastructure Strategies in Three US Cities." We discuss the history of stormwater management in the U.S. and the rise of "green stormwater infrastructure" as a popular solution in cities across the country. The three cities compared here (Baltimore, Phoenix, and Portland) are vastly different from each other in terms of their history, culture, climate, and many other factors, which has led to unique patterns in their implementation of green stormwater infrastructure. Understanding these patterns of implementation allows us to better understand the suite of benefits that these features provide. We also hear haiku summaries of the paper! If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. | |||
| 01 Feb 2021 | Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd | 00:42:39 | |
Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd (Instagram @marsh4fsu, Twitter @DrShepherd2013) is a distinguished meteorologist, professor, writer, podcaster… and that only begins to share all his accomplishments! Here he chats with Robert Lloyd about science communication, the intersections of climate and social equity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. | |||
| 08 Feb 2021 | Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Prentiss Dantzler | 00:38:07 | |
Dr. Prentiss Dantzler (Twitter @DocDantzler) is an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University's Urban Studies Institute. His research focuses on the intersection of housing policy, urban poverty, race and ethnic relations, and community development. In this episode, Robert Lloyd speaks with Dr. Dantzler about urban equity questions, representation, and the challenges of researching and teaching during a long-running global pandemic. They also discuss being new in Atlanta, a city that defines economy and politics for its region. | |||
| 15 Feb 2021 | Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Marccus Hendricks | 00:48:01 | |
Dr. Marccus Hendricks is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning in the School | |||
| 04 Sep 2018 | Flash Flooding in Baltimore | 00:36:24 | |
UREx post-docs Bernice Rosenzweig and Marissa Matsler report from on-the-ground in Baltimore. Looking to learn more about how the Memorial Day Weekend extreme rain event affected he city, they interviewed Pastor Michael S. Martin of the Stillmeadow Evangelical Free Church, an emergency response hub in a community that was severely flooded. Hear about the emergency response and continuing concerns of those living the aftermath and remediation of the Memorial Day Weekend flood, along with discussion of overlaps with UREx research. See footage of the flood here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3RZ4vK-mi0 and learn more about Team Rubicon, a veterans group that plays a critical role in the response to extreme events, here: https://teamrubiconusa.org/. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at www.sustainability.asu.edu/urbanresilience. | |||
| 22 Feb 2021 | Black History Month Spotlight - Dr. Lelani Mannetti | 00:42:55 | |
Dr. Lelani Mannetti (Twitter @LelaniM) is a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia State University's Urban Studies Institute. Her research focuses on the analysis of social-ecological systems, particularly surrounding adaptive co-governance of complex systems. In this episode, Dr. Yeowon Kim (Twitter @Yeowon__Kim) talks with her about how she became interested in integrating social, ecological, and technological dimensions for urban resilience study and how her work and academic training in South Africa has affected her becoming an interdisciplinary scholar studying urban systems. Furthermore, she features how the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network’s scenarios team has been adapting their approaches to participatory scenarios development processes during the COVID pandemic, and how she envisions Atlanta’s urban future as a connected and greener city integrating diverse voices of people in the city. Learn more about Dr. Mannetti and her research here: https://urbaninstitute.gsu.edu/profile/lelani-mannetti/ | |||
| 01 Mar 2021 | Corals Combating Climate Change | 00:37:13 | |
Climate change has contributed to the severity of tropical storms, causing unprecedented coastal erosion and record rates of flooding. Countries around the world are searching for ways to prevent tropical storms from decimating their coastal infrastructure, and the University of Miami has found a tropical solution: coral reefs. Coral reefs can reduce wave energy by up to 97%. However, corals have also suffered from climate change, and are threatened by extinction. Cassie Sturman (@CassieSturman) interviews Diego Lirman and Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos from the University of Miami’s coral reef restoration team who empathize the importance of rescuing coral reefs from climate change. | |||
| 15 Mar 2021 | Infrastructure as Knowledge Enterprises | 01:12:01 | |
People often think of infrastructure as merely physical assets, but they are the outcome of cultural preferences and how we generate knowledge. In this episode, Professor Mikhail Chester (@mikhailchester) of Arizona State University interviews Professor Thaddeus Miller (@Thad_Miller) of University of Massachusetts Amherst about infrastructure governance, the knowledge systems embedded in organizations and governance networks, and the values or assumptions built into those systems. We also hear about complexity and future problems, as well as the importance of transdisciplinary knowledge co-generation to solve problems in the Anthropocene. | |||
| 01 Oct 2018 | Resilience in Infrastructure | 00:38:27 | |
In this episode, UREx postdoctoral researcher, Sam Markolf, interviews Dr. Dan Eisenberg about resilience from an engineering perspective. When is being more robust the solution? When is flexibility preferred? Dan shares stories to illustrate when it may be advantageous to abandon standards of practice, how to deal with different types of surprises, and the differences between robust design and extensible design. They discuss the importance of designing infrastructure with human-technological interactions in mind. | |||
| 01 Apr 2021 | Complexity Leadership | 01:26:41 | |
It's widely recognized that infrastructure are central to societal goals, that changes to infrastructure and how we use them can have profound impacts on people and economies. It's critical to recognize that infrastructure are the hammer at the end of the arm, and the arm is governance. In the second episode of the Infrastructure of the Anthropocene series, Professor Mikhail Chester (@mikhailchester) of Arizona State University interviews Professor Mary Uhl-Bien (@MaryUhlBien) of Texas Christian University about how infrastructure is governed and why, and particularly about what she has learned about leadership in complexity. The conversation explores complexity leadership theory, the differences between the leadership models used to govern now and those relevant to an age of uncertainty, and the critical role the threat of failure plays in driving adaptation. See the whole Infrastructure and the Anthropocene playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvz_faOzavaSD40LmDr4RknZZxWAVqwGp Infrastructure Misfits (un)Society: http://www.infrastructurecomplexity.org/ Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering | Arizona State University: https://metis.asu.edu/ Convergence Resilience Research Project | http://convergence.urexsrn.net/ –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes, e-mail us at futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @FutureCitiesPod. Learn more about the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN) at urexsrn.net. | |||
| 15 Apr 2021 | Value-focused Thinking | 01:18:33 | |
When asked what infrastructure are supposed to do, responses of course vary dramatically from the mundane (for example, provide water and power) to the abstract (for example, facilitate improved well-being through the delivery of basic services). Of course, both are right on some level. But what is often lost is the perspective of the values that we use to design and operate infrastructure systems. In the third and final episode of the Infrastructure of the Anthropocene series, Professor Mikhail Chester (@mikhailchester) of Arizona State University interviews Professor Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy (@AdjoKennedy) of Georgia Tech about the need for value-focused thinking to guide how we think about restructuring infrastructure to ensure that infrastructure meets the needs of future populations in increasingly complex environments. Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy at Georgia Tech – Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS) Infrastructure Misfits (un)Society | http://www.infrastructurecomplexity.org/ Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering | Arizona State University | https://metis.asu.edu/ Convergence Resilience Research Project | http://convergence.urexsrn.net/ | |||
| 01 May 2021 | Scenario Production for Resilient Urban Futures | 00:51:08 | |
Doctors Elizabeth Cook, David Iwaniec, Lelani Mannetti, and Tischa Muñoz-Erickson join Robert Lloyd to talk about the production of scenarios for future city transformations. Scenarios provide potential goals for practitioners in city government and other actors to work towards in efforts to ensure greater sustainability, resilience, and equity. Co-production of knowledge, limits of future visions, and the challenges to realizing scenarios are among the topics discussed. David Iwaniec (@SustFutures): Lelani Mannetti (@LelaniM) | |||
| 03 Nov 2018 | Resilience for Undocumented Community Members | 00:37:46 | |
The proposed addition to the US census of a question regarding the legal status of census respondents poses a major problem for both vulnerability researchers and the vulnerable undocumented immigrant community. Vulnerability scholar and PhD student, Jason Sauer, discusses how the change to the census may interfere with efforts to identify vulnerable communities, and may stymie efforts to make these undocumented communities more resilient to extreme weather events and climate change. He also interviews Masavi Parea of Chispa, an organization advocating for resilience and environmental justice in Phoenix, about his own history as a formerly undocumented immigrant, the ways the undocumented community and Latinos are systematically made vulnerable, and what organizations like Chispa are doing to increase community resilience. | |||
| 15 May 2021 | Scenario Analysis for Resilient Urban Futures | 00:52:55 | |
Doctors Marta Berbes, Nancy Grimm, Robert Hobbins, and Timon McPhearson join Robert Lloyd to talk about how scenarios of future city transformations are analyzed and turned into products that can be understood and used by city practitioners, and the general public, as well as other researchers. Scenarios provide potential goals for practitioners in city government and other actors to work towards in efforts to ensure greater sustainability, resilience, and equity. A new book, the result of collaboration among many of the researchers who participated in this episode and the previous one, is also discussed. Urban Systems Lab Data Visualization Platform: http://urex.urbansystemslab.com/
Marta Berbes (@MartaBerbes): Nancy Grimm (@DrNitrogen): Robert Hobbins (@RobertHobbins): Timon McPhearson (@timonmcphearson):
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| 01 Jun 2021 | COVID Implications for Work and Mobility | 00:45:52 | |
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended so many aspects of our lives – from the ways we socialize, the ways and places where we spend our free time, and the ways in which we work. Which, if any, of these changes will persist once the pandemic is behind us? This month, our guests are Dr. Laura Schewel (CEO of StreetLight Data) and Dr. Carlo Ratti (Director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT). We discuss whether work-from-home momentum will persist after the pandemic, the 15-minute city, equitable transportation and mobility, and more. Our guests also share insights on interdisciplinary collaboration and their visions and hopes for cities in the year 2080.
Learn more about Dr. Ratti's work at his website (www.carloratti.com) and connect on social media:
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| 01 Dec 2018 | Safe to Fail Adaptation | 00:36:00 | |
In this episode, Dr. Yeowon Kim explains the difference between “fail-safe” and “safe-to-fail” infrastructure and how shifting towards this new “safe-to-fail" design paradigm could help cities prepare for extreme events like floods. Risks and uncertainty associated with climate change in the future make predicting infrastructure failures very difficult, so designing and implementing infrastructure to be more flexible in the face of uncertainty is highly important to deal with a wide variety of circumstances. Dr. Kim also talks about the “infrastructure trolley problem” and gives us a brief lesson on Korean poetry! If you have questions about Dr. Kim’s research, you can e-mail her at Yeowon.Kim@asu.edu. | |||
| 01 Jul 2021 | Cities of Light | 01:00:13 | |
Marissa Matsler and Robert Lloyd explore another dimension of the series title, as they chat with the authors and editors of “Cities of Light” - a new book of science fiction stories focused on solar-powered cities of the future! Guests Joey Eschrich, Clark Miller, Deji Olukotun, and Lauren Withycombe Keeler talk about the creation of the book, the ideas behind it, and how science fiction can help prepare us for the possibilities - and the demands - of future cities. https://csi.asu.edu/books/cities-of-light/ Learn more about this episode's guests and find links to their Twitter accounts below. Joey Eschrich: Clark Miller (@clarkamiller): Deji Olukotun (@olutron): Lauren Withycombe Keeler (@femmefutura): | |||
| 01 Aug 2021 | Green Infrastructure: Diversity in Perspectives and Applications | 00:45:39 | |
Description: Alysha Helmrich and Maike Hamann host a discussion on the various perspectives surrounding green infrastructure (GI) with Vinicius Taguchi, Stephen Elser, Clair Cooper, and Zbigniew Grabowski, exploring insights from engineering, public health, ecology, and more! This podcast was inspired by an UREx SRN early career symposium--Get Ready, Get SETS: GI! (Website pending publication in August 2021.) Below are links to references mentioned throughout the episode. Selection of Previous Future Cities GI Episodes:
CREATE Initiative: Green Gentrification Policy Toolkit Follow us on Twitter! @zjgrabowski | |||
| 01 Sep 2021 | Nature-Based Solutions and You | 00:35:36 | |
Green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NBS) are relatively new concepts in expert circles, at least by those terms. In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Cook and Clair Cooper join first-time host Charlyn Green to discuss what green infrastructure and nature-based solutions mean for non-experts. Topics of discussion include examples of GI and NBS at scales ranging from household to city, the benefits of having access to private green space, and factors involved in work to advance the uptake of nature-based solutions in cities. Follow this month's host and guests on Twitter! Elizabeth Cook: @e_m_cook
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| 01 Oct 2021 | Defining Resilience (Rebroadcast) | 00:50:43 | |
We hear the term used all over the place: in music, on TV, in books– but what IS resilience? In this episode, we discuss resilience from the Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) perspective. To understand what resilience means from this perspective, we interviewed urban resilience experts from each of these three disciplines. Dr. Nancy Grimm is a professor of ecology in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU) and a co-director of the Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network (UREx SRN). Dr. Marta Berbes is a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at ASU, but is transitioning the University of Waterloo where she'll work on their Future Cities Initiative. Dr. Dan Eisenberg is a Research Assistant Professor of Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School. | |||
| 01 Feb 2019 | Heat and Thermal Comfort | 00:26:18 | |
This month, Stephen Elser interviews UREx SRN fellow and ASU School of Sustainability PhD student, Yuliya Dzyuban, about her research involving extreme heat and the ways that people perceive and cope with that heat. They discuss the different aspects that affect one's thermal comfort, Ukrainian bus stops, and how there's a lot we can do to improve urban design in Phoenix. Yuliya shares her research illustrating that integrating artistic elements into bus stops can actually make people feel cooler than they would in a bus stop with no such elements. Finally, Yuliya becomes a poet and shares with us a beautiful haiku describing her research. | |||
| 01 Nov 2021 | Every Tree Tells a Story | 00:37:47 | |
Clair Cooper, PhD Candidate at Durham University, is joined by Gillian Dick, Strategic Planning Manager with Glasgow City Council, and Donagh Horgan from the Institute of Social Innovation at the University of Strathclyde to talk about Every Tree Tells a Story. Every Tree Tells a Story is an innovative new nature-based solution that aims to help communities reconnect with urban nature, particularly urban trees, and understand what are nature-based solutions by sharing and mapping their favourite stories about trees. Gillian and Donagh talk about their inspiration for the project, how it relates to the concept of nature-based solutions, and explain our deep connection with trees. Gillian and Donagh then talk about why it's so important that we educate people about the role of trees in the fight against climate change and how they plan to help people reconnect with trees through community participation and mapping of stories about our favourite trees. | |||
| 01 Dec 2021 | Climate Gentrification in Coastal Cities | 01:30:15 | |
In this episode, a diverse team of graduate students discuss their research on climate gentrification in the Eastern coast of the United States and their personal stories about why they are inspired to study this topic. They share perspectives on the importance of interdisciplinary science in their own professional development and the value of an interdisciplinary approach to tackling wicked problems like climate change gentrification. The team also reflects on the importance of team science with peers in building confidence and establishing an essential network of support as early career researchers. | |||
| 16 Dec 2021 | The Hidden Environmental Histories of the River Clyde | 00:57:52 | |
This week we bring you another podcast from the city of Glasgow focusing on the Hidden Environmental Histories of the River Clyde. At the height of the British Empire, Glasgow was the hub of the Scottish and European Enlightenment with a vast manufacturing and ship building industry which profoundly shaped the river and the surrounding communities. We're joined by Ria Dunkley, University of Glasgow and Gillian Dick, Glasgow City Council to tell us all about a new partnership that has been set up between artists, academics, local government, museums and community groups to explore and expose how the rise of empire and industrialisation shaped the River Clyde and its surrounding urban and natural environment. Singer song writer, Ainsley Hamill and poet, Eilidh Northridge also perform artistic contributions that were inspired by the project.
You can learn more about Ainsley Hamill at her website (www.ainsleyhamill.com), and buy a physical CD with notes and lyrics at her store. Her music is available on all streaming platforms, such as Spotify. | |||
| 02 Mar 2019 | Adapting Phoenix to Extreme Heat | 00:43:02 | |
Extreme heat and how to cope with it are two major areas of interest in cities like Phoenix, Arizona. Recently, Maricopa County (where Phoenix is) partnered with a group of researchers at ASU to develop new technologies and solutions that are deployable in local communities to help reduce urban heat and improve air quality. This partnership illustrates that extreme heat and its adverse impacts on human health are highly important not only to researchers, but also to those responsible for implementing adaptation strategies. This month, Dr. Yeowon Kim interviews Mark Hartman, the Chief Sustainability Officer at City of Phoenix, Melissa Guardaro, a graduate fellow of UREx SRN, and Charles (Chuck) Redman, the founding director of School of Sustainability at Arizona State University and project director of UREx SRN, about their collaborative efforts on mitigating and adapting to adverse impacts of extreme heat in the metro urban area of Phoenix, Arizona. | |||
| 01 Feb 2022 | Climate Gentrification and Miami | 00:52:30 | |
In this month's episode, we talk with Nkosi Muse (@weatherkos), a scientific advisor on climate change adaptation to the city of Miami and Ph. D. student at the University of Miami, about climate change and gentrification processes in Miami. We delve into the phenomenon of "climate gentrification," a form of gentrification that proceeds by the wealthy buying properties in marginalized communities in Miami because of their higher elevation and longer-term resilience to climate change. We also touch on another form of gentrification, "downward raiding," identified elsewhere in the world that probably also exists in the US. Finally, as potential inspiration to other academics working in urban resilience, we talk about how Nkosi obtained his dual-status as academic researcher and scientific advisor. | |||