What is The Future for Cities? (Fanni Melles)

Are you interested in the changing governmental roles in urban transformations?

Summary of the article titled Rethinking the governance of urban infrastructural transformations: a synthesis of emerging approaches from 2022 by Jochen Monstadt, Jonas Colen Ladeia Torrens, Mansi Jain, Rachel M Macrorie, and Shaun R Smith, published in the Environmental Sustainability journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Erick A. Brimen in episode 294 talking about a new form of governance from their experiments.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how governance changes in our ever-changing world answering current and future challenges. This article synthesizes emerging approaches to the governance of transformative infrastructural change, revealing their underlying logics and potential contributions.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Recent urban debates on the governance of sustainability transformations have witnessed an 'infrastructural turn'. Previously blacked-boxed, the role of infrastructures in sustainability transformations has been foregrounded by both growing academic scholarship and major investments in new infrastructural programs. How these changes are, and could be, governed remains somewhat opaque however, with traditional forms of knowledge and practices in need of urgent revision. To nuance public and academic debates, this paper synthesizes emerging approaches to the governance of transformative infrastructural change, revealing their underlying logics and potential contributions. These include appraisal of; alternative infrastructural pathways via ‘futuring’, their enactment via experimentation processes, supported by cross-domain coordination and new assessment methods. Such approaches may open new directions toward urban sustainability but also surface tensions and contradictions inherent to the governance of infrastructures.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠th⁠i⁠s link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"Smartness is dependent on the performance of the city."

Are you interested in resilience as thinking in activities? What do you think about the city as the place of innovation? How can we the sustainability pillars – economic, environmental and social aspects in a concentric way?

Interview with Professor Rudolf Giffinger, urban and regional development expert. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, smart cities, resilience, sustainability, thinking in activities, and many more.

Professor Dr. Rudolf Giffinger is a renowned expert in urban and regional development. With a background in Geography from the University of Vienna and further specialization in Regional Science and Urban Studies, Rudolf has extensively contributed to the study of urban decay, smart city development, and housing market dynamics. His work, emphasizing sustainable and resilient urban planning through ICT, has been published in numerous books and journals, establishing him as a leading figure in his field. He has held prestigious roles, including the head of the Centre for Urban and Regional Research at the Vienna University of Technology, and garnered international recognition with his publications on smart city and resilient urban development. Despite retirement, his influence continues through teaching and ongoing scholarly contributions.

Find out more about Rudolf through these links:

• Rudolf Giffinger on LinkedIn;
• Rudolf Giffinger on Google Scholar;
• Rudolf Giffinger at the Vienna University of Technology;
• Rudolf Giffinger at the European Smart Cities;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.001 - Smart Cities – Ranking of European medium-sized cities;
• No.090 - Interview with Matthew McCartney about urban externalities;
• No.156 - Interview with Fanni Melles about urban differences;
• No.207R - Defining indicator systems for liveable cities;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Interview with Kieran Leong, an architect and principal at the Melbourne office of DesignInc company. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, their special approach to the design projects, biophilic design, and many more. 

Kieran Leong is a design architect with over 15 years’ experience on a broad range of project typologies. Passionate and curious about learning and innovation; he explores biophilic design approaches to architecture. Clients and colleagues appreciate his interactive working style and thorough and logical methods of investigation. Starting with feasibility studies and concept design, Kieran is engaged at every project phase including documentation and project administration. His portfolio spans health and wellbeing, residential and education facilities. He aims to create environments that encourage positive human experiences, interaction and connection. He involves his clients, stakeholders and design teams in not merely meeting the brief; but exceeding its expectations.

You can find out more about Kieran Leong and DesignInc through these links:

• Kieran Leong on LinkedIn;
• DesignInc website;
• Kieran Leong on DesignInc website;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in how cities and entrepreneurship are connected?

Summary of the article titled Entrepreneurship in cities from 2021 by Sam Tavassoli, Martin Oschonka, and David B. Audretsch, published in the Research Policy journal.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how cities influence entrepreneurship and vice versa. This article presents which are the best performing cities in terms of knowledge spillovers and economic performance.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The extent of density and diversity matters greatly in shaping economic vitality – meaning quality entrepreneurship.
2. It is not just firms and industries that matter for knowledge spillovers, but ultimately the people who differ from one another not just in terms of human capital but in their personalities too, which is a key ingredient driving knowledge spillovers.
3. What may really matter is how people in cities unlock their agentic tendencies to help turn a favourable city environment into economic outputs.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Impactful, growth-oriented entrepreneurship is a major research and policy focus. Building on arguments put forward by Jane Jacobs more than 50 years ago, we propose that local knowledge spillovers in a city are enhanced by human agency in that city (e.g. local psychological openness). This effect is critically amplified by the catalyst function of a favorable structural city environment that not only connects these agentic people (via urban density), but also facilitates the production and flow of new knowledge for these connected agentic people (via a diverse industry mix). This three-way interaction effect was confirmed in our empirical investigation of quality entrepreneurship across the MSAs (cities) in the US, using a large-scale dataset of the psychological profiles of millions of people. Local openness shows a robust positive effect on the level of quality entrepreneurship. This effect is further strengthened by a favorable structural city environment (i.e. high density and diversity) by up to 35%. Reviving Jacobs’ people focus, the results indicate that the best performing cities in terms of knowledge spillovers and economic performance are those that are not only home to, and attract, agentic people, but also empower these people by means of a physical and industrial city landscape that enables them to act in more innovative and entrepreneurial ways, as envisioned by Jacobs. We discuss the policy implications of our findings and an agenda for future research.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.090 - Interview with Professor Matthew McCartney about economic sides of cities;
• No.108 - Interview with Dr Anthony Kent about economic geography;
• No.129 - Interview with Alan Donegan about entrepreneurship and city connections;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"Building with climate sensitive design is what needs to happen in cities."

Are you interested in urban resilience and climate adaptation? What do you think about ‘sustainability is dead’? How can integrating urban infrastructure to the built environment help us with climate change?

Interview with Joe Glesta, the co-founder and CEO of Climasens. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, parasitic and symbiotic cities, New York compared to other places, resilience, and many more.

Joe Glesta is aspiring to build climate resilience in our world through technological innovation. Joe is a passionate sustainability and technology professional with a diverse array of skills focused on digital innovation, service design, stakeholder engagement and business strategy. Over the past decade, he has worked in a multitude of positions that have allowed him to hone his skills, developing and delivering innovative products, projects, policy and business outcomes. He has advanced knowledge of digital technologies and emerging innovative trends and is deeply immersed in the nexus of Industry/Government/ Startup engagement.

Find out more about Joe through these links:

• Joe Glesta on LinkedIn
• as Joe Glesta on X
• Climasens website
• Climasens on LinkedIn
• Climasens on X
• Aussie climate startup fires up with $8m from Google - article about Climasense at Forbes
• Climasens at the Melbourne Accelerator Program
• Startup Founder Deep Dive: Climasens - conversation with Joe at the Melbourne Accelerator Program
• How Sensing Forms the Foundation of Smart and Resilient Cities with Joe Glesta of Senscity - interview with Joe Glesta on the Internet of Nature podcast

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.190 - Interview with Adrian McGregor about cities being part of nature
• No.243R - Integrative approaches to urban resilience
• No.288 - Interview with Dan Hill also talking about Jane Jacobs

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"Urban living is very dense, that lands it being more resource efficient."

Are you interested in housing affordability projects? What do you think about successful cities? How can we make the 2nd and 3rd order consequences as part of policy-making?

Interview with Jen Borrero, a Colombian-Mexican Impact Entrepreneur and Community Developer. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, housing affordability, youth engagement, success for cities, policy making, and many more.

Jennifer Borrero is an award-winning, first-generation, Latina entrepreneur. Her work as a United Nations Ambassador has allowed her to lead projects around the world; from opening a public health clinic in Nicaragua to developing affordable housing communities in the US. She has run programs in the private and public sectors that focus on creating social change. Jennifer has been recognized as an emerging Hispanic Executive receiving the “30 Under 30” award for her work as the founder of Youth Housing Coalition, an organization that aims to empower young people to solve some of the country’s most pressing problems. Her work has been featured on multiple TEDx stages. She is currently a Global Goals Ambassador for the United Nations Association. Her work sits at the intersection of Sustainability and Social Justice. Jennifer’s ultimate goal is to highlight innovative solutions to global problems while building community across cultures.

Find out more about Jen through these links:

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sho⁠w⁠notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in the difference between fairness and equity? What do you think about experimenting instead of trial and error? How can we use water more wisely?

Interview with Jennifer George, commercialisation expert and strategic thinker. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, empathy, trial and error being so last century, equity and many more.

Jennifer George is an experienced business leader/founder with more than 20 years’ experience building new companies and products by connecting multi-stakeholder relationships in renewables, engineering, and ICT technologies. Jennifer has broad sector knowledge and an extensive network of relationships in industry, academia, government, and non-government entities throughout Australia and across the world. Jennifer specialises in big picture, design thinking and offers proven leadership in orchestrating multi-million-dollar strategies and building relationships to create new commercially viable opportunities across fields. Jennifer’s pragmatic perspective is underpinned by an extremely broad range of practical, technical and financial skills across a variety of sustainable technologies that enable her to identify, position and implement complex into sustainable business solutions.

Find out more about Jennifer through these links:

• ⁠Jennifer George⁠ on LinkedIn;
• ⁠Jennifer George⁠ at Nakoudu;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• ⁠No.102R⁠ - What we owe the future (book summary);
• ⁠No.120 - Interview with Matt Ferrell⁠ about renewables;
• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in a brighter future for our cities and humanity?

Summary of the book titled Brighter: Optimism, progress, and the future of environmentalism from 2022 by Adam Dorr, based on my reading experience and other summaries, linked in the shownotes.

Great preparation for our interview with Adam Dorr in episode 222, and just a refreshing outlook on the future.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see a brighter approach among the doom-and-gloom based on science and research. This book describes how human evolution and progress wipe out older, dirtier technologies, foster unprecedented prosperity, and open the door to mitigating environmental impacts.

I hope this gives you some food for thought this time of the year or anytime and how to move forward.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The book emphasizes the potential of emerging technologies in energy, transportation, food, and labour to solve environmental issues while promoting economic growth.
2. Dorr highlights that the shift towards sustainable, cleaner technologies is primarily driven by their economic advantages, not just ecological benefits.
3. "Brighter" presents a new vision of environmentalism that integrates technological innovation and economic development as a path to a sustainable future.

You can find the book through this link.

Summaries used in this episode:

• RethinkX Disruption series with Adam Dorr;
• New Book 'Brighter' explores the future of environmentalism amidst the great technological transformation in over a century on PRNewsWire;
• Brighter on Goodreads;

Connecting links you might be interested in:

• No.177 - Interview with Amelia Gaskill about the passion of the younger generation;
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about a brighter future

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Interview with Professor Hussein Dia, the Chair of Civil Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, future urban mobility, city states, and many more. 

Hussein Dia is a professor of Future Urban Mobility in the School of Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology, currently serving as the Chair of the Department of Civil and Construction Engineering and the Program Leader of the Smart Cities Research Institute's Future Urban Mobility research program at Swinburne. He works alongside highly dedicated academic teams and internal & external stakeholders while facilitating interdisciplinary research and actively engaging with external organisations to identify issues and needs that the Institute can address through its thematic research programs. Hussein is a Chartered Professional Engineer, Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of Engineers Australia, and Fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. His research interests are in the convergence of technology, infrastructure and human elements in urban environments. Hussein’s current work is focused on disruptive mobility and harnessing digital innovations to unlock potential opportunities for low carbon mobility. His current research includes investigations of how autonomous vehicles, Blockchain, Internet of Things and the sharing economy are set to transform mobility in the world's cities.

You can find out more about Hussein through these links:

• Hussein Dia on LinkedIn,
• @HusseinDia as Hussein Dia on Twitter,
• Hussein Dia at Swinburne University of Technology,
• Future Urban Mobility led by Hussein Dia at the Smart Cities Research Institute,
• Hussein Dia’s Masterclass on Future Urban Mobility,
• Hussein Dia on the Conversation,
• Hussein Dia on YouTube,

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay 

"I don't think we can keep balancing things out, we have to try actually being better."

Are you interested in how the HVAC industry is contributing to climate change? What do you think about carbon offsetting? How can we create the right balanced circular economy?

Interview with Sam Ringwaldt, the CEO and co-founder of Conry Tech. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, public transport as technology, the shifting collective mind, localised living, and many more.

Sam Ringwaldt is a HVAC industry expert who has been a global champion for energy efficiency and sustainability in the built environment for over 20 years. Sam helped develop and brought to market world leading technologies such as the Turbocor compressor and Smardt chillers, which revolutionised the industry and delivered unparalleled energy and emissions savings. Frustrated by the constraints of current HVAC systems, Sam is now reinventing air-conditioning as the CEO & Co-founder of Conry Tech to make comfort sustainable, as comfort is currently responsible for 15% of Global energy related emissions.

Find out more about Sam through these links:

• Sam Ringwaldt on LinkedIn;
• as Sam Ringwaldt on X;
• Conry Tech website;
• Sam Ringwaldt at Conry Tech;
• Conry Tech on LinkedIn;
• Sam Ringwaldt at Research Commercialisation Global Town Hall;
• Sam Ringwaldt on the Products with Purpose podcast;
• Sam Ringwaldt about coming back to Australia at Forbes;
• Sam Ringwaldt about funds in Australia at GovTechReview;
• Sam Ringwaldt on SBS News about Global Cooling Pledge;
• Sam Ringwaldt on Ecogeneration;
• Sam Ringwaldt on Electrical Comms Data;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;
• No.196 - Interview with Alan Pears about emissions;
• No.201R - Wreaking HVAC on our planet;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay

Today would be a research episode, but since it is 2023 Christmas time, I want to just wish you all relaxing holidays with or without celebrating Christmas, Merry Christmas if you do celebrate it, and a very Happy New Year!

We will have many interesting topics to discover and further discuss in 2024. I am already preparing those episodes and I am very excited about what will come!

First, this episode will be followed by a cherished interview with my partner, Ben Vass, data magician, graph shaman and overall space enthusiast.

Then in 2024 we will have guests from all over the world and many areas like

• policy,
• energy,
• advocacy,
• neurodiversity,
• research,
• space,
• weather,
• food production,
• circularity,
• and even more!!!

I have had so many great conversations that we will also ramp up the frequency of the interviews: from now, each Tuesday will bring a research episode, and each Thursday a new interview.

Plus, I am also working on some projects for the podcast, like a WTFGPT to ask questions about the previous episodes, or gaming space cities!!!

If you need some food for thought until then, check out the last research episode, No.178 about a brighter future and clean technology disruptions.

I hope you are well and also full with plans for the new year, see you then and thanks for tuning in.

Find the shownotes through this link.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in the citizen engagement in urban areas and its effects? What do you think about the need for updating our educational systems? How can professionals check their egos?

Interview with Noel Tighe, architect and associate director at Denton Corker Marshall. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, the citizen’s role, educational reforms, giving back to the environment, and many more.

Noel Tighe is an Associate Director at Denton Corker Marshall. Registered in the United Kingdom he is a member of both the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Australian Institute of Architects. In career spanning 30+ years, he has undertaken leading roles on multi-award-winning projects in the commercial, education and civic sectors, in Australia, Europe and Southeast Asia. Noel is a Green Star Accredited Professional and has brought this knowledge to lead projects with award winning sustainable credentials including:

• Manchester Civil Justice Centre in the UK
• Asia Square in Singapore
• Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney

He has extensive experience in the restoration and adaptive reuse of heritage buildings on projects such as:

• Hampton Court Palace in the UK
• Abbotsford Convent in Collingwood, Melbourne
• New exhibition galleries at the Heritage Listed Australian War Memorial in Canberra

Noel has demonstrated a commitment to informing and empowering communities to the development of their local environment. This experience was instrumental for the successful campaign to preserve Melbourne's Abbotsford Convent for community use and later works to convert the estate into one of Australia's leading arts precincts.

You can find out more about Noel in the shownotes.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.015I - Interview with Luke Housego about Mortal Engines :D ;
• No.031R - City attachment and use of urban services;
• No.069I - Interview with Dr Éva Kereszty about needed educational reforms;
• No.078I - Interview with Ammon Beyerle about uncomfortable but needed and robust conversations;
• No.086R - Advancing landscape sustainability science;
• No.087I - Interview with Paul Brookbanks about the connection to the environment;
• No.093I - Interview with Jeni Paay about research raising questions which are uncomfortable;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"The plan needs to accommodate constant change, because it's constantly adapting."

Are you interested in different levels of AI agents assisting human decision-making? What do you think about open architecture technological systems? How can we democratise technology?

Interview with Nick Bray, VP of Global Defence and Security at VANTIQ. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, AI levels, technology, optimism, smartness, naming lazyness, and many more.

Nick Bray joined VANTIQ in March 2023 from PwC’s Aerospace & Defence division, following VANTIQ’s recognition as the top contender among over 1,000 international tech companies in PwC’s accelerator programme. Prior to joining VANTIQ, Nick served as a Non-Executive Director for a UK drone company and then moved to a prominent European technology and services provider, advising on National Security and cyber operations. His career also includes a role at a Cambridge-based digital twin company specializing in atmospheric modelling. Nick’s distinguished military background includes serving in the Royal Air Force Regiment, where he commanded the RAF’s 6,000-strong specialist ground combat and security forces and led the UK MOD’s International Policy & Plans Division. Although he left regular service in 2017, he continues to contribute as a Reservist in the RAF’s innovation organisation. Nick holds Master's Degrees in Military Strategy & Technology from King’s College London and International Relations & Diplomacy from the London School of Economics. He was awarded the CBE by the late Queen Elizabeth II. Residing on the UK's south coast, Nick enjoys walking his two family poodles, surfing, open water swimming, and running.

Find out more about Nick through these links:

• Nick Bray on LinkedIn
• Vantiq website
• Vantiq on LinkedIn
• @Vantiq as Vantiq on X 

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.015 - Interview with Luke Housego about architectural systems
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about emerging technologies
• No.274 - Interview with Richard Gill about change
• No.303R - Agentic AI

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Episode generated with ⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠ assistance (⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠).Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in a research and evidence-based brighter future vision? What do you think about technological disruptions? How can we harness the current extraordinary moment in human history?

Trailer for episode 222 - interview Adam Dorr, the Director of Research at RethinkX. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, disruptive versus transformative technologies, progress in human wisdom, optimism, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠

"Pitch it high and don't take your eyes off the prise!"

Are you interested in distributed well-being? What do you think about density as a measurement for affordability? How can we use the why-how-what questions for better urban futures?

Interview with Dr Haydn Read, a specialist practitioner in systems thinking and action. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, smartness, evidence-based decision-making, organic vs planned city growth, and many more.

Dr. Haydn Read found a way to live his best life… as Te Hēteri for Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. He supports his Iwi friends to understand the challenges ahead, as a specialist practitioner in systems thinking and action – and a way forward to tackle them. As a pracademic, Dr Read also finds privilege in working with government supporting initiatives to improve the wellbeing of communities across Aotearoa New Zealand more generally. He has been a Senior Executive in the Private and Public Sectors for nearly 30 years, in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. His passion lies in unpacking complex problems and helping others find solutions to the most difficult and intractable ones, some refer to as ‘wicked’ – especially those impacting on the most vulnerable in our communities. He has a skill in big data, digital twins and smart cities to support big data analytics and evidence-based decision-making to support those endeavours - something he sees as an imperative for any infrastructuralist. His vision is simple: every person in Aotearoa New Zealand should be afforded the same opportunities as the next. Something we need to rediscover as a nation of people who could be first amongst all equals to achieve this aspiration. But mostly, he will tell you he is a ‘lifestyle’ farmer from Waimana in the Eastern Bay of Plenty….

Find out more about Haydn through these links:

• ⁠Haydn Read⁠ on LinkedIn;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• ⁠No.177 - Interview with Amelia Gaskell ⁠about intergenerational equity;
• ⁠No.186 - Interview with Tom Bosschaert ⁠about the importance of systems thinking
• ⁠No.190 - Interview with Adrian McGregor ⁠about cities being complex ecosystems;
• No.259R - Lessons from nine urban areas using data to drive local sustainable development

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in how walkability and quality of life are connected?

Summary of the article titled Quantifying life quality as walkability on urban networks: The case of Budapest from 2019 by Luis Natera, David Deritei, Anna Vancso, and Orsolya Vasarhelyi, presented at the International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications.

This is a great preparation to our next interviewee in episode 138, Luis Natera, who talks a lot about urban mobility systems in the interview as well.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how we can quantify urban walkability. This article presents how to measure urban network walkability and its impact on quality of urban life, through the case of Budapest.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Investigating urban walkability can highlight important factors to consider for urban decision-makers and designers for improving the quality of life.
2. Since the walkability of a neighbourhood is highly correlated with its liveability, both long distances and the lack of amenities affects suburban habitat lives negatively.
3. Designing compact, liveable neighbourhoods, considering also the upcoming environmental crises is the number one priority of many cities worldwide.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Life quality in cities is deeply related to the mobility options, and how easily one can access different services and attractions. The pedestrian infrastructure network provides the backbone for social life in cities. While there are many approaches to quantify life quality, most do not take specifically into account the walkability of the city, and rather offer a city-wide measure. Here we develop a data-driven, network-based method to quantify the liveability of a city. We introduce a life quality index (LQI) based on pedestrian accessibility to amenities and services, safety and environmental variables. Our computational approach outlines novel ways to measure life quality in a more granular scale, that can become valuable for urban planners, city officials and stakeholders. We apply data-driven methods to Budapest, but as having an emphasis on the online and easily available quantitative data, the methods can be generalized and applied to any city.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.027 - Interview with Richard Manasseh about urban water management;
• No.047 - Interview Hussein Dia about urban transport;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"[The city] is a system that is difficult to map, but it is evolving."

Are you interested in allowing governments to fail? What do you think about systems thinking? How can we help governments be bold?

Interview with Carina Gormley, senior associate at the Centre for Public Impact’s Climate Change Initiative. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, sustainability, the role of governments, room for failure, and many more.

Carina Gormley leads internal partnerships, culture and green initiatives at the Centre for Public Impact’s Climate Change Initiative. She’s at the forefront of urban innovation and climate action, and has guided over 25 cities in designing and implementing sustainable, community-driven solutions. Carina’s expertise spans systems thinking, human-centered design, urbanism, UI/UX, public health, and social equity, providing a holistic approach to climate challenges. Her academic background includes a Masters of Science in Environment and Sustainability Management from Georgetown University and a BA in Architecture and Urbanism. Carina’s work is dedicated to empowering local governments and their partners to create resilient, sustainable urban environments. She advocates for the use of AI in climate action and emphasizes the critical role of effective regulatory frameworks. Through her leadership, Carina fosters collaboration, innovation, and sustainable funding structures, ensuring that cities can meet climate goals and build a better future for their communities.

Find out more about Carina through these links:

• Carina Gormley on LinkedIn
• @CarinaGormley as Carina Gormley on X
• Centre for Public Impact website
• Carina Gormley at the Centre for Public Impact
• Centre for Public Impact on LinkedIn
• @CPI_foundation as the Centre for Public Impact on X
• Bridging the Intention Gap - Carina Gormley on the Climate Confident podcast
• Does Regulation Really Matter? - Carina Gormley on the Reimagining Government Podcast

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.165 - Interview with Michael Healy about smart city being the R&D department
• No.288 - Interview with Dan Hill about cities being knots
• No.294 - Interview with Eric A. Brimen about governments limiting their outreach
• No.296 - Interview with Sally Capp about governmental roles from the government's perspective
• No.297R - Harnessing social imagination in the era of climate crises

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Trailer to episode 084I for the interview with Jacek Urbanowicz, an architect at COX Architecture and co-founder of Tunarch.org, architecture discovery platform that focuses on helping clients find the right designer through the contents of their work. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, the urban representation of Maslow’s pyramid, democratised decision-making, and many more.

Are you interested in involving the young generation into decision-making? What do you think about meaningful involvement? How can we differentiate between consultation, collaboration and children-led projects?

Trailer for episode 268 - interview with Dr Tiffany Williams, an action-focused public health professional. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, the citizens’ role in the city, the importance of children for visioning, transparency in engagement, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠

Are you interested in how you connect to the city and place? What do you think about human geography? How can we build trust within the local community?

Interview with Ishara Sahama, human geographer. We talk about their vision for the future of cities, community engagement, urban evolution, human geography, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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Introducing the WTF podcast, the format and the purpose, and myself being the host. Just a short summary of what is coming. 

The transcript is available through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting introduction for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in the connection between creative industries and cities?

Summary of the article titled Creativity, cities and innovation from 2014 by Neil Lee and Andrés Rogríguez-Pose, published in the Environment and Planning A journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Julian O’Shea in episode 224 talking about the importance of creative people in cities.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the link between creative industries, occupations and the innovation within cities. This article investigates the effects of creative industries and creative occupations on cities.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Creativity is crucial for economic innovation, with creative occupations across various sectors playing a key role in fostering innovation, challenging the traditional focus on urban creative industries alone.
2. There is no strong empirical evidence supporting the notion that urban settings, particularly larger cities, have a distinct advantage in driving innovation within creative industries and occupations.
3. Policies that support creative roles across both urban and rural settings are needed, emphasizing the universal importance of creative occupations in enhancing innovation, rather than focusing solely on location-based advantages.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: The creative industries have long been seen as an innovative sector. More recent research posits that creative occupations are also a fundamental, but overlooked, driver of innovation. Theory also suggests cities are important for both creative industries and occupations, with urban environments helping firms innovate. Yet little empirical work has considered the links between creative industries, occupations, cities, and innovation at the firm level. This paper addresses this gap using a sample of over 9000 UK SMEs. Our results stress that creative industries firms are more likely to introduce original product innovations, but not those learnt from elsewhere. Creative occupations, however, appear a more robust general driver of innovation. We find no support for the hypothesis that urban creative industries firms are particularly innovative. However, creative occupations are used in cities to introduce product innovations learnt elsewhere. The results suggest that future work needs to seriously consider the importance of occupations in empirical studies of innovation.

Connecting episodes you might interested in:

• No.002R - Intelligent cities: Variable geometries of spatial intelligence;
• No.041R - A 100 smart cities, a 100 utopias;
• No.076R - Smart innovative cities: The impact of smart city policies on urban innovation;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in the aesthetics of sustainable architecture?

Summary of the article titled Aesthetics of sustainability and architecture: An overview from 2020 by Aurelija Daugelaite and Indre Grazuleviciute-Vileniske, published in the Urban Studies journal.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see whether the aesthetics of sustainable architecture is distinguishable. This article investigates the question of sustainability aesthetics and the ways that it is expressed in the field of architecture.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. It is important to investigate how important are social, psychological and especially, aesthetic aspects of the sustainability architecture.
2. Aesthetics is supposed to sense and eternalise the identity of the historical period and the society and newer concepts of aesthetics combine beauty, harmony, grandeur, tragedy, heroism, irony, etc.
3. It is possible to create architecture as an attractive carbon free product which can literally be an advertisement for the alternative lifestyles and show that reduction in consumption does not necessarily mean a reduction in quality.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Sustainable development ‒ development that meets the needs of the present-day societies without compromising the possibilities of the future societies to meet their needs – became the predominant paradigm of planning policies. This concept with its environmental, social, economic and cultural dimensions has been applied to the field of architecture since the end of the 20th century. However, numerous researchers still notice techno-logical and ecological orientation of sustainable architecture and the lack of attention to its cultural, place-based and aesthetics aspects. The ques-tion may be asked if it is possible to distinguish the aesthetics of sustainable architecture. Thus, this research analyses the question of sustainability aesthetics and the ways that it is expressed in the field of architecture. In order to reach this aim: the quantitative and qualitative literature review on the questions of sustainability aesthetics and sustainability aesthetics in architecture was performed; the discussion of the notion of sustainability aesthetics and the aesthetic trends of sustainable architecture was developed based on the results of literature analysis.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• ⁠⁠No.022R - Crypto cities;
• ⁠⁠No.125R - Aesthetics of Sustainability;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠this link⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠from ⁠⁠Pixabay

Summary of the article titled Operationalizing a concept: The systematic review of composite indicator building for measuring community disaster resilience from 2017 by A. Asadzadeh, T. Kötter, P. Salehi, and J. Birkmann, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how to build indicators for an overarching community disaster resilience assessment. This article introduces an assessment framework to measure community disaster resilience while also investigating hierarchical, and inductive assessment methods.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: The measurement of community disaster resilience through the development of a comprehensive set of composite indicators is becoming increasingly commonplace. Despite this growing trend, there is neither an agreement upon a standard procedure nor a comprehensive assessment of existing measurement frameworks in the relevant literature. To tackle these challenges, this study (1) proposes an overarching eight-step procedure for composite indicator building and (2) develops a meta-level assessment framework to allow for a systematic review of existing disaster resilience measurement frameworks in application of composite indicator building. This meta-level framework was established on the basis of the proposed eight-step composite indicator building procedure and qualified with the introduction of 19 dimensions and 36 metrics for quality assessment. In order to select relevant disaster resilience measures for this analysis, the study applied a systematic survey to collect measures based on four inclusion criteria: community-based, multifaceted, quantitative, and operationalized. Accordingly, 17 resilience measurement frameworks were chosen for further analysis in this review. The results of the quality assessment demonstrated that, from the theoretical perspective, resilience assessments originate from either the socio-ecological or engineering fields and can be classified into two main types of resilience indices and tools. This differs from results of the methodological perspective, which indicate that resilience measures can be characterized as deductive or similar to hierarchical and inductive assessments.

You can find the transcripts through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.023R - Smart cities and disaster resilience
• No.044R - Measuring community disaster resilience in the Latvian context
• No.056R - A place-based model for understanding community resilience to natural disasters
• No.074R - Resilient urban planning: major principles and criteria

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Summary of the article titled Steering into the Skid – Arbitraging human and artificial intelligences to augment the design process from 2020 by Geoff Kimm and Mark Burry, presented at the 40th Annual Conference of The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture and published in their proceedings Volume 1: Technical papers, keynote conversations. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how artificial intelligence can be noted as an ally instead of a risk, at least in the design processes. This article investigates how can architects arbitrage an ever-changing gap between maturing AI and mutable social expectations.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: What if any perceived risks of lost authorship and artistic control posed by a wholesale embrace of artificial intelligence by the architectural profession were instead opportunities? AI’s potential to automate design has been pursued for over 50 years, yet aspirations of early researchers are not fully realized. Nonetheless, AI’s advances continue to be rapid; it is an increasingly viable adjunct to architectural practice, and there are fundamental reasons for why the perceived “risks” of AI cannot be dismissed lightly. Architects’ professional role at the intersection of social issues and technology, however, may allow them to avoid the obsolescence faced by other roles. To do this, we propose architects responsively arbitrage an ever-changing gap between maturing AI and mutable social expectations—arbitrage in the sense of seeking to exercise individual judgment to negotiate between diverse considerations and capacities for mutual advantage. Rather than feel threatened, evolving architectural practice can augment an expanded design process to generate and embed new subtleties and expectations that society may judge contemporary AI alone as being unable to achieve. Although there can be no road map to the future of AI in architecture, historical misevaluations of machines and our own human capabilities inhibit the intertwined, synergistic, and symbiotic union with AI needed to avoid a zero-sum confrontation. To act myopically, defensively, or not at all risks straitjacketing future definitions of what it means to be an architect, designer, or even a professionally unaligned creative and productive human being.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

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Are you interested in the smart city as making urban life easier for people? What do you think about standards and their uses? How can we use the urban lifecycle approach?

Interview with Warren Hill, enterprise account director at Appscore. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, combination of different visions, the use of standards, the economic concerns, and many more.

Warren Hill has over 30 years of experience in account management across four continents for consulting, software and infrastructure and managed service providers. Warren’s experience in large scale transformation programs has been utilised within various government and commercial enterprises to deliver positive outcomes to stakeholders, employees and citizens. Over the past 20+ years Warren has been based in Australia and managed a series of organisations growth, sales strategy and corporate strategy across APAC. Warren is chair of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) in Victoria. Warren is on the Board of Standards Australia Smart Cities initiative. Warren is an ambassador for TechDiversity, MeetMagic.org and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

You can find out more about Warren through these links:

• Warren Hill on LinkedIn;
• @warrenmjhill as Warren Hill on Twitter;
• Appscore website;
• Warren Hill as the AIIA Victoria Council Chair;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.090 - Interview with Professor Matthew McCartney about urban economics;
• No.108 - Interview with Dr Anthony Kent about urban geography;
• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested urban mining?

Summary of the article titled Potential and relevance of urban mining in the context of sustainable cities from 2017, by Rachna Arora, Katharina Paterok, Abhijit Banerjee, and Manjeet Singh Saluja, published in the IIMB Management Review journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Don Weatherbee in episode 316 talking about urban mining and the differences between recycling, reuse and regeneration.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the urban mining concept for better urban futures. This article introduces urban mining, the waste streams it can utilise, and some city planning initiatives utilising this concept.

Find the article through this link.

Abstract: The objective of urban mining is the safeguarding of the environment and the promotion of resource conservation through reuse, recycling, and recovery of secondary resources from waste. Urban mining maximises the resource and economic value of the waste streams generated in urban spaces and will be a significant concept in the planning and designing of sustainable cities, making the process consistent with the sustainable development goals. This review article brings out comprehensive information on urban mining as a concept and its relevance to the Indian and international context as a source of secondary raw material.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.232 - Interview with Kate Skillington about urban mining
• No.265R - Regeneration towards suitability

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠th⁠i⁠s link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

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Are you interested in decreasing urban emissions?

Summary of the article titled How can urban regeneration reduce carbon emissions? A bibliometric review from 2023 by Yan Liu, Meiyue Sang, Xiangrui Xu, Liyin Shen, and Haijun Bao, published in the Land journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interviewee, Alan Pears in episode 196 talking about urban emissions and regeneration.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how urban regeneration and emissions are connected in the scientific literature. This article provides an overview of the field and shows a gradual shift towards a systemic approach to buildings and their emissions.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Urban regeneration encompasses optimizing city layouts, enhancing energy efficiency, and integrating green spaces to create sustainable, low-carbon urban environments.
2. Research gaps highlight the need for a deeper understanding of urban elements' CO2 reduction potential and broader strategies beyond individual projects.
3. Urban regeneration is key to reducing carbon emissions in cities, tackling the challenges of rapid urbanization and high fossil fuel consumption.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: As urbanization continues to accelerate worldwide, the consequential rise in CO2 emissions has caused substantial environmental challenges. Urban regeneration has emerged as a promising approach to reducing carbon emissions and developing low-carbon cities. Even though both urban regeneration and carbon emissions reduction have been researched from various perspectives, a thorough review is still required to completely reveal their multifaceted relationship. Based on 231 papers published between 2001 and 2023, a bibliometric analysis was conducted to understand the overall trajectory and main focus of the existing research. Then, we qualitatively analyzed the main findings from bibliometric results in terms of key regeneration elements, specific regeneration strategies, research methodologies, as well as research trends and agendas. The results indicated that research in this field is gradually becoming more specialized and comprehensive. Buildings and energy have always been two key urban regeneration elements and research hotspots. Additionally, as a systematic project, reducing carbon emissions requires further exploration of other regeneration elements’ contributions and their interactions in the urban system, which needs the corresponding support of more specific regeneration strategies and research methodologies. These findings can advance the development of innovative and impactful pathways for low-carbon oriented urban regeneration, leading ultimately to sustainable cities.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• ⁠No.120 - Interview with Matt Ferrell⁠ about renewable energy solutions;
• No.181R - Built Environment prototyping for design-value;
• ⁠No.182 - Interview with Ted Baillieu⁠ about urban retrofit;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

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Are you interested in urban water management?

Summary of the article titled Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions from 2021 by Chunyang He, Zhifeng Liu, Jianguo Wu, Xinhao Pan, Zihang Fang, Jingwei Li, and Brett A. Bryan, published in the Nature Communications journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Anthony Acciavatti in episode 292 talking about water as an ecological indicator for urban quality of life.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what urban water challenges we will see in the future. This article presents water scarcity issues by 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios and explores potential solutions.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Urbanization and climate change are together exacerbating water scarcity—where water demand exceeds availability—for the world’s cities. We quantify global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 under four socioeconomic and climate change scenarios, and explored potential solutions. Here we show the global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million (one third of global urban population) in 2016 to 1.693–2.373 billion people (one third to nearly half of global urban population) in 2050, with India projected to be most severely affected in terms of growth in water-scarce urban population (increase of 153–422 million people). The number of large cities exposed to water scarcity is projected to increase from 193 to 193–284, including 10–20 megacities. More than two thirds of water-scarce cities can relieve water scarcity by infrastructure investment, but the potentially significant environmental trade-offs associated with large-scale water scarcity solutions must be guarded against.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.257R - Formal Model for Green Urbanism in Smart Cities
• No.258 - Interview with Matt Gijselman about urban water management

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠th⁠i⁠s link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Summary of the article titled Introduction: Innovation and identity in next-generation smart cities from 2018 by Hoon Han and Scott Hawken, published in City, Culture and Society journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see why it is important to critically consider urban identity and culture as central to the smart city. This article challenges smart city concepts from the urban identity, quality and value at a range of scales and geographic contexts point of view.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Cultural nuance, human behaviour and social identity require greater attention within the emerging smart city phenomenon. This special issue critically considers identity and urban culture as central to the smart city challenge. Current discourse on smart cities is obsessed with technological capability and development. Global rankings reduce cities to a one-dimensional business model and series of metrics. If the term ‘smart city’ is to have any enduring value, technology must be used to develop a city's unique cultural identity and quality of life for the future. The editorial reviews emerging research on the cultural dimensions of urban innovation and smart cities and places the six special issue papers within a theoretical context. Each paper critiques smart city theories in relation to the practical challenge of enhancing urban identity, quality and value at a range of scales and geographic contexts. Three main themes are used to frame the debate on smart cities and urban innovation: 1) local development histories, 2) face-to-face relationships and 3) local community scales. Each of these themes is lacking in current smart city approaches and requires innovative approaches to integrate into the smart city of tomorrow.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in resilience as thinking in activities? What do you think about the city as the place of innovation? How can we the sustainability pillars – economic, environmental and social aspects in a concentric way?

Trailer for episode 208 - interview with Professor Rudolf Giffinger, urban and regional development expert. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, smart cities, resilience, sustainability, thinking in activities, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Are you interested in regenerative development?

Our summary today works with the chapter titled Regenerative development and transitions thinking from 2018 by Dominique Hes and Lars Coenen, part of the Enabling Eco-cities book, published by Springer.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Dominique Hes in episode 228 talking about regenerative urban development and thinking.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what regenerative development is. This chapter presents regenerative development as a whole systems approach to make both people and nature stronger, more vibrant and more resilient.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Regenerative development is a holistic approach that aims to enhance the resilience and vitality of both people and their environments by understanding the unique essence and needs of a place.
2. Smart Specialisation is a strategy that can operationalize regenerative development by focusing on place-based, participatory, and experimental approaches to foster innovation and economic development.
3. Successful regenerative development and Smart Specialisation initiatives demonstrate the importance of engaging local stakeholders, building on regional strengths, and adapting to changing circumstances.

Find the article through this link.

Abstract: Regenerative development is a whole systems approach that partners people and their places, working to make both people and nature stronger, more vibrant and more resilient. It aims to increase the vitality, viability and adaptability of a place through understanding its story, its flows and how developing positive relationships enhance the potential of all stakeholders. Key to working regeneratively in an eco-city is understanding the essence of place and what needs to be strengthened to enable adaptation through future change. Smart specialisation is a process through which understandings of the socio-technical potential of the system can seed entrepreneurial opportunities and new positive relationships. When this is broadened to the social-ecological perspective underpinned by regenerative development, it can guide our transition to a thriving eco-city.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.043R - Shifting from sustainability to regeneration;
• No. 150P - What is academia's role in establishing the future of cities? Panel conversation on regeneration, among others;
• No.195R - How can urban regeneration reduce carbon emissions?;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in what we owe the future? 

Summary of the book titled What we owe the future from 2022 by William MacAskill, based on my reading experience and other summaries. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what future prospects are there for the really long run and how we can influence them. This book describes the unprecedented opportunities for humanity to influence the future and its numerous generations for the better or worse. I hope this gives you some food for thought this time of the year or anytime and how to move forward.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Longtermism is the idea that positively influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority of our time, not just making things less bad, but actually making them better.
2. There are actions we can take to influence the future based on the presented exemplary problem areas and prevent existential risks.
3. If we make wise choice today, our grandchildren’s grandchildren will thrive, knowing we did everything we could to give them a world full of justice, hope and beauty.

Summaries used:

• What we owe the future review - a thrilling prescription for humanity by Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian;
• What we owe the future: a review and summary of what I learned by Michael Townsend, Giving What We Can;

Learn more about the risk areas and actions at 80000hours.org.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in regenerative placemaking? What do you think about urban participation and its consequences? How can we reimagine our place in cities to create more beautiful urban environments? Trailer for episode 312 - interview with Gilbert Rochecouste, Founder and Managing Director of Village Well. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, resilience and regeneration, enjoying cities, urban evolution, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Episode generated with ⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠ assistance (⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠).

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Are you interested in carbon-neutral cities?

Summary of the article titled Carbon-neutral cities: Critical review of theory and practice from 2022 by Aapo Huovila, Hanne Siikavirta, Carmen Antuña Rozado, Jyri Rökman, Pekka Tuominen, Satu Paiho, Åsa Hedman, and Peter Ylén, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

This is a great preparation for our next interviewee, Dr Aapo Huovila in episode 174 talking about sustainable and smart cities.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what carbon-neutrality can mean for cities. This article presents the theory and practice of carbon-neutral efforts in the urban context, exploring the gaps between research and practice.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Cities, as major global resource consumers and emission contributors, are central to achieving climate goals through sustainability initiatives.
2. Ambiguities in the carbon-neutral city concept and varied emission scopes challenge consistent implementation and progress measurement.
3. A holistic, systemic approach with collaboration among various stakeholders is essential for effective carbon neutrality transitions.

Find the article through this link.

Abstract: Carbon neutrality has become central in policy discourse and cities’ climate actions are crucial to achieve this goal. Consequently, many cities have already published ambitious climate neutrality target years and are preparing for transition to climate neutrality. This study presents findings from the first ever literature review on the carbon-neutral city concept, covering definition, assessment approaches, and barriers and drivers for transition to carbon neutrality. These findings are combined with interviews with Finnish cities aiming at carbon neutrality to explore gaps between research and practice. More clarity is needed on the definition of carbon-neutral city concept and especially on the role of offsetting the emissions (a specific feature compared to other urban climate concepts). The lack of consistency in city carbon accounting methods and emission scopes making cities’ carbon neutrality goals incomparable, thus calling for harmonization and guidance on common assessment methods. In addition to research, climate networks play an important role in the transition to carbon neutrality. Cities have set ambitious goals and need support to develop action plans, assess actions, come up with creative and innovative ideas and increase collaboration with various stakeholders. Development of ways to support cities that have taken on ambitious carbon neutrality targets would benefit from more systematic research on transition to carbon neutrality from different contexts capturing the lessons learned. There is a need for methods that are flexible enough to accommodate adjustments to local conditions and needs, but also consider broader system transition.

Connecting links you might be interested in:

• No.088R - The costs and benefits of environmental sustainability;
• No.119R - Pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Today would be an interview, but since it is 2022 Christmas time, I want to just wish you all relaxing holidays with or without celebrating Christmas, Merry Christmas if you do celebrate it, and a very Happy New Year! 

We will have many interesting topics to discover and further discuss in 2023. I am already preparing those episodes and I am very excited about what will come! 

In the meantime, if you need some food for thought check out the last research episode, No.101 about longtermism and what we owe the future. 

I hope you are well and also full with plans for the new year, see you then and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Trailer for episode 153 - interview with Ana Enache, overall sustainability enthusiast and Chief of Staff at Appscore. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, not taking actions, technology as a neutral tool, smart and educated citizens and many more.

Find out more in the interview!

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in sustainable and renewable technologies? What do you think about urban sustainability and its implementation? How can we create even better future for the next generations than we have? Stay tuned for the answers from Matt Ferrell!

Interview with Matt Ferrell, YouTube creator specialising in sustainable and renewable technologies. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, being stuck on Earth, sustainable solutions and their availability, human pessimism and how to tackle it, and many more.

Matt Ferrell lives in the Boston area and is a UI/UX designer by trade, but has always been obsessed by technology and how it works. In 2018 he started his YouTube channel, Undecided with Matt Ferrell, to focus on sustainable and smart technologies, which has gained over 1 million subscribers. He’s spoken at Fully Charged Live among other industry conferences while also advising multiple sustainable tech startups.

You can find out more about Matt through these links:

• Matt Ferrell on LinkedIn;
• @mattferrell@mastodon.social as Matt Ferrell on Mastodon;
• mattferrell.com website;
• Undecided with Matt Ferrell website;
• Undecided with Matt Ferrell on Youtube (special recommendations based on the conversation: Solar panels plus farming?; How the CO2 battery could be the future of energy storage?; 2 Brearkthroughs that could solve the fresh water crisis; The future of solid state wind energy - no more blades);
• @UndecidedMF as Undecided on Twitter;
• Matt Ferrell's journey with their prefabricated home - YouTube video (1st episode);

Connected episodes you might be interested in:

• No.027 - Interview with Richard Manasseh about holistic approaches yet small actions;
• No.119R - Pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Summary of the article titled Smart communities initiatives from 2004 by Helena Lindskog presented at the 3rd ISOneWorld Conference, 2004. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see different smart community approaches. This article compares these different approaches and presents how the co-operation between countries, regions and smart communities functions.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Information Communication Technology (ICT) is literally changing every aspect of our life as citizens, employees, employers, parents, friends and as members of any type of community. We are changing the patterns of our professional and social lives. It is not surprising that a great emphasis is put on the possibilities that this new technological development can offer for local communities, governments and their citizens in order to increase quality of life, education, job opportunities and general prosperity. The concept Smart Community was first used in 1993 in Silicon Valley, California, when the area experienced a recession that was deeper than the national economic downturn, and predicted to last longer. Silicon Valley business leaders, community members, government officials and educators decided together to help jump-start the region. Today the concept of Smart Community is widely used. The Smart Communities phenomenon is global in the sense that it exists all over the world as well as local since it is often based on local initiatives. In the Smart Communities Guidebook, developed by the State University of San Diego (1997), Smart community is described as "a geographical area ranging in size from neighborhood to a multi-county region whose residents, organizations, and governing institutions are using information technology to transform their region in significant ways. Co-operation among government, industry, educators, and the citizenry, instead of individual groups acting in isolation, is preferred. The technological enhancements undertaken as part of this effort should result in fundamental, rather than incremental, changes." This article compares different approaches towards the phenomenon of Smart Communities, similarities and differences, how the co-operation between countries, regions and Smart Communities function and if there are any lessons learned.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"The problem is solved through action, not by beating ourselves up about it."

Are you interested in the future of cities as Pandora’s box? What do you think about environmentally responsible design instead of sustainable design? How can we mine cities to gather resources?

Interview with Katie Skillington, lecturer in Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, architects’ role of communication, accelerating material use, sustainability versus environmental responsibility, and many more.

Katie Skillington is a Lecturer in Architectural Design at the University of Melbourne. Formally trained in architecture and performance design, Katie also studied sustainability science at The University of Tokyo, Japan as a Monbukagakusho scholar. Her research interests lie at the nexus of architectural design and sustainability, particularly focusing on understanding the environmental consequences of designing with material reduction and efficiency, the indoor environment quality of dwellings, and policy approaches for improving building performance. Professionally, Katie is a Registered Architect (Practicing) in Victoria and a member of the Australian Institute of Architects and The Parlour Collective.

Find out more about Katie through these links:

• Katie Skillington on LinkedIn;
• @ktskillo as Katie Skillington on X;
• Katie Skillington at the University of Melbourne;
• Katie Skillington on Google Scholar;
• @ktskillo as Katie Skillington on Instagram;
• Talk Material Circularity by Katie Skillington and Nikita Bhopti

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;
• No.182 - Interview with Ted Baillieu about rising inequality;
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about a brighter future;
• No.228 - Interview with Dominique Hes about a unique approach to urban design;
• No.231R - A review of existing policy for reducing embodied energy and greenhouse emissions of buildings

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Interview with Dr Tamás Mezős, architect, engineer, architectural historian, among others. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, building archaeology, history of cities, and many more.

Dr Tamás Mezős graduated as a civil engineer and an architect in Budapest and since then has collected more qualifications than one could count. Tamás specifically focuses on architectural and monumental conservation, currently working on multiple projects across Europe. He also tought generations of young architects about the history of architecture and the connecting links across the different time periods. Tamás was also the head of Department of History of Architecture and of Monuments at the university, while also the President of the National Office of Cultural Heritage. He published extensively in his research areas including History and Theory of Architectural Conservation, building archaeology and diagnostics, theoretic reconstruction of Roman buildings and restoration works in Hungary, Italy, Germany and Austria.

You can find out more about Tamás through these links:

• Tamás Mezős website (HUN);
• Tamás Mezős as a professor on LinkedIn;
• Tamás Mezős' Wikipedia page;
• M&M Architektész Építész Iroda website (HUN);
• Tamás Mezős with M&M on LinkedIn;
• Tamás Mezős on Google Scholar

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay 

Are you interested in how much the political system influences cities? 

Our summary today works with the article titled Planning the post-political city: exploring public participation in the contemporary Australian city from 2018 by Crystal Legacy, Nicole Cook, Dallas Rogers, and Kristian Ruming, published the Geographical Research journal. 

This is a great preparation for the discussion with the next interviewee, Dr Anthony Kent. 

Plus, since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the political constraints influencing cities and their futures. This article presents the investigation of informal and formal decisions and plannings and their effects on urban areas.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The authoritative and expert-led technocratic planning and decision-making processes of the 20th century are changing for more inclusive and participatory ones.
2. However, consensus-based politics and decision-making do not allow challenging questions and debates to establish the real better future for cities, so they need to embrace agonistic approaches.
3. Perhaps, in the end, the most important feature of informal planning movements is not their size but their unique capacity to articulate urban futures that embrace a philosophy of equity within uncertain social and environmental futures.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: This special section examines the possibility of meaningful debate and contestation over urban decisions and futures in politically constrained contexts. In doing so, it moves with the post-political times: critically examining the proliferation of deliberative mechanisms; identifying the informal assemblages of diverse actors taking on new roles in urban socio-spatial justice; and illuminating the spaces where informal and formal planning processes meet. These questions are particularly pertinent for understanding the processes shaping Australian cities and public participation today.

Connecting episodes that might interest you:

• No.078I - Interview with Ammon Beyerle about agonistic participation;
• No.108 - Interview with Dr Anthony Kent about how the political framework influences the city and its future;

You can find the transcripts through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in human stigmergy and how it works? 

Our summary today works with the article titled A survey of environments and mechanisms for human-human stigmergy from 2005 by H. Van Dyke Parunak, presented at the Second International Workshop of E4MAS in Utrecht. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the schema to analyse stigmergy among humans. This article presents the examples and suggests how the use of stigmergy can be extended.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Stigmergy is the notion that an agent’s actions leave signs in the environment, signs that it and other agents sense and that determine their subsequent actions.
2. Stigmergic systems can generate robust, complex, intelligent behaviour at the system level, even when the individual agents are simple and individually nonintelligent because intelligence resides not in a single distinguished agent, nor in each individual agent but in the interactions among the agents and the shared dynamical environment.
3. Human stigmergy has been based on non-digital systems, however, with the advent of information technology, it can be advanced with special attention to the highlighted aspects like transparency and simulation.

Abstract: Stigmergy (the coordination of agents through signs they make and sense in a shared environment) was originally articulated in the study of social insects. Its basic processes are much simpler than those usually used to model human-level cognition. Thus it is an attractive way to coordinate agents in engineered environments such as robotics or information processing. Stigmergic coordination is not limited to insects. Humans regularly use environmentally-mediated signals to coordinate their activities. This paper develops a schema for analyzing stigmergy among humans, discusses examples (some using a computational environment and others antedating digital computation), and suggests how the use of such mechanisms may be extended.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in the city as the theatre for social action?

Summary of the article titled What is a city? from 1937 by Lewis Mumford, from the Architectural Record.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the city can be understood beyond the usual suspects of people, infrastructure and networks. This article presents Mumford’s propositions about city planning and the human potential, both individual and social, of urban life.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The city in its complete sense then is a geographic plexus, an economic organisation, an institutional process, a theatre of social action, and an aesthetic symbol of collective unity.
2. Social facts are primary and the physical organisation of a city, its industries and its markets, its lines of communication and traffic must be subservient to its social needs.
3. Instead of trusting the mere population growth to produce the theatre, we must seek these sociological results from deliberate action.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.126 - Interview with Corey Gray about beauty for sustainability;
• No.183 - Interview with Ted Baillieu about previous planning influencing current urban life;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠this link⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠from ⁠⁠Pixabay

"The world is a city on its own, we are not really disconnected."

Are you interested in technology which enhances urban food production? What do you think about the world as a city on its own? How can we be responsible for everything we use?

Interview with Nadun Hennayaka, founder and CEO of Gaia Project Australia. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, adaptability, faith in humanity, hope, and many more.

With over two decades of expertise in engineering and technology, Nadun Hennayaka has forged influential partnerships with leading companies such as Acer, Apple, HP, Microsoft, and Cisco. Holding a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems and Business Management from the University of Auckland, along with certifications from Cisco, Microsoft, and GOTAFE, Nadun brings a wealth of knowledge to his endeavors. In 2017, Nadun founded Gaia Project Australia, a pioneering initiative dedicated to addressing climate change and environmental degradation. Gaia Project Australia is at the forefront of integrating renewable energy, ocean conservation, and cutting-edge agricultural technologies. The project collaborates with scientists, engineers, government agencies, and non-profits to develop innovative solutions that advance sustainability and improve the health of our planet. Currently, Gaia Project Australia is leading the development of autonomous crop cultivation systems designed for both terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. This ambitious work exemplifies Gaia’s commitment to revolutionizing agriculture through technology, reflecting the belief that transformative change can be driven by visionary solutions and dedicated effort.

Find out more about Nadun through these links:

• Nadun Hennayaka on LinkedIn;
• @HennayakaNadun as Nadun Hennayaka on X;
• Gaia Project Australia website
• Gaia Project Australia on LinkedIn
• Gaia Project Australia on Instagram
• Gaia Project Australia Youtube channel
• Founder story: Nadun Hennayaka from Gaia Project at Standard Ledger

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about already existing great technologies
• No.238 - Interview with Paul Bevan from Magic Valley
• No.250 - Space Cities panel conversation
• No.277R - Future food-production systems: Vertical farming and controlled-environment agriculture

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sho⁠w⁠notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in housing as economic infrastructure?

Summary of the article titled Why affordable, social and public housing must be redefined as economic infrastructure from 2024 by Robert Pradolin, published by the Housing All Australians.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Robert Pradolin in episode 264 talking about affordable housing.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see affordable housing in a different light than “it would be nice”. This article presents affordable, social and public housing as essential economic infrastructure.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Private sector involvement and innovative financing are essential to solving the housing shortage that government alone cannot address.
2. Australia's housing crisis must be recognized as an economic issue, not just a social one.
3. Investing in affordable, social, and public housing is crucial for the nation's long-term prosperity.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.095R - Housing as a social determinant of health and wellbeing
• No.096 - Interview with Chris Maher about the impact of social housing on the urban community
• No.167R - Smart city beyond efficiency: Technology-policy-community at play for sustainable urban futures

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"Some people are aware of the hazards, but unaware of the consequences."

Are you interested in disaster resilience planning? What do you think about 15-minute cities as a tool for disaster resilience? How can we create safe, informed and resilient cities?

Interview with Keygan Huckleberry, Emergency Management Officer in Christchurch. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, disaster resilience, urban planning with evacuation in mind, safe cities, agreement on urban challenges, and many more.

Keygan Huckleberry is a local Planning Coordinator for Civil Defence Emergency Management in Christchurch. His day to day role is predominantly focused on developing and writing plans and strategies to address the vast array of hazards that Christchurch and Banks Peninsula face. In an activated Emergency Operations Centre Keygan will either be the Response Manager, managing the response and the response staff, ensuring each team understands their role, response objectives, and actions required under the Action Plan, and providing leadership and guidance to other functions in the response; or he will lead the planning team in creating Action Plans to address novel problems and support managing the consequences that citizens of Christchurch and Banks Peninsula are faced with.

Find out more about Keygan through these links:

• Keygan Huckleberry on LinkedIn
• getready.gov.nz website with preparation templates

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.213R - Defence in depth against human extinction
• No.214 - Interview with Anders Sandberg about consecutive disasters
• No.260 - Interview with Haydn Read about risk and resilience
• No.280 - Interview with Hudson Worsley about sustainability vs resilience
• No.281R - Misfortunes never come singly. A holistic approach to urban resilience and sustainability challenges

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Interview with Amélie Uhrig, a climate change and sustainability advisor and manager. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, sustainability, city as an organism, differences among the names for climate change, and many more.

Amélie Uhrig is a Manager at Point Advisory, a sustainability consultancy headquartered in Melbourne. She has over five years of experience in the climate change and broader sustainability sector and specialises on nature-based solutions for climate mitigation, carbon markets and carbon accounting. Prior to joining Point Advisory, she worked as consultant in development cooperation in Indonesia, where she was working on a project on climate and environmental awareness. As part of her role, she travelled to high schools and educational institutions facilitating workshops aimed at improving climate literacy and supporting climate action at school. Amélie holds a Master in Environmental Sciences, focusing on climate policies and politics as well as the role of forests in climate mitigation. As part of her studies, she conducted a qualitative social research project on community-based forest management and REDD+ in Indonesia. She also holds a Bachelor in Geography and Ethnology with a special focus on climate change. Amélie is also a founding member and co-creator at Talking in This Climate, a podcast dedicated to helping listeners to become more mindful about how we communicate climate and environmental issues.

You can find out more about Amélie through these links:

• Amélie Uhrig on LinkedIn;
• Amélie Uhrig at Point Advisory consultancy;
• Point Advisory consultancy website;
• Talking in This Climate podcast on Apple Podcasts;
• Talking in This Climate podcast on Spotify;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay 

"Make things that both work for today while they can become the bricks in the foundation of how we operate our cities of tomorrow."

Are you interested in sustainability as resilience, harmony, and wellbeing? What do you think about integrated sustainability? How can we learn from the past for a better future?

Interview with Tom Bosschaert, the founder and director of Except Integrated Sustainability. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, stages of grief in sustainability, Orchid City, the City of Hope, and many more.

Tom is the founder and director of Except Integrated Sustainability, and the visionary force behind its development. He is also the chairman of the Environment Committee of the World Institute for Change Management and Innovation (WICMI) in Switzerland. Tom founded Except at the age of 19 in 1999 with a mission to find systemic solutions for our societal challenges by combining science, business, design, and communication. In the past decades, he has developed several hundred projects globally, for groundbreaking sustainable cities, buildings, business, policy, and industry. Tom’s vision shows that we can flourish globally when we simultaneously integrate environmental, societal, economical, and technical aspects in our society. He is a frequent keynote speaker, and author of the Symbiosis in Development (SiD) framework and books.

Find out more about Tom through these links:

• Tom Bosschaert on LinkedIn;
• @Tom_Bosschaert as Tom Bosschaert on X;
• Except Integrated Sustainability website;
• Symbiosis in Development at Except;
• Symbiosis in Development website;
• Tom Bosschaert at Except with podcast links;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.105 - Interview with Richard Morrison about NEOM;
• No.184 - Interview with Alby Bocanegra about the 24h city;
• No.185R - Systems thinking as a paradigm shift for sustainability transformation;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in the connection between interaction design and the city?

Our summary today works with the book chapter titled The city as an urban interaction design platform from 2014 by Martin Brynskov, and the book’s title is Urban Interaction Design: Towards City Making. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how interaction design can be part of cities because we will talk about it in detail with the next interviewee, Professor Jeni Paay, in episode 093. This chapter introduces the connection, issues and concerns about urban interaction design.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Cities are complex systems with interconnected layers and actors interacting with each other.
2. Urban interaction design can improve those interactions and citizen engagement with tools, services and products, but these should always remain the means to achieving better participation, and be accessible and usable for the people.
3. Today and in the coming future, urban interaction design has the opportunity to impact the aspirations of civic engagement and make it a more profound, direct, effective and diverse experience of engaging in public issues.

You can find the book and chapter through this link.

You can find the transcripts through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Interview with María Yanez, an assistant development manager at Nightingale Housing. We will talk about her and their visions for the future of cities, how Nightingale changes the development industry, what sustainability means to them, and many more. 

Maria Yanez forms part of the development management team at Nightingale Housing, a not-for-profit organisation that provides economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable homes across Australia. Maria holds a Master of Architecture degree at the University of Melbourne and was recently awarded the 2021 Grimshaw Award for Architectural Engineering and the Dean's Award Master of Architecture 2019 and 2020. She is a registered architect in Chile and has previously led design studios at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, alongside the 2016 Pritzker Prize architect Alejandro Aravena. She is currently a design tutor of the Bachelor of Design program at The University of Melbourne.

You can find out more about María Yanez and Nightingale Housing through these links:

• María Jose Yanez on LinkedIn;
• Nightingale Housing website;
• Nightingale Housing on Instagram;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in the Aboriginal understanding of country? What do you think about water in cities? How can we become more connected to country itself?

Interview with Michael Browne, manager at Melbourne Water. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, aboriginal and indigenous ideas, what water means to country, resilience, and many more.

Michael is a proud Barkandji/ Wemba Wemba man who grew up in rural southern NSW. He completed a Bachelor of Engineering and as a result of his cultural connection to water and growing up witnessing the impact that drought can have on a community, has recognised the importance of and feels fortunate to have worked in the water industry for 20 years. Michael has recently been working within the Integrated Water Management Planning team at Yarra Valley where he has been focussing on place-making to ensure a continued focus is given to the importance of water and elevating the cultural knowledge and skills of Traditional Owners in planning for the future.

Find out more about Michael online through these links:

• Michael Browne on LinkedIn;
• Michael Browne on the Making Waves podcast series;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.027 - Interview with Richard Manasseh about water in cities;
• No.135 - Interview with Paul Satur about urban water management;
• No.158R - Integrating Aboriginal cultural values into water planning;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Summary of the article titled Theoretical underpinnings of regenerative sustainability from 2015 by John Robinson and Raymond Cole, published in the Building Research & Information journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see the difference between regenerative sustainability and regenerative development and design. This article discusses the relationship between regenerative sustainability and regenerative design.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Over the past half century, a discourse emphasizing environmental constraints and limits has both informed and provided many valuable ways of responding to complex environmental problems and has strongly shaped green building practices and associated environmental assessment methods. This paper delineates the concept of ‘regenerative sustainability’ – a net-positive approach to sustainability that is rooted in the notion of ‘procedural sustainability’ and a particular stream of constructivist social theory. The paper contrasts this to the concept of ‘regenerative development and design’ which, although having many commonalities, is based on different philosophical underpinnings. Since the origins of regenerative sustainability and regenerative design lie primarily in the social and ecological domains respectively, understanding their relationship is of importance in formulating approaches for the successful co-evolution of human and natural systems. The paper describes this relationship between regenerative sustainability and regenerative design, including a discussion of some of the key points of convergence and divergence between them, and concludes with an exploration of the practical implications of the regenerative sustainability concept.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"You can' have a choice if you don't have opportunities."

Are you interested in the 3 tasks governance should do? What do you think about service-based governments? How can we create good governance and governments?

Interview with Erick Brimen, CEO of Honduras Próspera and NeWay Capital. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, choices and options, the role of government, political, and many more. So, let’s start with a proper introduction.

Erick Brimen is the CEO of NeWay Capital, LLC, and Honduras Próspera Inc., dedicated to fostering human flourishing through strategic investments. As a seasoned finance expert and entrepreneur, Erick has raised nearly $110 million for Honduras Próspera Inc., driving the development of the Próspera ZEDE free zone in Honduras. His goal is to tackle poverty by delivering free-market governance as a service. Beginning his career in private and investment banking, Erick has advised on over $1.2 billion in transactions at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. and AG Edwards & Sons. He later joined Ernst & Young in London, consulting on acquisitions for private equity clients, before becoming CFO of Latin American operations for Borealis Group. Erick then founded ComparaMejor.com, Colombia’s leading online insurance brokerage, and established NeWay Capital, which partners with countries globally to create free zones. Originally from Venezuela, Erick now resides in the U.S. with his wife and three children.

Find out more about Erick through these links:

• Erick A. Brimen on LinkedIn
• @erickbrimen as Erick A. Brimen on X
• Erick A. Brimen website
• Honduras Prospera on LinkedIn
• Honduras Prospera website
• @ProsperaGlobal as Honduras Prospera on X
• @prosperahn as Honduras Prospera on Instagram
• NeWay Capital on LinkedIn
• NeWay Capital website

Connected episodes you might be interested in:

• No.274 - Interview with Richard Gill about change management
• No.293R - Rethinking the governance of urban infrastructural transformations
• No.296 - Interview with Sally Capp about goverments' role from the goverments' perspective
• No.298 - Interview with Carina Gormley about the need for failure in goverments

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in Africa and its opportunities with railway?

Summary of two blog posts titled: African Railways could go bankrupt but this is not necessarily a bad thing and It will be the best of times, it will be the worst of times: thinking about the contemporary African railway mania from 2022 by Matthew McCartney published on the Charter Cities Institute website. 

Matthew will be the next interviewee and this episode provides some background information on some topics we will discuss. 

Additionally, since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the African continent is progressing with railways. These articles present the contemporary situation, challenges and possible benefits of railways across Africa.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Although historical evidence proves that railways are basically bad financial investments, they are important for long-term economic growth, like education, broadband internet and good governance.
2. Railways can help long-term economic growth with making urbanisation, transportation and industrialisation easier, which later lead to paying for the railways.
3. The economic growth driven by railways can lead to institutional change.

You can find the first post through this link and the second through this.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

What did you learn this year from these episodes?

What was the most interesting and important for you?

What would you like to learn more about in the future?

What action did you take after these episodes?

#3 birthday of the podcast!

First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for joining me on this adventure. I am really grateful for your support. And I am especially thankful for my interviewees who took the time to appear on the podcast and share their ideas and insights. Let me give you a summary of what we have achieved and learned throughout this year! So, let’s jump right into it!

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Join the growing community by sharing and engaging with our episodes to help shape the future of cities.
2. Dive into our discussions on cutting-edge topics like food innovation, smart sustainability, and urban resilience, and apply these insights to your own urban challenges.
3. Stay tuned for exciting upcoming episodes and collaborations, and take part in our conversations to make your voice heard in shaping urban futures.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about brighter futures
• No.250 - Space Cities panel conversation
• No.252 - Interview with Allison Duettmann about emerging technologies and foresight

And a final question for today:

What action will you take to create a better future for cities, thus humanity?

Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

(Check out the transcript through ⁠this link⁠.)

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Interview with Matthew McCartney, professor of development economics and researcher at the Charter Cities Institute. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, the pace of urbanisation, economic concepts in urban areas, intratrade in Africa, and many more.

Professor Matthew McCartney spent twenty years as an academic at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London (2000-2011), and at the University of Oxford (2011-21). He has been a visiting Professor at Universities in China, Pakistan, India, Japan, South Korea, Poland, and Belgium. He is a development economist by background with a teaching and research specialization in the economic development of India and Pakistan after 1947. He has published, supervised, and taught on economic issues relating to industrialization, technology, trade, the role of the state, investment and economic growth, and human development issues relating to nutrition, employment, education, poverty, and inequality. He has also worked for the World Bank, USAID, EU, and UNDP in Botswana, Georgia, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Jordan, Bosnia, and Zambia. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Cambridge, an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in Economics from SOAS, University of London. His latest book is the outcome of two years of research-based in China and Pakistan ‘The Dragon from the Mountains: The CPEC from Kashgar to Gwadar’ and was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021.

You can find out more about Matthew through these links:

• Matthew McCartney at the Charter Cities Institute;
• Interview with Matthew McCartney and Junaid Qureshi, the director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) about Pakistan, China and CPEC
• Matthew McCartney speaking at EFSAS Seminar on CPEC in EU Parliament;
• The Dragon from the Mountains book by Matthew McCartney, published by Cambridge University Press;
• The Dragon from the Mountains book by Matthew McCartney on Amazon;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.060I - Interview with Gala Camacho about responsible technologies;
• No.072I - Interview with Tamás Mezős about urban characteristics;
• No.087I - Interview with Paul Brookbanks about the rate and pace of urbanisation;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in sustainable living? What do you think about creating settlements from the ground up? How can a city be overwhelming and impressive?

Interview Dave Hakkens, an industrial designer, inventor and an overall pioneer. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, decentralisation, sustainable living options and research, and many more. 

Dave Hakkens is a Dutch industrial designer. He gained fame with his two graduation projects: PhoneBloks, a concept for modular telephones, and Precious Plastic, a movement to develop and promote machines and organizations for plastic recycling. After Precious Plastic and PhoneBloks gained momentum, Dave helped to set up One Army, as the group of people from around the world working on global problems affecting the planet and humanity. One Army has five different projects currently: Precious Plastic, PhoneBloks, Story Hopper, Fixing#Fashion, and Project Kamp where Dave spends most of his time. Project Kamp is prototyping a new way of living on planet Earth working on regenerative land management, sustainable building, permaculture, water retention systems, renewable energy, how to peacefully live together and more. This project aims to solve the problem of sustainable living. Dave is seen by many as an example of a new generation of designers who have set themselves the goal of improving society by sharing knowledge.

You can find out more about Dave through these links:

• Dave Hakkens on LinkedIn;
• @davehakkens as Dave Hakkens on Twitter;
• davehakkens as Dave Hakkens on Instagram;
• Dave Hakkens on Wikipedia;
• One Army website;
• Project Kamp website;
• Project Kamp on Youtube;
• projectkamp as Project Kamp on Instagram;
• Dave Hakkens on Dezeen;
• Precious Plastic website;
• Dave Hakkens on Precious Plastic on the Next Nature website;
• Dave Hakkens in Innovators Under 35 at MIT Technology Review;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.048I - Interview with Professor Hussein Dia about public transport;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in nuclear power for clean energy?

Summary of the articles titled What is nuclear energy, What about the waste, and Safety, security and safeguards from 2024, fact sheets produced by Nuclear for Australia.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Andrew Vass in episode 314 talking about the misconceptions of nuclear energy and its finances.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see whether nuclear power can be a foundation for a clean energy future. These reports aim to dispel misconceptions about nuclear energy to address energy and climate challenges.

Find the reports through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.212 - Interview with Jonathan Reichental about abundant energy opportunities
• No.246 - Interview with Boyd Cohen about abundance capitalism

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠th⁠i⁠s link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.Episode generated with ⁠⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠⁠ assistance (⁠⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠⁠).

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Are you interested in cultivated and lab-grown meat?

Our summary today works with the white paper titled Cultivated meat and consumers – 2023 consumer trends and insights for the cultivated meat industry from 2023 by Magic Valley, published on their website.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Paul Bevan in episode 238 talking about cultivated meat.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how we could get our proteins in cities without huge animal involvement. This white paper explores consumer perceptions and acceptance of cultivated meat from 2023.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Cultivated meat offers a sustainable, ethical alternative to traditional meat by producing real animal meat from cultured cells without slaughtering animals.
2. Price, nutrition, and taste are the top factors driving consumer interest in cultivated meat, with many finding it appealing due to its ethical, health, and sustainability benefits.
3. By focusing on educating consumers and highlighting the benefits of cultivated meat, stakeholders can foster a more informed and receptive market.

You can find the white paper through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.120 - Interview with Matt Ferrell about food cultivation and other new technologies
• No.178R - Brighter (book summary)
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about the disruptive changes in food among others

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

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Are you interested in multisensory urban experiences?

Summary of the article titled Urban sensory map: How do tourists “sense” a destination spatially? from 2023 by Huahua Li, Mimi Li, Huixia Zou, Yi Zhang, and Jinjing Cao, published in the Tourism Management journal.

This is a great preparation to our next panel discussion with Dr Kirsten Day and Lucas Nadolskis in episode 200 talking about experiencing the city not just through the visual cortex.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how sensory experiences are involved in spatial sensing. This article establishes a macro–meso–micro analytical framework to explore the relationships among sensory experiences and spatial environmental characteristics based on social media big data.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Multisensory experiences significantly enhance tourist engagement in urban environments, prioritizing both internal and external senses.
2. Social media data analysis can reveal sensory landscapes guiding urban design and destination management towards a holistic sensory approach.
3. Emphasizing multisensory environments contributes to humanistic city development, benefiting tourists and residents alike.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Tourism sensory experiences represent a spatially constrained and constructed process influenced by various environmental stimuli. Although growing academic attention has been devoted to sensory tourism, few studies have incorporated spatiality into investigations of sensory experiences. This study establishes a macro–meso–micro analytical framework to explore the relationships among sensory experiences and spatial environmental characteristics based on social media big data. This research also moves beyond the conventional five-sense framework to include a sixth sense—interoception. Results (a) uncover the spatial distribution and relationships among sensory experiences in a destination; (b) demonstrate associations between attraction types and sensory experiences; and (c) illustrate interactions between environmental attributes and sensory encounters. This study theoretically clarifies relevant antecedents, extends a sense-based framework, and multidimensionally enriches tourism sensory experiences; empirically offer guidance for sensory environment planning, marketing, and management. Results also produce methodological insights for adopting social media big data to capture sensory experiences.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.114 - Interview with Kelly Boucher about spatial teaching differently;
• No.138 - Interview with Luis Natera about consciously choosing where to live;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Summary of the article titled Towards sustainable urban communities from 2012 by Appu Haapio published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see comparison of the internationally well-known sustainability assessment tools, BREEAM Communities, CASBEE for Urban Development, and LEED for Neighbourhood Development. This article investigates and compares these assessment tools with regards to sustainability in urban development and how the decision-makers could use these tools the best.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Requirements for the assessment tools of buildings have increased, assessing of building components or separate buildings is not enough. Neighbourhoods, built environment, public transportations, and services, should be considered simultaneously. Number of population living in urban areas is high and increasing rapidly. Urbanisation is a major concern due to its detrimental effects on the environment. The aim of this study is to clarify the field of assessment tools for urban communities by analysing the current situation. The focus is on internationally well known assessment tools; BREEAM Communities, CASBEE for Urban Development and LEED for Neigborhood Development. The interest towards certification systems is increasing amongst the authorities, and especially amongst the global investors and property developers. Achieved certifications are expected to bring measureable publicity for the developers. The assessment of urban areas enables the comparison of municipalities and urban areas, and notably supports decision making processes. Authorities, city planners, and designers would benefit most from the use of the tools during the decision making process.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in the benefits and challenges of digital twins?

Summary of the article titled Creating digital twins to save our cities from 2023 by Soheil Sabri, Stephan Winter and Abbas Rajabifard, published on The University of Melbourne website.

This is a great preparation to our next interviewee in episode 141, Soheil Sabri, where we talk a lot about the digital twin technologies.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what digital twins are capable of. This article presents insights to digital twins, their benefits and current boundaries with the hope of overcoming current urban challenges.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Digital twins can be used to improve urban sustainability, resilience, and efficiency.
2. Digital twins can be used to monitor and analyse the performance of physical assets, simulate the effects of different scenarios, and improve collaboration between different stakeholders.
3. Digital twins have the potential to transform the way we manage our cities.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.027 - Interview with Professor Richard Manasseh about urban brains;
• No.075 - Interview with Gavin Cotterill about digital twins;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in what is needed for decision-making regarding urban energy retrofit?

Summary of the article titled Decision-making approach to urban energy retrofit – A comprehensive review from 2023 by Lei Shu and Dong Zhao, published in the Buildings journal.

This is a great preparation for our next interviewee, Alison Scotland in episode 192 talking about policy-making for better urban futures, like energy retrofit.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how to find more effective, sustainable and efficient solutions for urban energy retrofits. This article establishes 5 key categories of approaches to retrofit decision-making: simulation, optimization, assessment, system integration, and empirical study, highlighting the progress and future potential in this field.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Urban areas face a significant challenge with increasing energy demands, necessitating the transformation of urban buildings into energy-efficient structures due to environmental concerns.
2. Retrofit projects in urban settings are complex, requiring a balanced consideration of technological advancements, economic factors, and societal impacts, and involve diverse decision-making strategies like simulation, optimization, and empirical studies.
3. Looking ahead, there is a strong emphasis on adopting holistic and interconnected approaches in urban retrofitting, integrating various decision-making methods, and involving stakeholders to drive sustainable and efficient urban development.

Find the article through this link.

Abstract: This research presents a comprehensive review of the research on smart urban energy retrofit decision-making. Based on the analysis of 91 journal articles over the past decade, the study identifies and discusses five key categories of approaches to retrofit decision-making, including simulation, optimization, assessment, system integration, and empirical study. While substantial advancements have been made in this field, opportunities for further growth remain. Findings suggest directions for future research and underscore the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, data-driven evaluation methodologies, stakeholder engagement, system integration, and robust and adaptable retrofit solutions in the field of urban energy retrofitting. This review provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in advancing the state of the art in this critical area of research to facilitate more effective, sustainable, and efficient solutions for urban energy retrofits.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.120 - Interview with Matt Ferrell about renewable energy solutions;
• No.182 - Interview with Ted Baillieu about urban retrofit;
• No.196 - Interview with Alan Pears about energy emissions in cities;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in why the smart city is complete rubbish?

We are starting our 2nd birthday celebration today!!!

Our summary today works with the presentation titled Smart City? Smarter City? Smarter Approach? The Smarter City Flywheel from 2023 by yours truly, Fanni Melles, presented at several companies as a result and evolution of my PhD research.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the smart city idea can be useful for practice. This presentation investigates the history of smart cities and the potential evolution from there.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 things:

1. There is no the smart city definition and shouldn’t be one.
2. Smarter cities imply the always evolving nature of cities,
3. while smarter approaches can be even more useful for practice. Since cities are already present, our approaches can be smarter, establishing a smarter approach or smarter city flywheel.

What can we do today toward the better and smarter future for our cities, and consequently our grandchildrens’ grandchildrens?

1. Let’s help everyone understand that we don’t need THE smart city because cities are different in nature and one global idea cannot cover and assist cities in their quest to improve.
2. Let’s expand our thinking from smart cities to smarter cities and smarter approaches which depend upon each location and direction – for example, extending our thinking from resilience to antifragility on that spectrum.
3. Let’s help each city find its flywheel and smarter approaches. In this way, we can create the better future for our cities and humanity.

You can find the presentation through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• ⁠⁠⁠No.003I - Interview with Frans-Anton Vermast⁠;
• ⁠⁠⁠No.156I - Interview with Fanni Melles, about the future of cities⁠;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠from ⁠⁠Pixabay

"Everyone and everything has a contribution to make"

Are you interested in the city as a social construct? What do you think about the magic of the city? How can we use emotional intelligence for better urban futures?

Interview with Dr Dominique Hes, regenerative development thinker, educator, author and researcher. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, cities capturing people, social constructs, truth, fragility and many more.

Dr Dominique Hes has 25 years experience in green building and development innovation, she is chair of the board at Greenfleet and Zero Carbon Buildings Lead at the City of Melbourne which controls property assets valued at over $4.1 billion. She is also on the Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Committee and previously helped found the board of the Living Futures Institute of Australia. Dominique mixes theory and thinking, with a demonstrated history of working in the building industries in the fields of sustainability, regenerative development, systems thinking, environmental issues, place-making, industrial ecology, LCA, Eco-Design and project management. She holds degrees in science, engineering and a Phd in architecture and is an author and editor of 6 books and over 100 papers and reports. Her main contribution is to think about how we can contribute to the well-being and thriving of place, people and planet.

In case you would like to hear about the Internal Family System from Tim Ferriss, please, check out this link.

Find out more about Dominique through these links:

• Dr Dominique Hes on LinkedIn;
• @Dominique_Hes as Dr Dominique Hes on X;
• Dr Dominique Hes at The University of Melbourne;
• Dr Dominique Hes at Future of Cities;
• Dr Dominique Hes on Google Scholar;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.020R - Antifragile;
• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;
• No.210 - Interview with Pearl Ng about regenerative economy;
• No.227R - Regenerative development and transition thinking;

What was your answer to her exercise in imagining yourself in the forest?

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠from ⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in smart cities to enhance quality of life for urban inhabitants? 

Summary of the article titled A multilevel method to assess and design the renovation and integration of smart cities from 2015 by B. Mattoni, F. Gugliermetti, and F. Bisegna, published in the Sustainable Cities and Societies journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see a smart city approach which tries to be holistic but specific. This article presents the assessment and design method where the city is considered as a whole human organism integrating each parts.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The main objective of a smart city project is to visualise the city as a unique organism and coordinate all the different aspects in order to appropriately manage their reciprocal influences among the axes.
2. The authors suggested three territorial cells – region, city and district, and five axes – economy, energy, environment, community and mobility, in which actions can be established based on the local context.
3. All of this needs integration and interoperability of the different sectors to fully utilise the city’s network nature and involve all stakeholders, citizens, representatives and local businesses based on the smart city vision.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.001R - Smart cities

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions of buildings?

Our summary today works with the article titled A review of existing policy for reducing embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions of buildings from 2022 by Katie Skillington, Robert H. Crawford, Georgia Warren-Myers, and Kathryn Davidson, published in Energy Policy journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Katie Skillington in episode 232 talking about the built environment’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. This article presents the policy landscape which is dominated by voluntary instruments and confined to inconsistent applications across lower levels of governance, but also signals of change for emission reduction.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Embodied energy (EE) and greenhouse gas emissions (EGHG) in buildings are becoming more significant as buildings become operationally more efficient, but current policies addressing them are mostly voluntary and lack stringent targets.
2. Key challenges in effective EE/EGHG governance include unclear terminology, inconsistent methodologies, lack of harmonized benchmarks, and absence of financial incentives.
3. A holistic, multi-sector policy approach with ambitious targets, standardized methods, and diverse mechanisms is needed to achieve zero emission buildings and contribute to global climate action.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: The building sector is a significant contributor to global energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions and thus has a major role in combating climate change. To date, efforts to address this issue have focussed on reducing energy demand during building operation, resulting in significant reductions in this area. However, recent studies have shown that substantial improvements to operational energy efficiency have increased the relative significance of indirect or embodied energy demands and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Subsequently, policies addressing this next frontier of energy and emissions reductions are emerging. To understand different approaches and inform future development, this study reviews existing policy mechanisms targeting embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector for four countries – Australia, Canada, USA and United Kingdom. The study found that voluntary instruments dominate the policy landscape, with regulatory measures largely absent at national levels and confined to inconsistent application across lower levels of governance. Signals of change emerging from the analysis include growing private sector investment and increasing quantitative targets for reduction. The study concludes with the challenges facing this sector of energy governance, alongside recommendations for regulated caps, mandatory LCA reporting, prerequisite requirements in voluntary instruments, data accessibility and resolving methodological inconsistencies.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.006 - Interview with Daniel Prohasky about embodied energy in carbon panels;
• No.192 - Interview with Alison Scotland about sustainable built environment standards;
• No.196 - Interview with Alan Pears about embodied energy in buildings;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Summary of the report titled Smart cities - Ranking of European medium-sized cities from 2007 by Rudolf Giffinger, Christian Fertner, Hans Kramar, Robert Kalasek, Nataša Pichler-Milanović, and Evert Meijers.

This report is the basis of many smart city initiatives; however, the report itself and what it contains is rarely mentioned. Therefore, I thought it would be useful to introduce it. 

You can find the report through this link.

The transcript is available through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for  tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in existential risks?

Summary of the article titled Defence in depth against human extinction: prevention, response, resilience, and why they all matter from 2020 by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Max Daniel, and Anders Sandberg, published in the Global Policy journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Anders Sandberg in episode 214 talking about the humanity’s existential risks, among others.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what can jeopardise humanity’s, and thus cities’ future. This article investigates the classification of existential risks to help prepare for those.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. To effectively manage extinction risks, it's essential to invest in three defence layers: prevention, response, and resilience, ensuring comprehensive risk management across different stages of potential catastrophic events.
2. Identifying and categorizing the origins and scaling mechanisms of risks, including natural disasters, technological advancements, and human actions, are crucial for developing targeted interventions and policy recommendations.
3. Strengthening global governance and cooperation among nations, alongside focusing on underlying risk factors such as global interdependencies, is vital for enhancing humanity's overall defences against existential threats.

Check out the article through this link.

Abstract: We look at classifying extinction risks in three different ways, which affect how we can intervene to reduce risk. First, how does it start causing damage? Second, how does it reach the scale of a global catastrophe? Third, how does it reach everyone? In all of these three phases there is a defence layer that blocks most risks: First, we can prevent catastrophes from occurring. Second, we can respond to catastrophes before they reach a global scale. Third, humanity is resilient against extinction even in the face of global catastrophes. The largest probability of extinction is posed when all of these defences are weak, that is, by risks we are unlikely to prevent, unlikely to successfully respond to, and unlikely to be resilient against. We find that it’s usually best to invest significantly into strengthening all three defence layers. We also suggest ways to do so tailored to the classes of risk we identify. Lastly, we discuss the importance of underlying risk factors – events or structural conditions that may weaken the defence layers even without posing a risk of immediate extinction themselves.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.088R - The costs and benefits of environmental sustainability;
• No.101R - What we owe the future?;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"We need to actually able to see what's happening to be able to enhance forecasting for that location."

Are you interested in weather systems? What do you think about the science behind meteorology? How can we get better weather predictions?

Interview with Jane Bunn, founder and CEO of Jane’s Weather. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, a meteorologist’s journey, the science behind weather forecasts, and many more.

Jane Bunn is a qualified meteorologist from Melbourne with an infectious enthusiasm for talking about the weather. Jane is Founder and CEO of Jane's Weather, a platform that applies machine learning and artificial intelligence to the best performing global weather models along with hyper local observations, to produce specific weather forecasts for use in the decision-making process of commercial operations, in agriculture, energy, construction and other industries. Jane has over fifteen years of experience forecasting the weather in Australia and the US.

Find out more about Jane through these links:

• Jane Bunn on LinkedIn;
• @JaneBunn as Jane Bunn on X;
• Jane's Weather website;
• Jane's Weather on LinkedIn;
• Jane Bunn on Youtube;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.015 - Interview with Luke Housego about data management;
• No.217R

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay⁠

Summary of the article titled Smart city implementation and discourses: An integrated conceptual model, the case of Vienna from 2018 by Victoria Fernandez-Anez, José Miguel Fernández-Güell, and Rudolf Giffinger published in the Cities journal.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how citizens can be involved in smart city initiatives and their capacity to face urban challenges. This article creates a conceptual model for the involvement of inhabitants, through the example of Vienna Smart City strategy.

The article is available through this link.

Abstract: In recent years many initiatives have been developed under the Smart City label in a bid to provide a response to challenges facing cities today. The concept has evolved from a sector-based approach to a more comprehensive view that places governance and stakeholders' involvement at the core of strategies. However, Smart City implementation requires lowering the scale from the strategy to the project level. Therefore, the ability of Smart City initiatives to provide an integrated and systematic answer to urban challenges is constantly being called into question. Stakeholder involvement in both the projects and the city strategy is key to developing a governance framework that allows an integrated and comprehensive understanding. This can only be done if Smart City strategies take the stakeholders' opinion into account and seek a compromise between their views and the implementation of the strategy. Multiple attempts have been made to analyse Smart Cities, but tools are needed to understand their complexity and reflect the stakeholders' role in developing Smart City initiatives and their capacity to face urban challenges. This paper pursues two objectives: (A) to develop a conceptual model capable of displaying an overview of (a) the stakeholders taking part in the initiative in relation to (b) the projects developed and (c) the challenges they face; and (B) to use this model to synthesise the opinion of different stakeholders involved in Smart City initiatives and compare their attitudes to the key projects implemented in a corresponding SC strategy. The methodology combines project analysis with surveys and interviews with different groups of key stakeholders (governments, private companies, universities and research centres, and civil society) through text analysis. The conceptual model is developed through discussions with different European stakeholders and is applied to the case of the Vienna Smart City strategy.

The transcript is available through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"I think there is a bit of community / social imperative that we should be standing up for what we want, demanding more."

Are you interested in institutional accountability? What do you think about starting from taking pride in your own community? How can we take responsibility for mistakes made on the organisational level?

Interview with Darren Murphy, CEO and founder of Core Integrity. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, levels of accountability, taking the first steps, the energy transition, and many more.

Darren Murphy is the CEO and Founder of Core Integrity, leading a team of integrity, investigations, and risk professionals who help government, corporate, and professional sports clients protect their people, reputation, and bottom line. With over 25 years of experience as a Certified Fraud Examiner, Darren specializes in investigating fraud, bribery, corruption, and employee misconduct. He is also an expert in managing protected disclosure investigations and advising senior executives on fraud and misconduct issues. Recognized for his work in whistleblower program design, Darren helps organizations create safe "speak up" cultures. He believes that prevention is always better than the best response.

Find out more about Darren through these links:

• Darren Murphy on LinkedIn

• Core Integrity website
• Core Integrity on LinkedIn
• Core Integrity on Youtube
• Darren Murphy on the Smart Cities Council Show

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.252 - Interview with Allison Duettmann about how the environment shapes our behaviour
• No.294 - Interview with Erick A. Brimen about service-based governance
• No.296 - Interview with Sally Capp about experiment-based governance
• No.298 - Interview with Carina Gormley about the need for room for failure in governance
• No.301R - A framework for assessing the accountability of local governance arrangements for adaptation to climate change

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sho⁠w⁠notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.Episode generated with ⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠ assistance (⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠).

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Are you interested in the connection between sense of space and civic engagement?

Summary of the article titled Place and City: Toward a Geography of Engagement from 2019 by Albert Acedo, Tiago Oliveira, Mijail Naranjo-Zolotov, and Marco Painho, published in the Heliyon journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Ishara Sahama in episode 262 talking about urban sense of place and community engagement.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how sense of place, social capital and civic engagement are connected. This article presents the spatial dimension's critical role in explaining and improving civic participation in urban environments.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Urban planning should consider the spatial dimensions of citizen engagement to create more effective participatory processes.
2. Sense of place and social capital are critical factors in promoting civic engagement, particularly when they overlap geographically.
3. Civic engagement is strongest when people’s emotional attachments to places align with their social networks.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: The relationship between sense of place, social capital and civic engagement has been studied in different disciplines. However, their association has been less examined, and their spatial relationship has been analyzed even less. This study contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between these three concepts (i.e., sense of place, social capital and civic engagement). Furthermore, we analyze the crucial role that the spatial relationship between them plays. Using spatial data collected through a web map-based application, we adopt structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to assess the repercussion that sense of place has on social capital and how the latter affects civic engagement. We find that sense of place is significant and positively correlated with social capital, while the latter also significantly explains civic engagement at the individual level. Furthermore, we observe a better statistical performance in almost all cases when a spatial relationship between the three constructs exists. Our research leverages SEM techniques, Geographic Information Science (GISc) methods, and participatory methodology to show the spatial connection between sense of place and social capital to explain civic engagement. Deriving and quantifying such meaning allows us to highlight the importance of their spatial dimension in city processes such as participation.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.133R - Multifunctional Urban Spaces – a solution to increase the quality of urban life in dense cities
• No.255R - Participation, co-creation, and public space

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

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"We can ride this wave of decarbonisation to reach prosperity."

Are you interested in biourbanism? What do you think about Earth as a spaceship? How can we learn systems thinking for a more holistic approach?

Interview with Adrian McGregor, the founder and Chief Design Officer at McGregor Coxall. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, biourbanism, prosperity, adaptability, climate forecasting with digital twins, and many more.

Adrian McGregor is Founder and Chief Design Officer at McGregor Coxall, a BioLab-led urban design, landscape architecture and environment firm located in Australia and the UK. Adrian is the author of Biourbanism: Cities as Nature. Practicing globally, he is a Biourbanist, Landscape Architect and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra. Nominated as one of Sydney’s 100 most creative people, he designs new cities and helps existing cities enhance prosperity by planning for climate resilience. He received the Prime Minister of Australia’s award for Urban Design and has helped McGregor Coxall receive more than 200 international design awards.

Find out more about Adrian through these links:

• Adrian McGregor on LinkedIn;
• @adrianmcgregor as Adrian McGregor on Twitter;
• McGregor Coxall website;
• McGregor Coxall on LinkedIn;
• Adrian McGregor at McGregor Coxall;
• Biourbanism website;
• Biourbanism on LinkedIn;
• @Biourbanism1 as Biourbanism on X;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.135 - Interview with Paul Satur on prosperity;
• No.164R - A discussion of resilience and sustainability;
• No.189R - Biourbanism (book summary);

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay⁠

"Optimism is acting without a proper full understanding of how things work."

Are you interested in cyclical economies? What do you think about plastic as a material? How can we move from the linear to the performance-based economy?

Interview with Harry Robertson, a proactive designer and founder of two businesses. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, circularity, plastic as a material, optimism, measures for circularity, and many more.

Harry Robertson is a proactive designer and founder of two businesses. He has an innate ability to find creative solutions to complex problems and communicate these concepts to a wide audience. Visualisation and communication are the most important part of sharing a vision as an innovator. Researching and understanding how products, systems and processes can influence the environment makes him innately aware of every opportunity. He has designed a large variety of products and has made an impact on a number of industries winning awards for his designs. From a young age Harry has always produced products or solutions to improve his world and that for those around him. Harry investigates contemporary, cultural and environmental aspects of design and technology and values his ability to be a member or leader in any team. Harry does not design to be satisfied as he believes that every solution is just a solution for now.

Find out more about Harry through these links:

• Harry Robertson on LinkedIn;
• as Harry Robertson on X;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;
• No.210 - Interview with Pearl Ng about different economy types;
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about science based optimism;
• No.241R

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"If you don't create a culture for making the things, then you lose out on everyone that engages with the things."

Are you interested in continuous urban change? What do you think about mobility tools beside cars? How can we create pleasant cities?

Interview with Julian O’Shea, researcher, content creator and designer. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, emission reductions, apartment living, continuous urban change, and many more.

Dr Julian O'Shea is a researcher, educator and social entrepreneur. He is a Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. He is a video storyteller on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok where he creates educational videos about design, cities and his home of Melbourne, Australia. Julian completed his PhD in the Mobility Design Lab at Monash University where he researched urban design, micromobility and outreach. He holds qualifications in engineering design and business, and is a Fulbright Scholar and was named the Australian YouTube Breakout Creator of the Year.

Find out more about Julian through these links:

• Julian O'Shea on LinkedIn;
• @julianoshea as Julian O'Shea on X;
• Julian O'Shea on Youtube;
• Julian O'Shea website;
• Julian O'Shea on Instagram;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.117 - Interview with Colin Chee about small footprint living;
• No.123 - Interview with Alex Louey about scooters;
• No.223R - Creativity, cities, and innovation

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in why we have pessimistic and optimistic views on climate change? 

Summary of the article titled Pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change: A critical analysis from 2021 by Anders Nordgren, published in Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how our attitudes can influence this debate. This article presents why such attitudes, concerns and opportunities are present.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. There is an observable pessimism and optimism in the debate on climate change, and a person can be pessimistic in some aspects and optimistic in others.
2. Pessimism and optimism were found in a varying degree in climate change as an unmitigated or poorly mitigated process, mitigation of climate change or specific measures of mitigation.
3. The diversity of approaches can be due to the uncertainty of scientific climate models and the political and ideological assumptions on the measures taken.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.007 - World scientists' warning of climate emergency;
• No.093 - Interview with Professor Jeni Paay about pessimism;
• No.120 - Interview with Matt Ferrell about tackling urban pessimism;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in contemporary urban concepts, like sustainable and resilient city, and their political premises? 

Summary of the article titled The political premises of contemporary urban concepts: the global city, the sustainable city, the resilient city, the creative city, and the smart city from 2018 by Tali Hatuka, Issachar Rosen-Zvi, Michael Birnhack, Eran Toch, and Hadas Zur, published in the Planning Theory and Practice journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how these urban concepts compare. This article presents their juxtaposition and the possibility of them becoming prescriptive for decision-makers and developers.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Urban futures, like the global, sustainable, resilient, creative and smart cities are individually presented in the literature, while in practice they are used together, so there is a gap for researchers to bridge.
2. These ideas can lose their cores and meanings in implementation because they are morphed to the specific city’s economy and political structure – these can be cured with constructive criticism and revisions.
3. These concepts should be in the planners and decision-makers’ toolbox rather then prescriptive ideas, to use them for real change in urban areas with attention to how they will affect people’s lives.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Numerous studies have focused on the global city, the sustainable city, the resilient city, the creative city, and the smart city, analyzing their politics, ideologies, and social implications. However, the literature lacks synthetic analysis that addresses these concepts by juxtaposing them and exploring their similarities and differences. This paper provides synthetic analysis, followed by a discussion of the concepts’ competing and complementary logics of governance and citizenship. The concluding section addresses the importance of taking into account these diverse concepts as political ideas and discusses how these concepts become a prescriptive mix promoted by public officials and private developers.

You can find the transcripts through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in indicators for regenerative economics?

Summary of the book chapter titled Regenerative economies: a new approach towards sustainability from 2020 by Yashi Jain, part of No Poverty book, published as part of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals book series.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Pearl Ng in episode 210 talking about the different economy types.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see what regenerative economy means. This chapter investigates the history of regenerative economics and its connection to sustainability.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Regenerative economics advocates for a paradigm shift towards sustainability by nurturing interconnected networks that respect Earth's resources, focusing on holistic development beyond mere profit.
2. Regenerative economics emphasizes the application of principles from natural ecosystems to economic systems, promoting self-organization, resilience, and a proactive approach to addressing environmental and social issues.
3. The regenerative approach calls for a fundamental redesign of the economy to prioritize resource efficiency, localized economies, and cooperative over competitive practices, aiming to regenerate ecosystems and communities for a sustainable future.

You can find the chapter through this link, and the book through this.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.090 - Interview with Matthew McCartney about economics and the city;
• No.171 - Interview with Nicole Garofano about circular economy;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in sustainable circular cities?

Summary of the article titled Sustainable circular cities? Analysing urban circular economy policies in Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Copenhagen from 2023 by Martin Calisto Friant, Katie Reid, Peppi Boesler, Walter J. V. Vermeulen, and Roberta Salomone, published in the Local Environment – The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability.

This is a great preparation for our next interviewee, Dr Nicole Garofano in episode 171 talking about circular economy.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see circular economy policy analysis. This article investigates current literature on circular economy policies and real examples to develop a new conceptual framework to circular economy discourses.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The circular economy promotes resource conservation and recovery strategies like reuse and recycle, with cities playing a key role in its varied implementation and impact.
2. Circular economy's implementation is often vague and leans towards a techno-optimist view, potentially neglecting the balance between economic growth and environmental protection.
3. The circular economy and circular cities provide a key solution to unsustainable resource use, aiming to reduce environmental impacts and safeguard the biosphere amid rising consumption and ecological challenges.

Find the article through this link.

Abstract: Cities play a central role in the circular economy (CE) as they are important centres of production and consumption, responsible for 80% of global GDP. European cities are particularly important due to their position of power in the global economy as major markets, and places of industrial and social innovation. Yet urban CE policies and discourses remain poorly researched and understood. This paper addresses this research gap by analysing and comparing the CE policies and discourses in different European cities to draw critical insights and recommendations. It does so by first reviewing academic literature on urban CE policies to develop a new conceptual framework to analyse CE discourses and policies. This framework is then used to analyse and compare the CE policies of three European cities: Glasgow, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. Results show that technocentric approaches to CE are dominant in the three cities. Moreover, they have very limited social justice policies for a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of a CE transition. Key policy recommendations to address these shortcomings are thus proposed. The insights brought about by this paper are valuable for both practitioners and academics seeking to improve urban CE policies.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.088R - The costs and benefits of environmental sustainability;
• No.169R - Circular economy;

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in aesthetics for sustainable progress? 

Summary of the article titled Aesthetics of Sustainability: a transdisciplinary sensibility for transformative practices from 2011 by Sacha Kagan, published in the Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how transdisciplinary and complex approaches can inform aesthetics of sustainability. This article presents aesthetics of sustainability and its importance for a global environmental transformation process towards more sustainable societies.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Specific artistic expressions and aesthetic practices can enhance our selves of belonging and sustainability.
2. We need aesthetic sustainability to learn not to be afraid of complexity and the aesthetics of sustainability must include complexity and the interconnectedness of social, political and economic aspects of modern societies.
3. We all can experience our environment in this paradigm shifting way through simple walking when we become more conscious of our environment, probably leading some transformation in our surroundings.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: Contemporary western societies are marked by symptoms of a culture of unsustainability, rooted in problematic modes of knowing the reality, across social systems, whether in the sciences, arts or other fields. Transdisciplinary researchers across the world are already aware of these issues and working on resolving them. To contribute to these efforts and focus on a perspective which potential may have been receiving too little attention so far, this article is introducing how a sensibility to transdisciplinarity and complexity can inform aesthetics of sustainability, and why this matters for a global (environ)mental transformation process. The relevance of this approach is discussed with the field of ecological art and the practice of walking.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.114 - Interview with Kelly Boucher about a new approach to place and space;
• No.126 - Interview with Corey Gray about beauty as a sustainable aspect;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in rethinking the future?

Summary of the article titled Rethinking the future: The path to freedom from 2020 by James Arbib and Tony Seba, published on the RethinkX website.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Adam Dorr in episode 222 talking about rethinking the future in a brighter way.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see whether a new organising system could help avoid societal collapse in the future. This article investigates changes, choices, challenges and opportunities for a new system with extraordinary potentials to emerge.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Our society faces a critical choice between clinging to outdated systems and risking collapse, or embracing new systems that adapt to modern challenges and technologies, potentially eradicating poverty and improving global quality of life.
2. Historically, societies often resist change until it's too late, leading to collapse, thus embracing change and avoiding the inertia of old systems is crucial for avoiding a dystopian future where power is concentrated in the hands of a few.
3. For the first time in history, we have the chance to proactively create a new organizing system before our current one fails which involves rethinking our current systems, encouraging flexible and adaptable new approaches, and managing a potentially tumultuous transition to ensure a fair and prosperous future.

You can find the article through this link.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.101R - What we owe the future (book summary)
• No.178R - Brighter (book summary)

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"Cities are part of the extended phenotype for the kind of knowledge that is produced by human civilisation."

Are you interested in how quantum physics is influencing the future of cities? What do you think about the connection between knowledge and urban evolution? How can we create better urban environments for knowledge creation?

Interview with Chiara Marletto, Scientific Researcher at University of Oxford. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, the effects of scientific evolution, the best environment for knowledge creation, and many more as a special edition part of the Podcasthon 2025.

Chiara Marletto is a Research Fellow at Wolfson College and the Physics Department, University of Oxford. She holds degrees from Oxford and the University of Turin. Her research focuses on the foundations of physics, spanning quantum information theory, condensed matter physics, quantum biology, and thermodynamics. Chiara has pioneered a novel approach to physics, constructor theory and has applied it to fundamental questions of control, causation and the nature of information in physics. Her work has also explored how essential features of living systems, such as self-reproduction and evolution, align with fundamental physical laws. Recently she has discovered a new method to test quantum effects in gravity, based on constructor-theoretic ideas. She is the author of The Science of Can and Can't, her first trade book.

This is also a special episode to be part of Podcasthon 2025 - a globally coordinated effort for podcasts to highlight a charity of their choice. WTF4Cities is happy to participate in this 3rd edition of the Podcasthon with thousands of podcasts worldwide.

The charity where you can support Chiara and her research is through Wolfson College at the University of Oxford with New Frontiers reference. Donations will be held in a dedicated fund, controlled by Chiara, and she’ll be able to keep donors updated on the progress of her research and what their generosity has made possible. So if you want to help the research move ahead:

• Name: Wolfson College, University of Oxford
• Reference: New Frontiers

Learn more about Chiara through these links:

• Chiara Marletto on LinkedIn

• Chiara Marletto website
• Chiara Marletto at Wolfson College
• Chiara Marletto on Wikipedia
• Chiara Marletto on Google Scholar
• Quantum New Frontiers Hub in Wolfson college
• The Science of Can and Can't - book by Chiara Marletto
• The Beginning of Infinity - book by David Deutsch
• The Fabric of Reality - book by David Deutsch

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.156 - Interview with Fanni Melles about urban conscious evolution
• No.180 - Interview with Ben Vass about knowledge creation
• No.272 - Interview with Frank Elavsky about philosophy
• No.307R - The Science of Can and Can't (book summary)

What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in how multifunctional urban spaces can contribute to increasing the quality of urban life in dense cities?

Summary of the article titled Multifunctional Urban Spaces – a solution to increase the quality of urban life in dense cities from 2020 by Atieh Ghafouri and Christiane Weber, published the Manzar journal.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how urban spaces can be designed and managed to promote social inclusion, community engagement, and sustainable development in the face of rapid urbanization and increasing density. The article presents the potential of these spaces to provide a range of social, cultural, and recreational amenities that meet the diverse needs of urban residents.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The main goal is to improve the quality of life in densely populated cities and this can be achieved through efficiency but we must be able to create spaces for new functions – we must create multifunctional spaces.
2. A multifunctional space could be identified with these two characteristics: allow different functions, actors and different users to use it and fulfill the different roles a space might have in line with the environmental, economical and social sustainability.
3. When multifunctional cells are put together with a comprehensive vision, the benefits are much more significant than the sum of the advantages each cell could achieve individually.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: As urban population increases, cities face a dilemma on one hand, the horizontal growth causes devastating effects on the environment, and on the other hand, vertical growth leads to a decrease in the quality of life of citizens and causes a variety of mental illnesses. This dilemma has left city managers with a complex puzzle: a city that must be able to accommodate more people with minimal interference ensuring their optimum quality of life. This research presents the idea of multifunctional urban space design as a solution to the mentioned problem. The definition of multifunctional spaces in this research has been investigated using its definition in agriculture and environmental studies. The hypothesis of this research is based on the fact that the comprehensive definition can take a new perspective on urban design, improving the functional performance of existing urban spaces and thus reducing the need to build new facilities while maintaining the quality of life in dense cities. The research method is qualitative and based on bibliographic studies. First, the notion of functional performance and multifunctional space definition are examined in disciplines that produce a more specific interpretation of the subject, and then the definition of concepts is extended to urban design and urban space, highlighted and discussed.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.135 - Interview with Paul Satur about multifunctional urban spaces;

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in listening to scientists? What do you think about the urgency of actions after scientific proof? How can we use the planetary indicators for better urban futures?

Trailer for episode 256 - interview Marcus Foth, Professor of Urban Informatics at Queensland University of Technology. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, urban visioning, declining cities, opportunities in health-arts-social sciences, doughnut economics, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠

Are you interested in the city as tangle of systems and flows? What do you think is the connection among nature, technology and culture? How can we create real smart cities?

Trailer for episode 288 - Interview with Dan Hill, the Director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, hope and optimism, engineering and design, scale of cities, and many more.

Find out more in the episode.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

"[In] societal change we need to protect people, not jobs or industries."

Are you interested in transformational technologies? What do you think about cities being in competition? How can we embrace change even if it is messy?

Interview with Richard Gill, CEO of Rethink X. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, change and its management, technology, human evolution, and many more.

Richard Gill is a technology pioneer, innovator, serial entrepreneur, investor and CEO of RethinkX, an independent not-for-profit global research organization that analyzes the speed and scale of technology-led disruption and their implications across industry and society. He has founded startups in fields as diverse as broadcasting, early internet technologies, food safety, AI, water and clean energy. He has an extensive background in innovation, change management and governance in both public and private sectors. He brings a practical, evidence-based approach to understanding the way technology adoption happens and the profound implications for humanity.

Find out more about Richard through these links:

• Richard Gill on LinkedIn
• @richardagill as Richard Gill on X
• RethinkX website
• RethinkX on LinkedIn
• @rethink_x as RethinkX on X
• RethinkX Youtube channel
• Richard Gill at RethinkX
• Cause for Optimism with RethinkX - article by Richard Gill at Laudes Foundation

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.165 - Interview with Michael Healy about smart city as the urban R&D department
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about technology being applied knowledge
• No.246 - Interview with Boyd Cohen about abundance capitalism
• No.266 - Interview with Alison Whitten about bottom-up approaches
• No.273R

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"At the theoretical level, the discipline of resilience is very human-centric, and I think the discipline of sustainability is more nature-centric."

Are you interested in the difference between sustainability and resilience professionals? What will you answer to your grandkids when they ask what you did against climate change? How can we ensure ecosystem services?

Interview with Hudson Worsley, co-founder and director of Presync. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, ecosystem services, nature as infrastructure, answering to the next generation, and many more.

Hudson Worsley is a co-founder and director of Presync, a sustainability consultancy and certified B Corp, and the Chair of MECLA, the Materials & Embodied Carbon Leaders' Alliance. Hudson works with organisations on their transition to the zero-carbon economy and adaptation to the changing climate. He supports organisations by identifying opportunities for energy efficiency and the adoption of renewables, both on-site and through the grid via renewable power purchase agreements. Hudson's consultancy, Presync has many years of relevant experience behind their integrated approach to climate change – both adaptation to changes that are now unavoidable, and mitigation to prevent further changes that are unimaginable. Presync is small and nimble with deep professional experience in energy, innovation, property development, sustainability, emission reduction and climate change.

Find out more about Hudson through these links:

• Hudson Worsley on LinkedIn
• Presync website
• Presync on LinkedIn
• MECLA website
• MECLA on LinkedIn
• MECLA on YouTube
• Hudson Worsley on the People Planet Profit podcast
• Hudson Worsley at the Decarbonising the Building Industry forum

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.208 - Interview with Professor Rudolf Giffinger about the sustainability principles
• No.214 - Interview with Anders Sandberg about risk multiplication
• No.216 - Interview with Sara Stace about the public living room
• No.220 - Interview with Simon Burt about the importance of bees
• No.279R - How ecosystems services drive urban growth: Integrating nature-based solutions

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Are you interested in the difference between inclusion and integration? What do you think about the disability of people or the environment? How can accessibility make the urban environment better for everyone?

Interview with Lucas Gil Nadolskis, a PhD student at the bionic vision lab. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, the city as something to conquer, importance of accessibility compared to disability, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠episode⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

"The biggest problems present the biggest opportunities."

Are you interested in impact investing? What do you think about circular economy as the mindful use of resources we have? How can we evaluate investment options with the second and third order consequences?

Interview with Katarina Throssell, investment associate at Giant Leap. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, impact investing, the private sector’s role, circular economy, education and AI, and many more.

Katarina Throssell is an Investment Associate at Giant Leap, an Australian venture capital fund investing in companies solving the world's most pressing problems across climate, health, and empowerment & education. She is a former commercial litigation lawyer at Arnold Bloch Leibler and has a Bachelor of Laws, International Relations and Diploma of Languages (German) from the Australian National University. She is also a director and Company Secretary at StreetSmart Australia.

Find out more about Katarina through these links:

• Katarina Throssell on LinkedIn;
• Katarina Throssell at Giant Leap;
• StreetSmart Australia website;
• Katarina Throssell on the Investor's Edge podcast;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.060 - Interview with Gala Camacho about responsible technologies and stewardship;
• No.196 - Interview with Alan Pears about energy savings;
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about science-based optimism;
• No.235R

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"24-hour city embracing density and buzzing always"

Are you interested in the 24-hour city? What do you think about technology helping us being creative? How can we learn better from history?

Interview with Alby Bocanegra, the Chief Future Officer and Founder at The Urban Futurist Inc. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, collaboration, AI and smartness, human connections, and many more.

Alby Bocanegra currently serves as Chief Future Officer and Founder at The Urban Futurist Inc, a consultancy and advisory organization that is shaping the cities of the future. Prior to his role at Mastercard, Alby served the people of New York as Interim Chief Technology Officer in the Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (MOCTO). He has dedicated his career to building expertise in talent architecture, business strategy, and performance management with a passion for civic tech. Alby spends his time studying future technologies and makes predictions of the impact and implications they’ll have on cities, the people that live in them and the ecosystems that will need to be developed to ensure that all can benefit. As an advisor and consultant, he shapes strategies, governance models and facilitates engagements focused on delivering a better tomorrow for people. Alby also lends his expertise as an Advisory Board Member on Digital Twins to the World Economic Forum.

Find out more about Alby through these links:

• Alby Bocanegra on LinkedIn;
• @albybocanegra as Alby Bocanegra on X;
• The Urban Futurist Inc. on LinkedIn;
• Alby Bocanegra at the Charter Cities Institute;
• Alby Bocanegra at the Word Urban Forum;
• Alby Bocanegra at the Smart Cities Coucil;
• Urban Futurism for Smarter Cities podcast with Alby Bocanegra;

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.015 - Interview with Luke Housego about data and knowledge;
• No.126 - Interview with Corey Gray about beauty as a feature for sustainability;
• No.183R - 24-hour cities network;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠@WTF4Cities⁠ or on the ⁠wtf4cities.com⁠ website where the ⁠shownotes⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠Lesfm ⁠from ⁠Pixabay

Interview with Dr Kirsten Day, an architect and lecturer at the University of Melbourne. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, neuro diversity, quality of places, and many more. 

Dr Kirsten Day lectures in Architecture at the University of Melbourne in Architectural, Practice, Applied Design Thinking, Contemporary Architectural Archives, and Thesis Design Studio. She is also the Senior Academic Advisor for the Bachelor of Design program. Her publications, workshops, and studios explore themes of future scenarios and the impact of change on the architectural profession and the human condition. She was an invited speaker on the subject Future Design | Future Melbourne as part of Melbourne Design Week for the Design Institute of Australia and involved with design and futures projects for Melbourne Knowledge Week since 2018. She organised the international Conference Future Housing: Global issues regional problems at Swinburne in 2016 with Architecture Media Politics Society as part of the Housing Critical Futures conference series.

Kirsten is a Chief Investigator on the ARC LIEF project LE220100057 The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access. Other research projects include Work-life in Wodonga: Co-design workshops for housing and work opportunities with people with disabilities in regional Victoria, (2022) funded by Melbourne Disability Institute at The University of Melbourne. Kirsten is Chair of the Education Committee for the Victorian Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects, and an examiner for the Architects Registration Board (Victoria). She is registered as a practicing architect and director of Norman Day + Associates Architects with over 20 years of experience in the profession. Prior to joining Melbourne, she was Course Director of Interior Architecture at Swinburne. Kirsten is also a member of The Architects Lobby and a member of the TAL Academic Caucus.

You can find out more about Kirsten through these links:

• Kirsten Day on LinkedIn
• @kirkday333 as Kirsten Day on Twitter
• Kirsten Day on FindAnExpert at The University of Melbourne
• Kirsten Day at Melbourne School of Design of The University of Melbourne
• Kirsten Day website
• Norman Day + Associates website
• Design & Architecture with Kirsten Day episode of Career Perspectives with Palladians podcast
• Future Design | Future Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria
• Melbourne Knowledge Week website

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay 

Are you interested in space colonisation?

Summary of the article titled Space colonization: A study of supply and demand from 2011 by Dr. Dana Andrews, Gordon R. Woodcock, and Brian Bloudek, presented at the 62nd International Astronautical Congress.

This is a great preparation to our next panel conversation with Dr Anders Sandberg, Xavier de Kestelier, and Thomas Gooch in episode 250 talking about space cities and their different aspects.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how space colonization and thus space cities can be approached from the supply and demand perspective. This article looks at the fundamental economics of people working (and playing) in space, and shows scenarios that should result in successful colonies on the moon.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. The development of lunar colonies is a natural progression, beginning with tele-operated mining and evolving into human presence as the need for maintenance and oversight grows.
2. Lunar mining offers a solution to Earth's dwindling metal resources, with the Moon's vast reserves becoming economically viable as terrestrial supplies run low.
3. Achieving affordable space access through reusable launch systems and infrastructure like Tether Upper Stages (TUS) and Space Operations Centers (SOC) is crucial for successful lunar operations.

You can find the article through this link.

Abstract: This paper steps back and looks at the fundamental economics of people working (and playing) in space, and shows scenarios that should result in successful colonies on the moon. The basic premise is the ever increasing cost of industrial metals necessary to generate renewable energy for a growing world population, and the relative abundance of those same metals on the near side of the moon. There is a crossover point, relatively soon, where it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly to mine the moon instead of the increasingly poor ores remaining on earth. At that point government and industry can form a partnership much like The Railroad Act of 1862 to incentivise construction of the transportation infrastructure and lunar mining equipment. The economics say the initial mining equipment will be tele-operated from earth, but over time the requirement for human maintenance and repair seems inescapable. We foresee a government presence on the moon almost from the start of the prospector phase to enhance safety and insure law and order, and those initial bases will eventually grow into towns and colonies.

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.214 - Interview with Anders Sandberg about space colonisation
• No.233R - Platinum group metals extraction from asteroids vs Earth
• No.234 - Interview with Tenzin Crouch about space robotics

You can find the transcript through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠showno⁠t⁠es⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

"What we can't do is be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and expect [climate change] to go away."

Are you interested in carbon capture technologies? What do you think about the opportunities within our collaborations? How can we shake off our boiling frog nature?

Interview with Beth McDaniel, president Reactive Surface Partners at McDaniel and Associates. We talk about her vision for the future of cities, carbon capture, space cities, innovation, urban collaboration, and many more.

Beth McDaniel received her BBA in finance from the University of Texas in 1988, and JD in law from South Texas College of Law in 1996. She has been with Reactive Surfaces since 2006, both as a director/advisor and officer of the company. Beth has 25 years of business experience and 17 years of legal experience with an emphasis on contracts, licensing and business operations. Mrs. McDaniel serves as President and Chief of Administration for Reactive Surfaces, an innovation company in the paint and coatings industry.

Find out more about Beth through these links:

• Beth McDaniel on LinkedIn;
• as Beth McDaniel on X;
• Reactive Surfaces website;
• Reactive Surfaces on LinkedIn;
• @team_rsl_ as Reactive Surfaces on X;
• Beth McDaniel on the Innovation is inspired creativity podcast;
• Beth McDaniel on the Planet Protectors Podcast

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.212 - Interview with Jonathan Reichental about party in the 20th century
• No.222 - Interview with Adam Dorr about technological advancements
• No.250 - Space Cities Panel discussion
• No.275R - Trends in research and development for CO2 capture and sequestration

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠

Trailer for episode 174 - the interview with Aapo Huovila, senior scientist at Technical Research Centre of Finland. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, keeping urban specifics, climate change, city as the place of real change, and many more.

Find out more in the interview!

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

Are you interested in technology which enhances urban food production? What do you think about the world as a city on its own? How can we be responsible for everything we use?

Trailer for episode 278 - interview with Nadun Hennayaka, founder and CEO of Gaia Project Australia. We talk about his vision for the future of cities, adaptability, faith in humanity, hope, and many more.

Find out more in the ⁠episode⁠.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Interview with Milan Janosov, Ph.D., the Chief Data Scientist at Datapolis and network and data science researcher at the Central European University. We will talk about his vision for the future of cities, network science and complexity research, the different layers of a city, and many more. 

With a background in physics and biophysics, Milan earned my PhD in network and data science in 2020. He studied and researched at the Eötvös Loránd University and the Central European University in Budapest, at the Barabási Lab in Boston, and the Bell Labs in Cambridge. Milan is an alumni at Eötvös Collegium, belongs to Forbes 30u30 club, and has NFT contributions on SuperRare. Milan is currently the chief data scientist of Datapolis, a research affiliate at the Central European University, a senior data scientist at Maven7, and a data science expert of the European Commission. He was awarded the Scholarship of the Republic of Hungary three times, won multiple prizes at science competitions, presented my work in peer-reviewed journals and conferences from Scientific Reports to MIT. His work has been featured in Nature Social Science Research, GQ, Times Higher Education, New Scientist, New York Times, TechXplore, The Economic Times, Futurism, Phys.org, and more.

You can find out more about Milan through these links:

• Milan Janosov on LinkedIn;
• @milan_janosov as Milan Janosov on Twitter;
• Milan Janosov website;
• Datapolis website;

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on twitter @WTF4Cities!

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay 

Are you interested in sustainable solutions but unsure about their economic benefits? 

Summary of the article titled The costs ad benefits of environmental sustainability from 2021 by Paul Ekins and Dimitri Zenghelis, published in the Sustainability Science journal. 

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see how the sustainable solutions compare to their financial investments. This article presents that no conventional cost-benefit analysis is appropriate in this case because it can understate the longterm benefits of sustainable solutions.

As the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Starting early by credibly steering expectations, inducing innovation and directing investment is in all cases better than delay because ‘grow now and clean up later’ is the second highest cost option, only the existential costs of never cleaning up are higher.
2. There are three broad environmental strategies to deliver sustainable economies: decarbonisation to reduce the level of global warming, detoxification to reduce the emissions or impacts of other pollutants, and dematerialisation to reduce the environmental impacts associated with resource extraction, conversion, and processing.
3. A cost-effective low-carbon, resource-efficient transition can generate a cleaner, quieter, more secure, innovative, and productive economy for all countries at all stages of development.

You can find the article through this link.

You can find the transcript through this link.

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter @WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the shownotes are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by Lesfm from Pixabay

"Children are the future, but they are also current."

Are you interested in involving the young generation into decision-making? What do you think about meaningful involvement? How can we differentiate between consultation, collaboration and children-led projects?

Interview with Dr Tiffany Williams, an action-focused public health professional. We will talk about her vision for the future of cities, the citizens’ role in the city, the importance of children for visioning, transparency in engagement, and many more.

Tiffany Williams is a PhD-qualified, action-focused public health professional who thrives on complexity and collaboration. She has over a decade of experience in community-based projects aiming to improve wellbeing, with a special interest in the intersection of health and local environments. Diverse work and volunteer pursuits have taken her on an incredible journey through remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of Australia, to the outer islands of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, and now Aotearoa New Zealand. Naturally, this places equity, empathy, and strengths-based approaches at the heart of everything she does. Her PhD research focused on actualising children's ideas for health-promoting neighbourhoods from co-design — so she knows a thing or two about facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration, engaging diverse groups, and bringing great ideas to life. Beyond her professional life, she loves hiking, yoga, surfing and travel, embracing an active outdoor lifestyle that reflects her values and energises her for the work she loves.

Find out more about Tiff through these links:

• Dr Tiffany Williams on LinkedIn
• @TiffWill_tweets as Dr Tiffany Williams on X
• Impactful co-design: Adult decision-makers' perspectives on actualising children's ideas for health-promoting neighbourhoods in Aotearoa New Zealand - article by Tiffany Williams, Kim Ward, Deborah Goodwin, Melody Smith

Connecting episodes you might be interested in:

• No.114 - Interview with Kelly Boucher about engaging children about the built environment
• No.252 - Interview with Allison Duettmann about the city influencing one's behaviour
• No.267R - Actualising children’s ideas for health-promoting neighbourhoods through impactful co-design: insights from children and adult decision-makers

What wast the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Let me know on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WTF4Cities⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or on the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠wtf4cities.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ website where the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠shownotes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are also available.

I hope this was an interesting episode for you and thanks for tuning in.

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Lesfm ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠