Cityspeak
Cityspeak features the visionaries who are designing, building, and reimagining cities as we know them today. From the shimmering skyscrapers of Hong Kong to the stuccoed bungalows of Los Angeles, cities across the globe develop through a familiar pattern. Like the cell cycle of an organism, buildings are constructed, demolished, and reconstructed in a chaotic choreography performed to the rhythm of each city. Join host Max Masuda-Farkas as he interviews the people shaping the cities we love, right down to the parcel, block, and neighborhood. Follow Cityspeak on Twitter @cityspeak_pod.
Episodes
33 episodes
Marwa Al-Sabouni: The Architecture of Peace
Marwa Al-Sabouni is an architect born, raised, and presently living in Syria. Despite the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, Al-Sabouni chose to remain in her home country, a decision which has shaped her philosophy as an architect.Al-S...
•
24:24
Brad Hargreaves: The Co-Living Movement
Living with roommates is no longer a lifestyle reserved for college students.In the last five years, as many as one in five individuals aged 40 and above lives with roommates, depending on the location.Capitalizing on this trend...
•
19:04
Emily Hamilton: Inclusionary Zoning and Its Exclusionary Effects
Inclusionary zoning is a policy born of good intentions.On its face, inclusionary zoning policies mandate that real estate developers allocate a certain percentage of new residential units to affordable housing. But do these policies ac...
•
18:36
Viggy Ganapathy: If R2-D2 Delivered Pizza
Famed urbanist Jane Jacobs once compared the city sidewalk to a ballet, calling it a "complex order...always replete with new improvisations." Soon, this ballet will feature a new dancer: robots.Viggy Ganapathy is the head of government...
•
20:20
Alex Israel: The Shape of Parking to Come
Alex Israel is the CEO and founder of Metropolis, a mobility technology company that has set its sights on the one of the largest, but frequently overlooked fixtures of the modern city: parking.
•
16:28
Dylan Casey: Suing Cities for Housing
What does one do when cities stop permitting housing? Sue them. Dylan Casey is the Executive Director of the California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund, an organization that has set out to compel cities through legal action to permit ...
•
25:11
Anne-Claire Binter: Urban Design and Child Cognitive Health
Any parent knows that it is during a child's earliest years that one ought to be the most careful. What they eat, what they watch, even what they listen to are all factors known to have an effect on a child's development. Now, according to a ne...
•
19:20
Jordan Justus: Decongesting the Curb
The rise of e-commerce and on-demand delivery has jammed up the curbside with delivery vehicles. Frequently, these vehicles are left double-parked as their drivers race to drop off everything from large packages to personal-size pizzas. Jordan ...
•
27:30
Bjarke Ingels, Roni Bahar, Nick Chim: Homes Should Be Products, Too
How to solve as stubborn a problem as housing affordability? Perhaps start by putting an entrepreneur, a technologist, and a world-famous architect in the same room. Bjarke Ingels, Roni Bahar, and Nick Chim talk about their latest venture Nabr,...
•
30:16
Ritu Narayan: Upgrading the Yellow School Bus
The design of school buses in the U.S. has remained mostly unchanged for decades, yet school buses make up the largest public transportation system in the country, moving 27 million children every day. Hear from Ritu Narayan, the founder and CE...
•
23:00
Joel Klein: Why Public School Is the Best Place to Learn from Others (Especially in NYC)
Joel Klein graduated from public high school in Queens in 1963. Nearly 40 years later, he was appointed Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Tune in for the former Chancellor's views on public education in the nation's bigge...
•
22:31
Bert Kaufman: Make Way for the Self-Driving Cars
Bert Kaufman is the head of corporate and regulatory affairs at Zoox, the autonomous vehicle arm of Amazon. He discusses what's in store for cities when self-driving cars eventually roam the earth.
•
22:51
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy: Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Infrastructure
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was part of a coterie of ten Senators largely responsible for getting the $1 trillion infrastructure package to the President's desk. In this special edition of Cityspeak, he discusses the importance of in...
•
12:41
Sheila Foster: A Fresh Approach to Urban Governance
Professor Sheila Foster is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Urban Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center, where she researches and lectures on environmental law and justice, urban land use law and policy, and state and local gover...
•
30:52
William Butler-Adams: How the Brompton Bicycle Redefined City Living
Will Butler-Adams is the CEO of Brompton Bicycle, the manufacturer of the world-renowned Brompton folding bike. The Brompton is beloved by urban cyclists around the world and is for many the embodiment of city living.
•
24:34
Vince Bertoni: How to Plan the City of Angels
In the season finale of CitySpeak, Los Angeles City Planning Director Vince Bertoni shares some of the joys and challenges of running one of the largest urban planning organizations in the nation.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 7
•
30:14
Yan Krymsky: Gas Stations in the Age of Electric Vehicles
With nearly 600 gas stations dotting the Los Angeles landscape, the rise of the electric vehicle presents an opportunity for the city to repurpose a significant portion of its urban fabric. Yan Krymsky, a design director at Perkins&Will, di...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 6
•
26:12
Eric Jaffe: Sidewalk Labs and Its Vision for Urban Innovation
Eric Jaffe is the Editorial Director at Sidewalk Labs, an urban innovation company with a plan to tackle sustainability and affordability in cities around the world. Eric joins Max to highlight some of the company’s revolutionary technologies.
•
Season 3
•
Episode 5
•
23:09
Ken Steif: Data and Decision-Making in the Public Sector
Ken Steif is a data scientist, city planner, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, where he leads the school’s Master of Urban Spatial Analytics program. In his new book Public Policy Analytics, he ...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 4
•
30:31
Saskia Sassen: The City’s Sociologist
Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University where she researches globalization and migration in the context of global cities, a term which she coined in her 1991 book of the same name. Professor Sassen look...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 3
•
22:45
Tyler Duvall: Roads Become Autonomous
Tyler Duvall is the CEO of Cavnue, a company that is designing and building roads optimized for autonomous vehicles. He joins Max to answer a central question: What will the infrastructure of the future look like?
•
Season 3
•
Episode 2
•
22:25
Carlo Ratti: Where the Digital and Physical Worlds Collide
In the season premiere of CitySpeak, Max Masuda-Farkas is joined by engineer, architect, and inventor Carlo Ratti. Ratti is the head of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, where he leads a team of researchers designing technologies for the cities of tomo...
•
Season 3
•
Episode 1
•
23:18
Karin Liljegren: Restoring the Past Through Adaptive Reuse Architecture
Karin Liljegren is the founder and principal of Omgivning, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in taking old buildings and giving them a new life. This practice is known as adaptive reuse architecture, and a quick glance a...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 6
•
25:29
Jonathan Lee: Mortgage Banking and Lending During the Pandemic
Jonathan Lee is a Principal and Managing Director of George Smith Partners, a national provider of capital market services to the commercial real estate industry. Jonathan joins Max to discuss the impacts that the pandemic has had on real estat...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 5
•
23:33
Samantha Millman: The L.A. City Planning Commission, Where Developers and Neighbors Square Off
Samantha Millman is the President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, the central forum for members of the public to voice their opinions on the real estate development projects under consideration in their city. Tensions run high at t...
•
Season 2
•
Episode 4
•
21:00