Image: © Wendy Murray 'Take your city back'   COVID-19 is altering city experiences and spaces. As cities respond, the contours of post-pandemic cities are also being altered, for better or worse. This podcast brings together  a group of leading Sydney-based urbanists to start a conversation about what cities will look like post-COVID, and how... Continue Reading →

Welcome to City Road's 50th episode! To celebrate we've invited the very first guest of the show, Professor Nicole Gurran, back to talk about how we started City Road, our first episode on Airbnb and Cities and Nicole's current work on Informal Housing. We also talk about some other fun facts about City Road and... Continue Reading →

Who owns London? In recent decades, London has fallen into the hands of the super-rich. It is today the essential “World City” for High-Net-Worth Individuals and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals. Compared to New York or Tokyo, the two cities that bear the closest comparison, it has the largest number of wealthy people per head of population. Taken... Continue Reading →

Doomsday peppers consider the COVID-19 pandemic a 'mid-level' event that they are well-prepared for. We're talking with Bradley Garrett about Doomsday peppers, underground bunkers and COVID-19. Doomsday prepping is the practice of anticipating and adapting to an imagined impending crisis, ranging from low level crises to extinction-level events "The inability to know which disaster is... Continue Reading →

What's it like to live in a city as a global pandemic takes hold? In this episode we use Eugene McCann's four dialectical tensions to understand the CONVID-19 city: i) invisibility and visibility; ii) privilege and privation; iii) selfishness and solidarity; and iv) absence and presence. What’s the role of ‘academic experts’ in the debate... Continue Reading →

Singapore is air-conditioning the inside and outside of buildings. This is about comfort and convenience, but it might also be about human survival. In this talk with Dallas Rogers, Professor Simon Marvin outlines the scope and potential importance of a new agenda around urban climate control and urban weather modification, which he calls the 'new... Continue Reading →

Dreaming with Architectural models. In this episode we talk to Matthew Mindrup about his new book, which provides an intriguing narrative of discovery about the practical and cultural factors motivating the development of the architectural model’s different uses. "Painters make paintings, poets make poetry and musicians make music, but architects do not make architecture."  Dr... Continue Reading →

How do urban planners regulate the sex industries in our cities? The sex industries - from sex work to porn production - are often perceived and therefore regulated as unsuitable businesses for the high streets and residential neighbourhoods of cities. We talk with Associate Professor Paul Maginn about the role the planning system plays in... Continue Reading →

What can urban alliances and community organising teach us about building political unity across difference in cities? The 'progressive dilemma' is an apparent problem for contemporary left politics and our two guests have very different takes on the issue, and how it relates to urban politics. Our first guest is professor of politics from the... Continue Reading →