WRLDCTY

Few downtowns have had their post-pandemic struggles examined as closely — or declared dead as confidently — as San Francisco. The city was particularly exposed to the structural changes reshaping downtowns everywhere: remote and hybrid work, high office vacancy, declining transit ridership, housing affordability, public safety and visible vulnerability on the street.  Now, San Francisco is doubli...

Every year, more than 70,000 people gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to build a city from nothing.  Roads are laid out. Neighborhoods emerge. Public spaces come alive. Art rises from the dust (and rain). People cook, teach, perform, care for one another, and create the culture of the city itself. Then, just a few weeks later, it all disappears. In this episode of the WRLDCTY Podcast, we explor...

In 2018, Cape Town came within months of Day Zero; the potential of running out of water. What followed was one of the most remarkable collective responses to an urban crisis: water use was cut by almost half, the taps stayed on, and the experience permanently changed how the City thinks about risk, trust and preparedness. It turned Cape Town into a city with Futures-Thinking at its core. In our l...

In this episode of the WRLDCTY Podcast, we explore Tokyo through the work of PYNT , Nikken Sekkei's collective innovation platform - a social space where designers, researchers, and community builders are experimenting with new ways of bringing people together and rethinking the city.  To do so, we are honoured to welcome Junko Iwaya and Yuki Tatano of Nikken Sekkei.

In this episode, we sit down with Paul van Zyl, co-founder and CEO of The Conduit: a purpose-driven members' community bringing together leaders tackling the world's biggest challenges. Together, we explore how cities create the conditions for collaboration, why physical gathering spaces matter more than ever, and how London continues to reinvent itself through bold leadership on air quality, clim...

In this episode, we hear from longtime WRLDCTY friend and Global Fellow Emiliano Espasandin about the "perfectly imperfect" nature of Buenos Aires, a city with a sidewalk-level culture of cafes, retail, food, dance, and community that shows how powerful a city's intangibles can be. In Emiliano's words, the lack of "asking permission" and the belief that anything is possible is what makes Buenos Ai...

This episode explores Medellín beyond the familiar “miracle city” narrative. Through the perspective of Alejandro Echeverri, who was a driving force behind many of the city’s foundational projects, we examine the deeper ambitions and tensions behind Medellín’s transformation: dignity, trust, equity, mobility, public investment, and the long-term evolution of social urbanism.

We are honoured to feature Fulco Treffers, co-founder, Ro3kvit as our guest in this week’s podcast. For many outside Ukraine, the country's cities exist largely through headlines. Yet speaking with Fulco, a different picture emerged. Across Ukraine, questions of identity have moved from the margins to the centre of civic life.  Cultural institutions are re-examining history.  Communities are redis...

There are few cities more admired by urbanists than Singapore. Yet for all the attention paid to its infrastructure and institutions, there is another story unfolding in Singapore: one that is becoming increasingly relevant to cities everywhere. It is a story about what happens after dark. WRLDCTY welcomes our first guest in this new series where we explore world cities through the lens of one one...