Cities Reimagined

In August 2025, Johannes sat down with Caroline Paulick-Thiel and Indy Johar deep in the Austrian Alps. During the European Forum Alpbach they discussed nothing less than the future of European (urban) civilisation. Looking for a way to make sense of the daily news, current geopolitical shifts, climate catastrophe, and general what feels like insanity around the world? Then, this is an episode you...

If you have ever been to Bruges, or seen it in films or photos, chances are you have noticed at least one of the following: canals, swans, water, tourist boats. What often goes unnoticed is that Bruges, and the wider region of Flanders in Belgium, regularly suffers from droughts. In this episode, we meet Astrid Stroobandt from the City of Bruges and Simon Thys from the non-profit organisation Wate...

I have to start with an apology. To the guest of this episode, Kristijan Radojcic. After we had this conversation in a wild hotel room with tacky wallpaper in Wroclaw, Poland, the raw version of the recording was sitting unedited on my notebook for much too long. Finally, I am more than happy to share this episode with you, where Kris takes on a deep dive into his childhood in Slovenia and how a t...

Do you remember the first time you learned how to ride a bike? Chances are that you do, and if you kept on kicking those pedals, you might have some fond memories about the (daily) adventures with your bicycle. But… although biking ticks almost all boxes when it comes to urban sustainability, health, livability, affordability and accessibility, our cities still do not unfold the full potential of...

Urban rewilding is more than planting trees. It’s about reshaping cities by de-sealing land and inviting nature back in. In this episode, we head to Ghent to explore REWILD, a bold project funded by the European Urban Initiative that breaks up concrete, engages residents, and creates space for ecosystems. With Linde Vertriest and Annelies Sevenant, we talk about the barriers and challenges and tou...

Today we go back to the City of Mechelen, to find out how nature is making a comeback in Mechelen’s old town, why that is not only good for house sparrow, eels, and otters but for everyone living and working in the city and how residents are part of the journey for cleaner water, more biodiversity and green in the city. Healthy rivers and rich ecosystems cool our cities, filter our air, and offer...

Have you ever felt how different cities feel, look, and smell at night? How everything is seems to be so different than during the day… having organised punk rock concerts and worked in a club myself during my teenage and student years, I had many touchpoints with the nighttime economy from early on. You might think now of all the clubs and bars… yes, they are part of that, but there is much more...

Almost every city has them - spaces and places that feel like they’re waiting. Waiting to be reawakened, reimagined, and reconnected to the people around them. Too often, though, that reawakening follows a predictable script: maximise economic return, build apartments, squeeze in shops, add a parking lot. Little thought is given to anything beyond profit. That’s exactly why I loved hearing Alenka...

Hi and welcome back to the first episode of season 3 of the Cities Reimagined Podcast. To kick things off, I’m joined by Donagh Horgan — a social designer, researcher, and all-round urban thinker who’s doing some pretty exciting work at the intersection of placemaking and tourism. Donagh is based between Ireland and the Netherlands, where he leads the Urban Leisure & Tourism Lab at Inholland U...

Soon after I started the Cities Reimagined podcast 18 months ago, it became a tool for learning, exchange, and inspiration through deep conversations. Now we’re heading into Season 3. Episodes for season 3 are in full production. Want to find out what’s in store? Tune in to the season trailer to hear more about the upcoming content and why deep conversations with people driving change in cities ar...

Hardly any cities-related university programme gained so much attention over the last 15 years as the 4CITIES Masters in Urban Studies. For good reason. Over the two years, the students study at six universities in four different cities: Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid – with many many occasional visits to other cities in between. 4CITIES is located at the intersection of academia, activis...

Have you ever wondered how to give nature a voice in urban development? The City of Mechelen in Belgium does exactly that while reimagining the connection between water, public spaces, animals, plants and people. In these two episodes of the Cities Reimagined Podcast we zoom in to reshape your understanding of how the interests of more-than-human inhabitants can be taken up in urban transformation...

Water as the Source of Urban Public Space Have you ever wondered how to give nature a voice in urban development? The City of Mechelen in Belgium does exactly that while reimagining the connection between water, public spaces, animals, plants and people. In two episodes of the Cities Reimagined Podcast we zoom in to reshape your understanding of how the interests of more-than-human inhabitants can...

Here it is, the finale of the first season of the Cities Reimagined podcast and it is nothing shy of (plot) twists, secrets coming to light and what is to be expected for the way forward for the show, me personally and for Anthropocene. City : an idea I developed with today’s guest Jonas Bylund which is taking shape. Besides being a good friend and former year-long colleague, Jonas a researcher at...

As the importance of city foods is growing, this episode of Cities Reimagined is all about the transformative potential of healthy and delicious (urban) cuisine We are jumping back and forth between the favelas of the metropolis of Sāo Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷   and the allotment gardens in Leeds, in the UK 🇬🇧 and will explore how cities are redefining their foodscapes for a sustainable future. Today...

This week’s guest on Cities Reimagined is Tiffany Fukuma , Managing Director of Trans Europe Halles , a network of over 160 alternative cultural centres across 40 countries which all have one in common: they reinterpret neglected and underused spaces such as factory and military buildings, commercial spaces, parking lots etc. for grassroots cultural activities. In this episode, we talk about... 🏭...

This week, Cities Reimagined takes us to Peru and Vienna to discuss skateboarding. My guests this week, Christian Fischer and Johannes Wimmeder stayed in Cerrito de le Virgen in northern Peru for a while to work with the NGO Concrete Jungle Foundation . Cerrito de le Virgen is a neighbourhood characterized by displacement and replacement of residents due to extreme weather events and archaeologica...

Hold tight: This episode of Cities Reimagined is PACKED with condensed knowledge on cities and urbanism in (post-war) Ukraine . In a 60 minute conversation with Oleksandr Anisimov , we upack: 🇺🇦 … why the ignorance of NOT knowing about Ukraine(ian urbanism) has to stop 🏙️ … reforming land-use rules and governance modes are essential for rebuilding Ukrainian cities 🧰 … why rebuilding “social citie...

On episode 6 of Cities Reimagined, Gerfried Ambrosch and I talked about the importance of wildlife habitats in urban areas. Besides being very active in reimagining places for amphibians, Gerfried plays and played in a ridicelous amount of punk/hardcore bands since the 1990s and he has some stories to tell. Tune into this bonus episode to find out… 🎸 … how DIY punk rock ethics shapes Gerfried’s a...

I am very happy to have my good friend Gerfried Ambrosch on Cities Reimagined this week. Besides being a really cool person how plays in a ton of cool bands (you need to wait until the end of the show to hear a sample), Gerfried has an amazing track record of doing volunteer work for regenerating and improving the habitats of (sub-) urban wildlife, particularly amphibian populations with some asto...

This week, Cities Reimagined takes us to South Africa to speak to Paul Currie, Director of the urban systems unit at ICLEI Africa . In October 2023, Johannes had the chance to swing by ICLEI Africa’s offices in Cape Town for this conversation on reimagining African urbanism which turned out extremely rich and exciting. Africa is a continent of astounding diversity and rapid urbanization. With a po...

This episode of Cities Reimagined takes us very locally. It takes us deep, deep down into a damp, smelly basement (no joke) of the city I was born in, #Klagenfurt , Austria to explore the role of local journalism for reimagining futures together with Stephan Fugger, an editor for the local RegionalMedien Austria in Carinthia, Austria. Stephan increasingly covers aspects related to soil sealing and...

This episode of the Cities Reimagined podcast is all about urban future(s)… but actually also urban presents. With today’s guests, Jonas Bylund (Researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Josefin Wangel (Senior Research Officer at Formas), both from Stockholm, we will dive into urban utopias, science fiction, safe to fail urbanism, Detroit and much more. Among other things, you will hear...

Whose business is it to shape cities and urban areas and who has the power and resources to reimagine cities? Jim Segers and Sofie van Bruystegem from the Brussels-based NGO CityMine(d) challenge the status quo of who has the right and power to shape urban areas since 1997. In highly co-creative processes, their aim is to engage residents, particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods who are too o...

Reimagining Public Spaces What makes cities urban, you might find asking yourself from time to time. Whatever you find appropriate a definition, it most likely has something to do with urban public spaces. There is no way of not addressing issues around urban public spaces when discussing reimagining cities as they are key to healthy, cities. One of the most motivated people working in urban publi...