Urban studies, territory and technology

The city, explained

The width of your pavement, the height of the building opposite and what you pay in rent were all decided by somebody. Here you find out who, on what criteria and at whose expense.

Browse by topic Watch the channel ↗

Browse by topic

Housing

Land prices, rent and gentrification.
93 videos
Streets & mobility

How the width of the street is shared between those passing through and those staying put.
79 videos
Urban form

Why the city has the shape it has.
35 videos
Climate & nature

Heat, water, flooding and green.
46 videos
Technology & power

Who programs the city, and with whose data.
61 videos
Thinkers

From Lefebvre to Sassen: who thought the city, and what exactly they said.
93 thinkers

Most watched

Public space
Henri Lefebvre: urban space as a social product

Henri Lefebvre showed that urban space is not a neutral setting: it is socially produced, and whoever produces it…

Henri Lefebvre 3 min read
Public space
Tactical urbanism: testing the city before building it

Tactical urbanism tests plazas, bike lanes and pop-up gardens to find out what works on the street before it is…

Anthony Garcia 2 min read
Urban geopolitics
Saskia Sassen: what makes a global city global

New York, London and Tokyo concentrate capital, information and decisions. Saskia Sassen explains what links them…

Saskia Sassen 2 min read
Public space
Jane Jacobs: the street as the engine of the city

Jane Jacobs showed in 1961 that mixed uses, density and active streets keep a neighbourhood safe better than any…

Robert Moses 2 min read

No city is an accident.
Every pavement, every height limit and every rent is the result of a decision somebody made and almost never explained.

Latest

Urban geopolitics
How do cities intertwine in a globalized world?

A bus stop brings together strangers, a screen, cables, vehicles, noise and expectations for a few minutes. None of…

Ash Amin 3 min read
Urban form
Learn how invisible borders define life in the neighborhoods

Two people pass each other on a street and take only seconds to decide how to behave. A glance can communicate…

Elijah Anderson 3 min read
Urban AI
Michael Batty: How Models Reveal the Hidden Essence of Cities

Michael Batty explains the city as a complex system emerging from millions of decisions: fractals, scaling laws,…

Michael Batty 3 min read
Infrastructure
Brian Berry: Cities as an Invisible System of Connections

Brian J. L. Berry showed that cities form systems ranked by flows of goods, people and information: central places,…

David Harvey 3 min read
Urban history
Christine Boyer: How the City Turns Memory into a Tool of Power

M. Christine Boyer shows in The City of Collective Memory that heritage and urban images are selected and…

Battery Park City 3 min read
Urban geopolitics
Neil Brenner: Global Urbanization Goes Beyond City Borders

Neil Brenner argues that urbanization does not fit administrative boundaries: scale, state restructuring, extended…

Michael Storper 3 min read
Surveillance / data
Urbanized Fear: Security, Segregation and Resistance in the City

Teresa Caldeira explains how fear designs the city: the talk of crime, fortified enclaves in São Paulo, the paradox…

Teresa Caldeira 3 min read
Urban economy
Castells: From Collective Consumption to the Space of Flows

Manuel Castells's urban thought moved from collective consumption and urban social movements to the network society…

Manuel Castells 3 min read