The Life-Sized City Urbanism Podcast

In Episode 21 of the Life-Sized City podcast, Mikael Colville-Andersen engages his friend Bianca Hermansen - Danish architect, urbanist and thinker - in the idea of The Erotic City from an urbanist perspective. Eroticism, sensuality and intimacy are incredibly human needs but how does urban design allow them to thrive and flourish? To what extent does our urban fabric allow the sensory lines to become blurred and encourage sharing intimate moments with strangers? What aspects of a sensual...

Pinar Pinzuti is a cycling advocate based in Milan. A veritable powerhouse of spreading the word about the importance of reestablishing the bicycle as transport in our cities. Pinar started the Fancy Women Bike Ride in Izmir, Turkey in 2013 and, in 2021, there were 150 rides in thirty countries. In this conversation with Mikael, Pinar discusses the idea behind her Fancy Women Bike Ride and the importance of empowering women through positive advocacy. They discuss Mikael’s Cycle Chic...

Episode 19: What is slow, life-sized travel? On a visit to an off-the-grid tiny house in the Helsinki archipelago, Mikael discusses the idea with his friend, Carl Honoré. Carl is an author, broadcaster and the man who started the global Slow Movement. While Mikael has been thinking about Life-sized Travel for years, Carl has also been playing around with his concept of Slow Travel. They started planning a tv series about their shared visions for the future of travel and, in this candid...

Mikael interviews the Chief Design Officer for Helsinki, Hanna Harris. Not many cities have a Chief Design Officer. Helsinki was the first city in the world to create the position back in 2016. The question shouldn’t be “should we get a CDO in our city” but rather “why don’t we have one already?!” In Ep 15, Mikael interviews Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anni Sinnemäki. Check it out. Mikael talks to Hanna about what her visions are for the city, how she works with the municipality and what...

Mikael meets up with his friend, Danish architect, urbanist and thinker, Bianca Hermansen again. This time to talk long and hard about the importance of urban greenery. They cover... brace yourself… - How urban greenery is patriarchal - and based on outdated policies dictated by men so walking around a city with pollen allergies is basically having non-consensual sperm in your face all day long - How urban trees are stunted in their growth - basically maimed - like the Chinese jar babies in...

Mikael has a conversation with his friend and colleague Bianca Hermansen - Danish architect and urban planner - about the oft used phrase “Democratic Design”. What it is supposed to mean and whether or not we’re anywhere close to actually doing it properly. They’re not optimistic. Urban design and planning are falling even farther behind despite the intensifying need for designing cities for everyone in them - not just the cis, car-driving male demographic. Bianca’s research shows that 72%...

Mikael interviews Deputy Mayor of Helsinki, Anni Sinnemäki. She is basically the politician you wish you could vote for in your city. They had an all-round conversation about her visions for where Helsinki is headed. Carbon neutrality, a zero carbon future, energy transition, the folly of biomass, the ridiculousness of e-scooters, cycling design, marketing, leadership, inspiration from other cities and a whole bunch more.

Mikael discusses the state of the urban cycling nation in Paris with urban designer and mobility consultant Romain Loubiére while sitting on the canal in the spring sunshine on Canal Saint-Martin. They talk about how to tackle the all-dominant traffic engineering culture, the necessity of human observation in traffic planning, Paris’ investment in sub-standard design, who all the new cyclists in Paris are, the new car-light streets around Canal Saint Martin and how Paris - luckily - didn’t...

We've spent outrageous amounts of time and money trying to engineer the weather out of our lives. We suffer from Climaphobia - not a phobia of extreme weather - just the regular stuff that happens outside your home wherever you may live. Changing peoples' perception is the greatest challenge facing our work to modernise our cities. Understanding what we're up against is important. Showing before telling is key. Effective communication is vital. Mikael Colville-Andersen's website:...

Mikael reads aloud from the 1973 essay, The Social Ideology of the Motorcar, by French-Austrian philosopher André Gorz. It is a seminal work that is just as relevant today as it was back then and it has been a big influence on Mikael's work in urbanism.

Mikael has a conversation with Canadian writer and thinker, Carl Honoré, about the Slow Movement, ageing, the COVID19 pandemic and how it all relates to urbanism. You can watch the video of this conversation on the Life-Sized City youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUPJzUyEFmo&ab_channel=TheLife-SizedCity

Mikael reads aloud from the Bicycle Urbanism by Design chapter in his book “Copenhagenize - the definitive guide to global bicycle urbanism” - available wherever you buy your books. Using Design Thinking and basic design principles to improve our streets and our cities is paramount - and far more effective than the tired, old-fashioned profession of traffic engineering or even planning. Designing a city for humans should involve the same process as designing a chair or a smartphone. It’s...

I’ve never been a fan of tall buildings. On a visit to Vancouver, I needed someone to convince me that they aren’t inherently bad. The most obvious choice is my friend Brent Toderian, urban planner and former Chief Planner for the City of Vancouver. We spoke in the Olympic Village - one of the projects Brent is most proud of - about the urban development in Vancouver. He tells me what Vancouver learned from the world and - more importantly - what the world can learn from Vancouver. I learn...

In the race for property development and profit for the few, Beirut is losing its archaeological legacy. The oligarchy has teamed up with developers, investors and even starchitects like Jean Nouvel, Rafael Moneo and Renzo Piano, to design a future that doesn’t include the past. Without any accountability. Archaeological ruins in one of the oldest cities in the world are not protected and are bulldozed daily as new condos are erected at an alarming rate. History is disappearing off the face...

When Beirut emerged from a brutal civil war, it was time to rebuild. Instead of rebuilding for the people, the city was, in effect, privatized, allowing rampant capitalism and cronyism to trump urbanism and the citizens. This is an urban tale about Beirut but it’s a cautionary tale about warlords wearing suits, an oligarchy and rampant developers teaming up to exploit a fragmented system after having basically designed it themselves. I interview journalist Habib Battah - one of the strongest...

The importance of having a rich green canopy in a city is well-documented. Trees are vital to urban living for so many reasons. Copenhagen’s brand as a “green” city is, in many ways, deserved. But you might be surprised to learn that fancy-schmancy Copenhagen lags far behind many other cities in having a modern tree policy and the municipality does little to protect what trees it has left. Don't believe the hype. I interview the passionate activist, Sandra Høj, who started Save The Urban...

Belina Raffy is on a mission to make climate change… funnier. She teaches Sustainable Stand-up, in order to enable people to be able to talk about the serious topic of climate change with humour, in order to more effectively engage our citizens and encourage behaviour change. We’ve been friends for a few year so our conversation about her amazing work is peppered with goofing around. We’ll talk about failed advocacy techniques, angry Australians, making vegans nicer, whataboutism and how to...

With the global narrative about climate change being so dark and dismal for so long, it is increasingly difficult to call our citizens to action. But what if we looked at it differently and put a positive spin on the importance of fighting it, as well as finally realizing that cities are the key? Canadian author Chris Turner is the person I know who is most well-versed in sustainability, energy transition and climate change adaptation. We had a passionate talk in Copenhagen about the...

Now called The Life-Sized City podcast. One of the narratives that fascinates us the most is urban revival. A city seemingly down for the count starts the process of rebuilding, rebooting and healing and we grab the popcorn. The underdog story is universally cherished. Mikael explores this narrative in three different cities: Detroit, Medellin, Colombia and Turin, Italy. You can construct and design an urban revival narrative like in Detroit. You can starve it, like what is happening in...

Now called The Life-Sized City podcast. The massive gender challenges facing skateboarding are mirrored in many other cultures and sports. How can skateboarding - a traditionally male-dominated culture - diversify to include a strong female presence? What are the hurdles and what would the benefits be? This short, unplugged episode is an extended addendum to the previous episode about skateboard urbanism. I interview Gustav Svanborg Edén - skateboarding coordinator for the City of Malmö....