A Lot You Got to Holler

For A Lot You Got to Holler’s first-ever live podcast, we shined a light on the most hidden and obscured element of urbanism that’s changing how we interact with cities in every way: data. Invisible streams of 1’s and 0’s pour out of our transit systems, buildings, and utility infrastructure, and into our smartphones, giving us a more dynamic look at what’s happening in our environment second-by-second.

Hosts Zach Mortice and Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman are joined by Chicago’s own data czar, John Tolva, former City of Chicago Chief Technology Officer and President of Postive Energy Practice, on his last night in town before he moves to Denver with his family. With a crowd of design-lovers at The Chicago Design Museum, Tolva gives his pitch for why we need sensors clipped onto Divvy bikes, and why the snowplow tracker is the city’s most popular website, all before he absconds to the Rockies in a U-Haul full of Chicago’s data! Sponsored by The Chicago Design Museum and MAS Context. Special thanks to recording engineer Tim Joyce.

The A Lot You Got to Holler Cavalcade of Firsts continues, when co-hosts Zach Mortice and Ben Schulman sit down with Ernie Wong of Site Design Group--the show's first ever landscape architect guest! On the agenda: shared streets in Uptown, Chicago's many, many basket-case ruins and slag pits, and an oft-overlooked question: Is shutting down the Dan Ryan and setting prairie grasses in its median on fire a good idea, or the greatest idea? The answer will shock you! Special thanks to recording engineer Tim Joyce.

Architecture is concert halls, museums, theaters, and all of our temples of high culture. But it's also train stations, sewer drains, and the seemingly anonymous infrastructure that makes the city work. Few architects understand how to elevate this everyday machinery of urbanism as well as Chicago's own Carol Ross Barney. She chats with Newcity design editor Ben Schulman and architectural journalist Zach Mortice about the Chicago Riverwalk, the 606, the CTA, and the future of Chicago. Special thanks to recording studio engineer Tim Joyce. Please rate and review us on iTunes!

The neighborhood of Pullman on Chicago's far South Side is a crucible of architectural, labor, industrial, and civil rights history. It's also a national monument, with big plans for renovation and redevelopment on the horizon. Commissioned by railroad magnate George Pullman in 1880 and designed by Solon Beman, Pullman was an idyllic workers utopia. . . for a few years, until a strike sparked what became the modern labor movement. Pullman and his architect looked to design and city planning to raise his bottom line and banish labor unrest from his company. It didn't work, but the result is one of Chicago's most singular neighborhoods.

On hand to talk hosts Zach Mortice and Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman through the next chapter of Pullman's history is Mike Shymanski, President of the Historic Pullman Foundation, and Richard Wilson, City Design Director for Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and project lead for the Positioning Pullman campaign. Special thanks to recording studio engineer Tim Joyce.