City of the Future

The pandemic has forced us to reexamine and reimagine how we use one of our most precious public spaces: our streets. From outdoor dining to expanded bike lanes, cities have been re-designing streets so they can be better shared by all — drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians alike. But could we take this idea even further? What if we could use design and technology to make our streets more flexible? So they could change use according to the season, the week, or even the hour? In our season finale, we explore a future where city streets can do just that — and better respond to all of our needs.

In this episode:

• [0:01 - 6:44] We meet with transit guru Gridlock Sam to talk about the history of political battles over New York City streets and the recent changes in response to Covid
• [6:54 - 11:18] Aspen Director of Parking & Downtown Services Mitch Osur and Coord Head of Policy & Partnerships Dawn Miller explain how data is allowing cities to solve problems like traffic and curb congestion
• [11:43 - 14:40] We visit Sidewalk Labs Senior Creative Technologist Nick Jonas to test out Pebble, a new technology for vehicle occupancy detection
• [16:23 - 23:43] Associate Director of Planning & Delivery Siqi Zhu and Director of Mobility Willa Ng imagine how our streets can adapt to be shared more equitably

To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page.

City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Sam Schwartz, Mitch Osur, Dawn Miller, Nick Jonas, Siqi Zhu, and Willa Ng.

In an era of remote work, when people can work from anywhere, where will they choose to live? And what can cities do to set themselves apart from the competition? In this episode, we look at the ways remote work could change not just the way we live in cities — but which cities we live in, too.

In this episode:

• [0:01 - 4:47] Tulsa Remote community manager Taylor Allen tells her story of moving from Florida to Tulsa, Oklahoma, sight unseen
• [7:09 - 11:00] Professor of Urban Economics Richard Florida on why the future of economic development is about talent
• [12:02 - 14:06] Digital transformation adviser Anett Numa on how Estonia became one of the most digitally enabled countries in the world
• [14:12 - 16:23] Topia Chief Product Officer Sten Tamkivi on what kinds of factors draw people to specific cities
• [16:36 - 18:22] Topia Director of Product Management Chantel Rowe shows Estonia’s digital infrastructure in action — and how it made her move to the country easy
• [19:43 - 22:59] Taylor returns to explain why fostering a sense of community matters in attracting talent

To see images and videos of topics discussed in this episode, read the link-rich transcript on our Sidewalk Talk Medium page.

City of the Future is hosted by Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk, and produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy of Lost Amsterdam. Special thanks to Richard Florida, Anett Numa, Sten Tamkivi, Chantel Rowe, and Taylor Allen.

Hi, City of the Future listeners! Remember when we asked if anyone would like to listen to a pilot of a new podcast? Well good news — that podcast launches today! It’s called the Sidewalk Weekly, and it's a light-hearted chat show that provides your weekly dose of urban tech news. We’ll do interviews, we’ll play games, we’ll make some bad jokes, and hopefully set you off into your weekend smiling.

This is our pilot episode from last week. If you like what you hear, then you can head to the Sidewalk Weekly feed to listen to more episodes. https://sidewalklabs.com/podcast/

We hope you enjoy — and don’t worry — we’ll be back with City of the Future Season 3 this fall.

As you might have heard, Sidewalk Labs became a part of Google at the beginning of 2022. So City of the Future has been on hiatus...BUT I’m still creating podcasts that I think CotF listeners would like. And I’d like to share them with you all!

• Urban Roots. If you enjoyed City of the Future season 4, which was all about equitable development, then you should definitely check out Urban Roots. We not only tell the histories of women and people of color that you probably don’t know, we also draw the throughline from the past to the present, and talk to folks who are doing equitable, preservation-based development that takes those histories into account. Our two-part series on Indianapolis is a great place to start, but we have episodes on Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles, too. Learn more about it by visiting urbanistmedia.org or emailing [email protected].
• Uncertain things. Less for the urbanist than for the person who is seeking to pop their media bubble, my journalist roommate and I created this interview show back in 2020. We purposely seek out academics, writers, journalists, thinkers across the political spectrum — people who actually want to enter into conversation and debate and leave their silos behind. The nice thing about Uncertain things is that I get to talk with whomever I find interesting and insightful, like evolutionary biologist Nicholas Christakis, historian Niall Ferguson, and journalist Caitlin Flanagan. We do sometimes talk to urbanists, too — like Vishaan Chakrabarti, Justin Davidson, and Michael Kimmelman (coming soon). You can subscribe to it at uncertain.substack.com and email us [email protected].

Last two things — I’d love to hear from City of the Future fans! Reach me via vanessaquirk.com. And if you're an urbanism company who would like to hire me for my podcasting/comms expertise, reach out! Again, at vanessaquirk.com

I hope you all have a very happy, safe holiday season. Hopefully I’ll be seeing you — in the future!

Getting around cities today can be challenging. Streets are congested and chaotic, and new modes seem to be popping up daily, adding to the confusion. Cities won't just need physical infrastructure to prepare for these growing mobility options, but the digital infrastructure to help coordinate them all.

In this episode, hosts Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk explore the future of mobility: author Horace Dediu talks about micro-mobility; TriMet's Bibiana McHugh tells the story behind GTFS and the OpenTrip Planner; MaaS Global CEO Sampo Hietanen explains the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS); and Sidewalk Labs' Corinna Li explains what Mobility on Demand could be like in the city of the future. For a link-rich transcript of this episode, click here.

City of the Future is produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy. If you want to hear more of Adaam’s work, you can check out his band, Lost Amsterdam.