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 to it: workers in culture, logistics, health care, communication, and many more. In today’s episode,...
Jul 23, 2025•47 min
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 Korenjak and Zala Velkavrh from Prostorož (a not-for-profit urban design agency from Ljubljana/Slove...
Jun 10, 2025•51 min
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 University. He’s also a lecturer at Erasmus University Rotterdam and works with cities around the wor...
May 20, 2025•50 min
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 are more important than ever. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll go to Ljubljana 🇸🇮 , Ghent 🇧🇪 ...
May 04, 2025•4 min
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, activism, professional practice and urban exploration. I had the privilege of being part of the second coho...
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 9 min
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 projects. This is part one out of two exploring the work done by the WATSUPS project. Click here fo...
Nov 15, 2024•32 min
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 be taken up in urban transformation projects. This is part one out of two exploring the work done b...
Nov 08, 2024•27 min
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 KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Tune into this episode to hear about… �...
Apr 03, 2024•1 hr 11 min
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’s guests are Marcella Arruda , an urbanist and permaculture designer and CEO of The City Needs You Ins...
Mar 07, 2024•1 hr
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... 🏭… how alternative cultural centres are creating new usages and identities of buildings and spaces ✨…...
Feb 06, 2024•49 min
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 archaeological finds. In this delicate environment, the Concrete Jungle Foundation teamed up with the local commu...
Jan 24, 2024•49 min
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 cities” after the destruction is essential for attracting people back after the war ⏳ … why it feels l...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr
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 ambitions and motivations today 🇧🇾 … about sneaking into Belarus in 2005 to play a show just to fin...
Nov 22, 2023•30 min
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 astonishing results. Listen in to find out… 🐸 Why taking non-human perspectives into account in urbanis...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 11 min
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 population projected to double by 2050, Africa is at the forefront of the global urbanization trend. T...
Oct 31, 2023•55 min
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 climate change in Klagenfurt in Southern Austria so it was time to talk to him about where he sees ...
Oct 18, 2023•39 min
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 about: Why sports coaches might be well placed for long term urban transitions. Why the aim should ...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 3 min
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 often excluded from city making. City Mine(d) is an organisation at the crossroads between architectu...
Sep 20, 2023•53 min
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 public spaces I met over the years is Luisa Bravo . Luisa is based in Bologna, Italy, among many other th...
Sep 05, 2023•52 min
In this introduction of the Cities Reimagined Podcast (yes, you might call it a trailer..), Johannes introduces himself, why he took a year off and started a podcast, why a show on reimagining urban areas is extremely relevant today and gives you an idea of what to expect from Cities Reimagined. The full first episode will be available in early September 2023.
Aug 14, 2023•14 min
