The Future of Cities

Human trafficking, pollution, nuclear testing, fake news, environmental sustainability. These crises are spanning the entire globe, threatening peace and prosperity everywhere. They impact millions of lives and have no obvious solutions. So… how do we even start? 

Interview: Deano Roberts

Interview: Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake

Interview: Craig Curtis

Interview: Clark Manus

Marty Kooistra is the executive director of The Housing Consortium for Seattle and King County. In this interview Marty explains why we need to build 96,000 more houses per day, and how we can build more affordably.

Will your future hospital stays be more like staying at a luxury hotel? That is something we heard from Grant Geiger. Grant is the founder and CEO of EIR Healthcare, a startup that brings modular construction techniques to healthcare facilities. In this episode, Grant also talks about how healthcare will be different in cities of the future, and how better hospital construction can actually improve patient outcomes.

On this episode of The Future of Cities, Ian is joined by Zach Scheel. Zach is the CEO of Rhumbix, a data-driven construction technology startup. Zach discussed why buildings cost so much, and how companies like Rhumbix are aiming to lower those costs by reducing waste. He also talked about how technologies like robotics and smart city connectivity will change construction in the future.

Laura Tam is a policy director at SPUR, an organization which focuses on planning and urban research in the San Francisco Bay Area. Laura leads SPUR's policy work on water, energy, climate change, and resilience. Laura talked about what it means to be a sustainable city, how to educate the public on sustainability and affordability issues, why urban forests need to be a part of our future, and more.

Ryan Popple is the President and CEO of Proterra, a startup that designs and produces electric buses. Ryan worked at Tesla in the early days and was a partner at Kleiner Perkins where he led clean tech investments in mobility and transportation. Ryan explained why public transportation might be free in cities of the future, and how Proterra wants to be a part of that shift. He also explained why some buses are worse for the environment than driving.

Trevor Schick is the President of Katerra Materials. In this episode, Trevor talks with our host, Ian, about sustainability in building, how to incentivize change in stagnant businesses, and why you need to be optimizing your materials.

Over the past ten episodes we have heard about technologies, innovations, and ideas that will make cities smarter, happier, more livable places than ever before. So how do we make sure it lasts? In this episode, we explore how cities can interact with the natural environment around them in a positive way.

Technology is changing at a faster pace than ever before. So how do cities keep up? In this episode we explore how cities can use technological innovation to provide better services for their citizens, and how some cities are already doing so. We also explore why many cities are hiring CIOs for the first time.

Fifty years ago, Lagos, Nigeria was little more than a village. Today, it is one of the five most populous cities in the world, and it is still growing. Accelerated urbanization is creating a situation where megacities like Lagos arise before formal city plans can be laid. In this episode, we explore how city planners are coping with the unprecedented challenges of modern urban planning.

Currently, more than 50% of the United States population lives in suburbs. So what role will they play in the future of cities? In this episode, we explore how the suburbs arose, what it has meant for our cities, and how they might change as cities do.