#urban-planning
278 episodes
#5779: Tunnel Girl Dug 80 Feet Under Her House
No engineering degree, two books, and ten dead jackhammers. How one woman dug an 80-foot tunnel under her Virginia house — and got it permitted.
#5677: When 80,000 Pilgrims Fill Your Neighborhood
Sukkot turns central Jerusalem into a pilgrimage site. What can locals borrow from New Yorkers who live beside Times Square?
#5670: Circadian Policy: Light, Schedules, and Public Health
What if a task force treated light and time as public infrastructure? The science of circadian alignment — and the policies that follow.
#5633: Is Construction Noise Actually Inevitable?
What if the jackhammer isn't the problem? A look at how deep garages, tall towers, and concrete make cities loud.
#5632: Why Cities Keep Digging Expensive Parking Holes
Parking minimums bury money underground — and shape the towers above. What Jerusalem's luxury towers reveal about rules nobody chose.
#5613: Seven Stories Down, Building Stays Up
A historic Jerusalem house is staying put while a seven-story car park is carved out beneath it. Here's how top-down excavation actually works.
#5612: Who Keeps Working During Sukkot?
An ideal of universal rest meets a city that doubles in size. Who kept the lights on during the pilgrim festivals?
#5596: What Victorian Diggers Could Teach Jerusalem's Cranes
London, Paris, and New York dug their first subways at a human cost we'd never accept today. Did we trade that chaos for something better — or just...
#5595: Roman Roads Still Running Under Modern Cities
The Aqua Virgo still pours into the Trevi Fountain. The Cloaca Maxima still drains central Rome. What keeps ancient infrastructure alive?
#5572: Renting Out Your Spare Room, Car, and Boat
Airbnb, Turo, and the platforms turning idle private assets into income — and the regulatory reckoning catching up with them.
#5496: Taking Down Jerusalem's 7km Border, Street by Street
Barbed wire, minefields, and a wax-pencil line: how Jerusalem's seven-kilometre border was physically torn down after 1967.
#5494: How Ancient Jerusalem Outgrew Its Own Walls
Jerusalem's Old City walls are Ottoman, not ancient — and the original city sits outside them. Tracing 4,000 years of expansion and contraction.
#5451: Who Captures the Savings: Zoning Windfalls vs. Import Margins
A zoning windfall gets audited. A tariff cut doesn't. Why two public decisions that create private value are treated so differently.
#5445: Israel's Periphery: Why It's Not About Distance
What "peripheria" really means in Israel — and why a $10B Intel fab sits in a town that still tops unemployment.
#5444: Carmei Gat: The Buchman of the Negev?
A planned neighborhood on Kiryat Gat's edge is pulling in Anglo olim with prices that undercut Beit Shemesh and Modiin.
#5335: The Hidden History of Toilets and Sanitation
From Indus Valley flush drains to Roman sponge sticks to gong farmers — the surprising, gross, and brilliant story of human waste.
#5326: What Makes a Bar a Third Place?
A listener's search for a bar where you can actually hear your friend — and the 35-year-old sociology that explains why it's so hard to find.
#5290: Inside the Urban Exploration Boom
13.7 billion TikTok views, 42 arrests at one IBM office park, and a community at war with its own imitators.
#5289: Why World's Fairs Built Absurd Transit
Moving sidewalks, monorails, and robot boxers: what we lost when technology's grand public spectacles became trade shows.
#5271: 10 Transit Ideas That Never Left the Drawing Board
From the Hyperloop to the Sinclair C5, why do beautiful transit renderings never survive contact with the invoice?
#5181: Shuafat: Jerusalem's Walled-Off Refugee Camp
Inside the Jerusalem camp that's within the city limits but beyond the barrier — taxed by the city, policed by no one.
#5120: Why Ground Rumble Ignores Your Acoustic Windows
Acoustic windows can't stop low-frequency rumble traveling through soil. Can wave barriers or base isolation actually work between city buildings?
#5098: Jerusalem's Digging Problem: Who Pays for Progress?
Jerusalem is tearing itself apart to rebuild. Residents pay top taxes but get no signage, no end dates, no recourse. Do other cities do better?
#5046: Mapping Purple: How Texas Really Votes
Texas isn't just red. We break down the blue cities, red rural expanse, and the purple suburbs that decide elections.