Challenger Cities
by Iain Montgomery
Latest episode
Challenger Cities EP108: The Front Room of the City with Sofia Song
Challenger Cities EP108: The Front Room of the City with Sofia Song
About this podcast
Iain Montgomery of Now or Never Ventures interviews urbanists, creatives, transit and development types to explore how cities can punch above their weight and create distinctive new futures outside of the tired playbooks.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 110 episodes
- Challenger Cities EP108: The Front Room of the City with Sofia Song · 1 h 8 min · Season 8 Episode 7Sofia Song, who leads cities research at the Gensler Research Institute, is back to talk through City Pulse 2026. It’s Gensler’s survey of 35,000 people across 75 cities and 133…
- Challenger Cities EP107: Cities Are Ritual Factories with Lev Kushner · 52 min · Season 8 Episode 6Lev Kushner sent me an email saying public art is rarely cool, not very good at attracting visitors, and kind of a waste of money. So we made a podcast out of it. Lev runs…
- Challenger Cities EP106: The View from the Fish Counter with John Sills · 38 min · Season 8 Episode 5An 82-year-old widow told a supermarket CEO that his new fish counter had hidden the only person she came in to talk to. John Sills, senior partner at The Foundation and author…
- Challenger Cities EP105: Coming to Play with the Downtown Denver Partnership · 53 min · Season 8 Episode 4Challenger Cities EP105: Coming to Play with the Downtown Denver Partnership Kourtny Garrett, Gretchen Hollrah and Aisha Ahmad-Post were among 71 Denver leaders who spent 48…
- Challenger Cities EP104: Just Doing Our Thing with @JamesinSerbia · 50 min · Season 8 Episode 3Challenger Cities EP104: Just Doing Our Thing with @JamesinSerbia James, the Brit behind the Instagram account jamesinserbia, thinks of the UK as a cul-de-sac. "You kind of don't…
- Challenger Cities EP103: What Airports Know That Cities Don't with Philip Galway-Witham & Chris Belisle · 1 h 15 min · Season 8 Episode 2Airports can anxiety machines dressed up in statement architecture. So how do you design for delight in the different modes people turn up in, while building something designed…
- Challenger Cities EP102: Getting to Yes with Laura Dean · 1 h 1 min · Season 8 Episode 1Challenger Cities started as an attempt to shake things up in Toronto. So when a municipal lawyer left her partnership to run for mayor, I wanted to hear why. Laura Dean isn't a…
- Challenger Cities EP101: Chain Drain with Bryan Boyer & Greg Lindsay · 1 h 2 min · Season 7 Episode 14A restaurant learns something every night. They hear what people say about a dish, see what comes back on the plate and see the financial impact it has on the books. It's a…
- Challenger Cities EP100: How Big Things Get Done with Bent Flyvbjerg · 1 h 1 min · Season 7 Episode 13This is the 100th episode of Challenger Cities. A bit of a milestone right? This thing started as an attempt to explore and make a difference specifically in Toronto, but early…
- Challenger Cities EP99: Bottom Up & Top Down Cultural Infrastructure with Jacquelyn West · 58 min · Season 7 Episode 12What does a city need in order for culture to happen? Venues are the easy answer, and the least complete one. Jacquelyn West is a cultural industries strategist based in…
- Challenger Cities EP98: Stations & Airports of the Future ... a Megacast · 1 h 16 min · Season 7 Episode 11Most episodes of Challenger Cities are a conversation with a guest. This one isn't. Shortly after publishing our whitepaper The Welcome Mat, a few listeners joined a live session…
- Challenger Cities EP97: Developers as Citymakers with Stratton Townley · 1 h 9 min · Season 7 Episode 10I met Stratton Townley at the Waterworks Food Hall in Toronto, a couple of hours before it opens, with ten or twelve people sat about with coffees and nobody hovering to work out…
- Challenger Cities EP96: The Paradox of Proximity with Ann-Britt Elvin Andersen and Jakob Norman-Hansen · 1 h 2 min · Season 7 Episode 9Copenhagen is Jan Gehl's city. So it's a bit of a jolt to hear someone who lives and works there admit that nobody has ever really been able to say what a "human-centric city"…
- Challenger Cities EP95: The 5-to-9 Episode with Mo, Laura & Nick from Mosaic · 1 h 38 min · Season 7 Episode 8This is a bumper episode where we bring you 4 guests that share the privilege of working for an awesome agency called Mosaic. And while yes, Mosaic did pay me to speak at their…
- Challenger Cities EP94: We Wunt Be Druv with John V Willshire · 1 h 0 min · Season 7 Episode 7John V Willshire is the third corner of a loose triptych of British innovation-strategy types I can never quite give a single job title. He runs Smithery, carries a little yellow…
- Challenger Cities EP93: The Maker is the Medium with Florence Okin and Sam Cohen · 1 h 4 min · Season 7 Episode 6You cannot build a humane, serendipitous city with teams who are transactional, risk-averse and don't really know themselves. It's not my usual territory, and it's a tough…
- Challenger Cities EP92: Cities Are Mental Weapons with Giacomo Biraghi · 44 min · Season 7 Episode 5Giacomo Biraghi has spent fifteen years and two thousand interviews trying to answer one question: is there really a distinctive European way of making a city? His answer, after…
- Challenger Cities EP91: Expanding Your Luck Surface Area with Matt Ballantine · 48 min · Season 7 Episode 4In this spirit of being the world's most eclectic podcast about cities and places, this episode is a bit random. Which is good, because it's with Matt Ballantine and he's written…
- Challenger Cities EP90: It Only Sounds Mad Because We Think Small with Shiv Malik · 1 h 4 min · Season 7 Episode 3This is an episode about a big, ambitious idea. Which is why people are quick to label it as crazy. But Britain, like many developed nations has a housing crisis. The country…
- Challenger Cities EP89: To Do, Not Just Be with Gil Penalosa · 1 h 34 min · Season 7 Episode 2This episode is a zinger. Because Gil Penalosa came in ready to talk! He doesn't hold back as he discussed the issues with Toronto municipal projects, where the city could be…
