This week, we’re talking about how, in a very real, no-honest-this-is-true sense, a city is the product of its transport network.
We begin by discussing the relationship between boundaries, commuting patterns, perceptions and maps – and I get slightly over-excited when Barbara tells me something about London’s Tube that I didn’t previously know.
Journalist Emmanuel Akinwotu tells us what it’s like trying to get around Lagos, the Nigerian megacity where commuters rely on unofficial private minibus networks, and where heavy traffic and poor roads mean that a two hour journey can take you all night. You can find Emmanuel’s past articles for us here.
Then I talk to transport researcher Nicole Badstuber, about megaprojects: those multi-billion dollar transport schemes, which are meant to sort everything out, and which, almost always, go horribly, horribly wrong. Nicole’s stuff is here. (This one, on what other cities have to learn from Transport for London, is particularly good.)
Next, Tim Oliver, a listener and university lecturer in Leeds, tells us why he loves his city – even if the British government doesn’t seem to.
If you’d like to appear on the show telling us about your city, we’d love to hear from you – so get in touch.
And finally, for this week’s map of the week, we talk about Jug Cerovic’s bus map of Luxembourg: an unofficial map that the city government decided was better than the real thing, and promptly adopted as official. Which just goes to show that all that time you spent making maps in your bedroom wasn’t wasted after all.
The episode itself is below. Also, you can (and, obviously, should) subscribe on Acast, iTunes, or RSS.
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