STRANGE CITY
Strange City is a 6-part investigative series that aims to “make strange” the everyday objects and infrastructures that uphold our urban environment. Every episode begins with an urban object as a gateway into how municipalities across the world manage the systems that shape city life. Through historical, ecological, and political lenses, this series sheds light on the invisible systems that maintain our material world; interrogating the promises of good urban design and the cost of getting it wrong.
Spanning international cities, residents and scholars engage with the familiar anatomy of the city: from street signs to public services to increasingly common urban fixtures like disposable vapes and free public Wi-Fi. Each episode moves through three parts: grounding the urban object in everyday city life, unpacking the systems and scholarship behind it, and closing with what residents can actually do in response to the bigger questions of urban justice. Together, these objects and their stories place everyday urban life in conversation with critical scholarship, examining how cities distribute resources, regulate individual routines, and shape collective life.
Developed by an international team of urban designers, news radio producers, and environmental and social justice scholars, we seek to foreground the inner workings of our cities: who powers them, who sustains them, and where their cracks lie. By deepening listeners’ relationship to the design of their built environment, Strange City seeks to make the intangible visible and the unjust actionable, opening new pathways toward a more equitable city.
PRODUCERS
CHERILYN LAU is an urban practitioner focused on researching housing solutions, the impact of urban digitisation and surveillance, and night-time governance.
ANTONIA SIMON is an urban designer and co-director of Slow Circuits, a library of refurbished technology, offering residents device rental, repair and recycling services.
JAKIAT JITU is an urban planner for South Hampton Council, with research and community engagement experience at Oxfam and Just Space.
ANITA RIOTTA is a producer at Monocle Radio with experience in topics ranging from geopolitics, design, urbanism and finance.
EVREN UZER is an Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Urban Practice at Parsons School of Design.
