Cities Reimagined Johannes Riegler

Here it is, the finale of the first season of the Cities Reimagined podcast and it is nothing shy of (plot) twists, secrets coming to light and what is to be expected for the way forward for the show, me personally and for Anthropocene.City: an idea I developed with today’s guest Jonas Bylund which is taking shape. Besides being a good friend and former year-long colleague, Jonas a researcher at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Tune into this episode to hear about…
🕵️ Unravelling Urban Mysteries in all corners of urban life with Anthropocene.City: From Godzilla friendships to reimagining cityscapes for all.
🔧 Embrace Do It Yourself Urbanism and how a 'naive' stance leads to groundbreaking urban insights. We're talking DIY empowerment, the wisdom of action, and the art of reflection.
🦖 The Journey to Urban Wisdom: What are urban transitions with a dose of love and care and what does it have to do with Godzilla or a dusty mountain bike?
🐉 Preview of Season 2: As we close this season, we tease the next chapter: a blend of mysteries, inspiration, and innovative urban connections.
🪕 A special Godzilla remix of the Cities Reimagined intro music.

When I started developing the first concept for Cities Reimagined 10 months ago, I did not imagine the feedback I received until now. Thanks to everyone who reached out, listened to the show, gave feedback and helped me along the journey! Honestly, thank you. It is what makes this work worthwhile.

For saying hello, reaching out with (cooperation) requests and anything at all, please send me an email: johannes@anthropocene.city .

Cities Reimagined will take a break from here and is planned to return in September/October 2024. In the meantime, I will be busy working with the City of Mechelen (Belgium) on a European Urban Initiative project alongside the blue-green corridor river Dyle which will connect people, water and nature, kicking-off Anthropocene.City and my ‘regular’ job working with the Management Board of the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership.

As the importance of city foods is growing, this episode of Cities Reimagined is all about the transformative potential of healthy and delicious (urban) cuisine We are jumping back and forth between the favelas of the metropolis of Sāo Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷  and the allotment gardens in Leeds, in the UK 🇬🇧 and will explore how cities are redefining their foodscapes for a sustainable future.

Today’s guests are
Marcella Arruda, an urbanist and permaculture designer and CEO of The City Needs You Institute [Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você] from Sāo Paulo.Chiara Tornaghi. a critical human geographer and scholar-activist at Coventry University, with a focus on Political ecology, agroecology and politics of spaces from Leeds,
Be prepared to hear aspects of urban food you might have not considered before:
🍌 What stroganoff made of banana peals has to do with the favelas of São Paulo
🔍 Why the invisible production of food in cities is a reflection of a broken relationship to the planet
🥬 How agroecological inspires us to integrate aspects of sustainability, biodiversity, ecological balance and community resilience on the topic of food.
🇧🇷 How Marcella’s NGO A Cicade Precisa De Você works with farmers on informal land in the favela of Brasilandia.
🍲 How urban food can contribute to addressing the rising food poverty and what the difference between the UK and Brazil is

More information:
Marcella’s NGO Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você: https://www.acidadeprecisa.org/englishThe Urbanising in Place Project we talk about: http://urbanisinginplace.orgVideo on ECOCIDADES in São Paulo: https://youtu.be/_d4DvOWw5f8?si=-IuVUQx1kxM7JHmKAgroecological Urbanism: https://www.agroecologicalurbanism.orgLanded Community Kitchen: https://www.agroecologicalurbanism.org/building-blocks/landed-community-kitchen
This is the last thematic episode of season 1 of Cities Reimagined. Up next is the season finale, where the truth comes out, cliffhangers are being built for season 2 and… and… where Jonas Bylund and I will have a good time summing up what happened so far and bringing that into a 🦖 godzilla context. Stay tuned.

If you like the content of Cities Reimagined, please consider subscribing to the channel, rate the show, follow us on Instagram for background stories or get connected to Johannes via LinkedIn or email (johannes@anthropocene.city).

This week’s guest on Cities Reimagined is Tiffany Fukuma, Managing Director of Trans Europe Halles, a network of over 160 alternative cultural centres across 40 countries which all have one in common: they reinterpret neglected and underused spaces such as factory and military buildings, commercial spaces, parking lots etc. for grassroots cultural activities.

In this episode, we talk about...
🏭… how alternative cultural centres are creating new usages and identities of buildings and spaces
✨… why the trust of local administrations in the creativity of the residents will generate more exciting cities.
🪙… how city administration increasingly recognises that small-scale funding of resident-driven initiatives leads to more robust long-term transformation.
🌳… how repurposing existing buildings is essential for making cities sustainable and livable.
🗺️ … how Tiffany’s background in organising punk rock shows in squats, working in embassies and city administration in Japan, Canada and France led to managing Trans Europe Halles. Cultural centres and initiatives repurposing abandoned spaces are crucial for reimagining cities. They are dynamic spaces that foster creativity, community engagement, and social cohesion. They are experimental spaces, reinterpreting buildings and shifting the function of spaces. They develop new identities by reinterpreting the built environment and cultural heritage of cities and neighbourhoods.
More info:
Johannes on LinkedInCities Reimagined: www.anthropocene.city/podcastTrans Europe Halles: https://teh.net

This week, Cities Reimagined takes us to Peru and Vienna to discuss skateboarding.
My guests this week, Christian Fischer and Johannes Wimmeder stayed in Cerrito de le Virgen in northern Peru for a while to work with the NGO Concrete Jungle Foundation. Cerrito de le Virgen is a neighbourhood characterized by displacement and replacement of residents due to extreme weather events and archaeological finds. In this delicate environment, the Concrete Jungle Foundation teamed up with the local community to design and build a skatepark, to plant the seed with capacity and to create a shared and safe place for everyone. Concrete Jungle Foundation is an innovative non-profit that works to empower individuals and communities worldwide through fostering and sustaining the positive values inherent to skateboarding. Christian followed the project with his camera and produced the documentary “El Cerrito” which is out now and you want to see, believe me
It was time for me to sit down with Christian and Johannes to talk kick-flips and….
🛹 What skateboarding has to do with the appropriation, safety and production of urban space
🪴How the work of Concrete Jungle Foundation is building capacities in local communities to improve the quality of life for everyone
📚 What life skills skateboarding teach the young, and not-so-young ones.
🦽How skaters (.. but also the elderly and people with special mobility needs) perceive urban space differently
🌃 How local administrations increasingly take into account the perspectives of skaters in urban design
…. and a lot more background stories on El Cerrito.
Watch Christian’s documentary El Cerrito on Youtube.
Follow and support Concrete Jungle Foundation: https://concretejunglefoundation.org // Instagram
Follow Johannes’ Skateboard Club Vienna: https://skateboardclubvienna.at // Instagram
Follow Cities Reimagined on Instagram or say hello to Johannes on LinkedIn or via email johannes@anthropocene.city .
As we are wrapping up Season 1 of Cities Reimagined, we are looking into partnerships for future episodes. Please do get in touch if you are interested in being on the show and being part of the Cities Reimagined Podcast.

Hold tight: This episode of Cities Reimagined is PACKED with condensed knowledge on cities and urbanism in (post-war) Ukraine . In a 60 minute conversation with Oleksandr Anisimov, we upack:
🇺🇦 … why the ignorance of NOT knowing about Ukraine(ian urbanism) has to stop
🏙️ … reforming land-use rules and governance modes are essential for rebuilding Ukrainian cities
🧰 … why rebuilding “social cities” after the destruction is essential for attracting people back after the war
⏳ … why it feels like the Russian Federation is stealing time from Ukrainians
⛔ … why the overcoming the ‘post-socialist’ label is crucial for reimagining cities
🌱 … how the war and land destruction increases pressures on the land in the Western parts of Ukraine
💲 … why neoliberalism and defunding local administrations creates a crises of imagination of what Ukrainian cities could be
In February 2022, what many from outside of Ukraine thought of as unthinkable happened: a large scale military attack and occupation of Ukrainian land by the Russian Federation. Now, in December 2023, an end of the war in Ukraine is not in sight. Thousands of civilian Ukrainians were killed. Entire cities put to rubble, 1.4 millions homes destroyed or damaged, infrastructures and historic monuments are destroyed each day. I had many questions on where Ukrainian cities and urbanism goes from here, Oleksandr Anisimov helped me to understand and place current events into a larger context.
Get in touch with Oleksandr Anisimov on LinkedIn.
Books mentioned in the episode:
Anna Reid - Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine - Click here for more.Timothy Snyder - The Road to Unfreedom - Click here for more.

On episode 6 of Cities Reimagined, Gerfried Ambrosch and I talked about the importance of wildlife habitats in urban areas. Besides being very active in reimagining places for amphibians, Gerfried plays and played in a ridicelous amount of punk/hardcore bands since the 1990s and he has some stories to tell. Tune into this bonus episode to find out…
🎸 … how DIY punk rock ethics shapes Gerfried’s ambitions and motivations today
🇧🇾 … about sneaking into Belarus in 2005 to play a show just to find yourself in the midst of local right-wing vs. left-wing wars
🏫 … the role of unlearning for societal change
🐸 … why the sounds of frogs and toads are the soundtrack to change the world to