22 episodes

All communities face certain challenges.

But some people see challenges as opportunities.

On Placemakers, we bring you stories about the spaces we inhabit and the people who shape them. Join us as we criss-cross the country, introducing you to real people in real communities — people who make a difference in how we travel, work, and live.

You’ll never look at your community the same way again.

Placemakers Slate Podcasts

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.7 • 97 Ratings

All communities face certain challenges.

But some people see challenges as opportunities.

On Placemakers, we bring you stories about the spaces we inhabit and the people who shape them. Join us as we criss-cross the country, introducing you to real people in real communities — people who make a difference in how we travel, work, and live.

You’ll never look at your community the same way again.

    The Quest to Make the Perfect Place

    The Quest to Make the Perfect Place

    Imagine a place where you can stroll down the sidewalk, wave to your
    neighbors on their porch, then pick up your dry cleaning or have lunch at the café.
    That’s the kind of walkable, compact, mixed-use community envisioned by the
    founders of New Urbanism—including Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. But some people say
    there’s a reason one of Plater-Zyberk’s developments played a starring role in a
    memorable Hollywood film about overly constructed reality.
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    • 33 min
    Paid Podcast: Uniting a Neighborhood

    Paid Podcast: Uniting a Neighborhood

    Seattle’s Yesler Terrace was the first racially integrated housing project in the U.S. Today, it remains a multicultural nexus for the city. The Seattle Housing Authority and its partners at JPMorgan Chase have been hard at work rebuilding and rejuvenating this historic community’s infrastructure and investing in its economic sustainability. Join Brian Babylon as he explores how the city has tackled such an enormous revitalization project. 
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    • 19 min
    When Good Placemakers Go Bad

    When Good Placemakers Go Bad

    George Leonidas Leslie was perhaps the most sensational—and successful!—criminal in American history. An architect by training, he planned and pulled off a series of record-breaking bank robberies throughout the late 1800s and arguably ushered in the modern heist. On this episode of Placemakers, producer Mike Vuolo explores the unholy relationship between burglary and the built environment.
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    • 34 min
    A City of Blue Ribbons

    A City of Blue Ribbons

    Long before the Black Lives Matter movement swept the U.S., Dallas’ police
    chief tried to diffuse the anger and mistrust between minority communities and
    police. His reforms made an impact. The number of people killed in confrontations
    with police fell, just as crime fell. But Dallas was still torn apart by racial hate last
    summer, leaving five officers dead and the city in shock. It fell on the police chief to
    bring people back together in the aftermath.
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    • 31 min
    Live Free or Die

    Live Free or Die

    How does a small group of people change politics? The Free State Project
    wants libertarians to concentrate themselves in New Hampshire and promote
    libertarian causes. Thousands have already moved, and thousands more are on the
    way. But not everyone is happy to see them coming.
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    • 29 min
    The Greatest Misallocation of Resources in the History of the World

    The Greatest Misallocation of Resources in the History of the World

    How do you solve a problem like the suburbs? For one man in Arizona, it
    means creating an agricultural utopia, replete with picket fences and a community
    garden. He was inspired by one of our era's  most scathing critics of suburban
    sprawl: James Howard Kunstler. We'll hear from both about what happens when
    you try to remedy what Kunstler calls “the greatest misallocation of resources in the
    history of the world.”
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    • 28 min

Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5
97 Ratings

97 Ratings

mwaldemar ,

GREAT SHOW!

Love that this show spans beyond topics on gentrification, etc. Show does a really great job of intersexting various other topics and how they relate to our cities and towns we live in. Listen to this while doing homework. Always leaves me thinking about the world & my neighborhood in a different way.

YourOnlyJason ,

Great for urban studies buffs

This podcast series is well produced. The stories are interesting, human and honest. If you like stories about urban spaces and urban planning, I haven't found a better podcast. If you like good story telling period, this is for you.

My only complaint? I've listened to all of them and don't know when they'll be adding more!

My score ,

Love at first listen

I love this podcast. It is so important to hear the stories that it tells and it tells them so well. It's so important to hear about life outside the bubble of your world, whatever it may be, and this podcasts works towards creating the empathy this world needs

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