TED Talks
TED: Planet City -- a sci-fi vision of an astonishing regenerative future | Liam Young
Get transported on a stunningly rendered, sci-fi safari through Planet City: an imaginary metropolis of 10 billion people, from the brain of director and architect Liam Young. Explore the potential outcomes of an urban space designed to...
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways to make a city more walkable | Jeff Speck
Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his "general theory of walkability" -- four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into...
TED Talks
TED: How autonomous flying taxis could change the way you travel | Rodin Lyasoff
Flight is about to get a lot more personal, says aviation entrepreneur Rodin Lyasoff. In this visionary talk, he imagines a new golden age of air travel in which small, autonomous air taxis allow us to bypass traffic jams and...
TED Talks
Kent Larson: Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city
How can we fit more people into cities without overcrowding? Kent Larson shows off folding cars, quick-change apartments and other innovations that could make the city of the future work a lot like a small village of the past.
TED Talks
TED: Why the "wrong side of the tracks" is usually the east side of cities | Stephen DeBerry
What do communities on the social, economic and environmental margins have in common? For one thing, they tend to be on the east sides of cities. In this short talk about a surprising insight, anthropologist and venture capitalist...
TED Talks
TED: Could a DAO build the next great city? | Scott Fitsimones
Could DAOs, or "decentralized autonomous organizations," be the key to building the next great city? Experimental urbanist Scott Fitsimones shares how these mission-driven, blockchain-governed, collectively owned organizations could...
TED Talks
TED: How an old loop of railroads is changing the face of a city | Ryan Gravel
urban planner Ryan Gravel shares the story of how his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, rallied to build a massive urban park that will transform an abandoned railroad track into 22 miles of public green space called the Atlanta BeltLine....
TED Talks
TED: Why glass towers are bad for city life -- and what we need instead | Justin Davidson
There's a creepy transformation taking over our cities, says architecture critic Justin Davidson. From Houston, Texas to Guangzhou, China, shiny towers of concrete and steel covered with glass are cropping up like an invasive species....
TED Talks
TED: The 15-minute city | Carlos Moreno
Living in a city means accepting a certain level of dysfunction: long commutes, noisy streets, underutilized spaces. Carlos Moreno wants to change that. He makes the case for the "15-minute city," where inhabitants have access to all the...
TED Talks
Nate Silver: Does racism affect how you vote?
Nate Silver has data that answers big questions about race in politics. For instance, in the 2008 presidential race, did Obama's skin color actually keep him from getting votes in some parts of the country? Stats and myths collide in...
TED Talks
Chris Downey: Design with the blind in mind
What would a city designed for the blind be like? Chris Downey is an architect who went suddenly blind in 2008; he contrasts life in his beloved San Francisco before and after -- and shows how the thoughtful designs that enhance his life...
TED Talks
TED: What a driverless world could look like | Wanis Kabbaj
What if traffic flowed through our streets as smoothly and efficiently as blood flows through our veins? Transportation geek Wanis Kabbaj thinks we can find inspiration in the genius of our biology to design the transit systems of the...
TED Talks
Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia
Can we rebuild our broken suburbs? Ellen Dunham-Jones shares a vision of dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, and endless parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.
TED Talks
TED: What can we learn from shortcuts? | Tom Hulme
How do you build a product people really want? Allow consumers to be a part of the process. "empathy for what your customers want is probably the biggest leading indicator of business success," says designer Tom Hulme. In this short...
TED Talks
David Rockwell: A memorial at Ground Zero
In this emotionally charged conversation with journalist Kurt Andersen, designer David Rockwell discusses the process of building a viewing platform at Ground Zero shortly after 9/11.
TED Talks
Steven Johnson: How the "ghost map" helped end a killer disease
Author Steven Johnson takes us on a 10-minute tour of The Ghost Map, his book about a cholera outbreak in 1854 London and the impact it had on science, cities and modern society.
TED Talks
Noah Wilson-Rich: Every city needs healthy honey bees
Bees have been rapidly and mysteriously disappearing from rural areas, with grave implications for agriculture. But bees seem to flourish in urban environments -- and cities need their help, too. Noah Wilson-Rich suggests that urban...
TED Talks
TED: How kids can help design cities | Mara Mintzer
Adults tend to think of kids as "future citizens" -- their ideas and opinions will matter someday, just not today. But kids make up a quarter of the population, so shouldn't they have a say in what the world they'll inherit will look...
TED Talks
TED: How cohousing can make us happier (and live longer) | Grace Kim
Loneliness doesn't always stem from being alone. For architect Grace Kim, loneliness is a function of how socially connected we feel to the people around us -- and it's often the result of the homes we live in. She shares an age-old...
TED Talks
Edi Rama: Take back your city with paint
Make a city beautiful, curb corruption. Edi Rama took this deceptively simple path as mayor of Tirana, Albania, where he instilled pride in his citizens by transforming public spaces with colorful designs.
TED Talks
Smruti Jukur Johari: What if the poor were part of city planning?
Almost a billion people worldwide live in informal communities and slums, often without basic infrastructure like clean water, toilets or adequate roads. Urban planner Smruti Jukur Johari breaks down myths about these communities and...
TED Talks
Stewart Brand: What squatter cities can teach us
Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It'll take you 3 minutes to find out.
TED Talks
TED: 4 ways we can avoid a catastrophic drought | David Sedlak
As the world's climate patterns continue to shift unpredictably, places where drinking water was once abundant may soon find reservoirs dry and groundwater aquifers depleted. In this talk, civil and environmental engineer David Sedlak...
Crash Course
What is Urban Planning? Crash Course Geography
Today we’re going to talk about urban planning — which is the design and regulation of space within urban areas. Urban planning helps weave together economic, social, and environmental goals within a region from work, to play, and...