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TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IMPERATIVE PodcastAuthor: Craig Applegath Language: en Genres: Earth Sciences, Science, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Episode 037 | Ken Greenberg: Designing Cities in the Face of Climate Change
Episode 38
Friday, 20 February, 2026
My guest today is Ken Greenberg - urban designer, city builder, and one of the most influential voices in shaping how North American cities think about density, public space, and climate resilience. Cities are where the climate crisis becomes real. Cities are where emissions are generated, where heat is felt, where floods happen, and where millions of daily decisions - about housing, mobility, energy, and land - quietly shape our collective future. For decades, Ken has worked with cities around the world, helping them better understand that the question isn’t how dense we should we make our cities; but how we should make our cities dense, and what kind of life that density makes possible. In this conversation, we talk about cities as adaptive organisms - places that evolve in response to powerful forces, including climate change. Ken reflects on his early experiences in city-making, his work with Jane Jacobs, and what it means to design for organized complexity rather than false certainty. We explore how urban form shapes emissions, why car-dependent sprawl is at the heart of both the housing and climate crises, and how walkable, mixed-use communities dramatically reduce our environmental footprint. We also talk about climate adaptation, from providing shade and green infrastructure, to flood-resilient landscapes, to rethinking public space in an era of extreme heat and weather. This is a wide-ranging conversation about patience, humility, and long-term thinking - about building cities that can learn, recover, and care for people in a century defined by uncertainty. At its core, this episode is a reminder that cities have survived enormous upheaval before - and that with imagination, collaboration, and courage, they can help lead us through what comes next. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Ken Greenberg.
