Skylines, the CityMetric podcast

By The New Statesman

What's Skylines, the CityMetric podcast about?

Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman's urbanism site. Every two weeks, Jonn Elledge, colleagues and guests discuss the politics & workings of cities and test their contention that maps are a great topic for radio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Skylines, the CityMetric podcast episodes:

05.26.2020
150. So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish
Casablanca is 102 minutes long. Citizen Kane runs for 119. This, the 150th and final episode of Skylines, the CityMetric podcast, is longer than either, at 124. You lucky, lucky people. I’ve loved doing this show over the last four...
05.10.2020
149. No Exit
Partly because of the crisis, partly for reasons we’ll come to in a moment, our production schedule on Skylines has got a bit lax. So the first of this week’s interviews – with my pal Claire Cocks in Palermo, about...
04.22.2020
148. Graphs of doom
I’m still locked down, and so, I assume, are you, so this week’s show is a game of two-halves. In the present, I speak to my lockdown companion, my partner Agnes Frimston – who, as it happens, co-hosts the newly weekly...
03.31.2020
147. Lockdown
Apologies for the fact this week’s podcast is a little bit late. But in my defence, both time and the calendar have lost all meaning. Anyway. Something like a third of the world is currently in lockdown to deal with the...
03.12.2020
146. London mayoral walks #3: Rory Stewart has his porridge
The mayoral walks mini-series began in an act of trolling. Rory Stewart launched his campaign to be mayor of London through the unusual strategy of walking all over London and tweeting about it; I have spent large chunks of my...
02.27.2020
145. The Great Manchester Mayoral Election
In all the excitement over the London mayoral election, and Brexit, and coronavirus, and the end of civilisation as we know it, it might have escaped you that there are mayoral elections due in other English cities in early May....
02.13.2020
144. London mayoral walks #2, with Green Sian Berry
This week, it’s the second in our mayoral walks mini-series. Sian Berry is the co-leader of the Green party, a member of the London Assembly, and is currently running as the party’s candidate to be mayor of the capital for...
01.30.2020
143. Curtain raiser
In just over three months, England goes to the polls, again, for local elections. This time round the big story, at least so far as we’re concerned, will be the mayoral elections in London, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and...
01.16.2020
142. London mayoral walks, #1: with LibDem Siobhan Benita
Rory Stewart likes to walk around London. So do I. And so, a few months ago, someone on Twitter gave me an idea for a fun wheeze: that we could walk together and turn it into a podcast. That walk...
01.03.2020
141. Commonwealth voices in Kingston, Jamaica
I’ve barely been in the office since we released the last Skylines, so this week it's a guest episode. Commonwealth Voices is another podcast series from our founding producer Roifield Brown, of Map Corner fame. Last year it produced...
12.20.2019
140. So This Is Christmas, with Jay Foreman
I realised earlier that this is the fourth Skylines Christmas Special, which apart from being a marker of quite how long I've been doing this thing now, presumably explains why there are giant steampunk robots marching across Victorian London again. Anyway....
12.05.2019
139: 2019 Election Special
Well, here we go again. We’re seven days out from polling day here in the UK, and I don’t know about you but I’m not feeling great about it. So as a form of therapy I dragged Patrick Maguire, who’s been...
11.20.2019
138. The real Middle Earth
This podcast has been a bit parochial of late (read: London-bound) so this week we're going abroad. Max Rashbrooke is a journalist, author and policy wonk based in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, with whom, a very long time...
11.06.2019
137. Into the Woods
Skylines is out and about again this week. Epping Forest is a 13 mile long strip of wooded land straddling the border between London and Essex. I often visited during my childhood, have walked bits of it since, but...
10.24.2019
136: Health and efficiency
This week, I finally invited someone I should have asked years ago onto the podcast. Anoosh Chakelian is a long time colleague of mine at the New Statesman – she joined the staff literally two days before I did –...
10.11.2019
135. The battle for number two
In roughly the same manner as the Greenland Ice Sheet, the London mayoral election is hotting up. Ex-Tory Rory Stewart has entered the race as an independent and is chatting about it to anyone who goes near him. Continuing Tory...
09.27.2019
134. The Power of Yes
One of the more exciting things to have happened in the already fairly exciting world of housing and planning policy in recent years is the rise of the YIMBY movement. Intended as a counterbalance to the "Not in my back...
09.12.2019
133. The ancient regime
The present is terrible and the future may be worse, so let's take refuge in the past. Monica L. Smith as an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles, whose latest book is Cities: The...
08.28.2019
132. A summer holiday with Map Corner
I’m on my summer holidays, so here’s a guest episode. Skylines’ founding producer Roifield Brown recently teamed up with Luton’s own Claire Astbury to launch a new podcast. Map Corner covers maps, cities, transport systems, and all the other things...
08.15.2019
131. Trapped
A few weeks ago, a man called Samir Jeraj got onto the Northern line of the London Underground at Bank station, promptly got his bag strap caught in the doors, and then spent the next 15 stops hoping in vain...
08.01.2019
130. Public enterprise
This week, it’s two interviews, unified by being at the intersection of politics and business, and also of my not really, if I’m absolutely honest with you, knowing what I’m talking about. First up, it’s Centre for Cities boss Andrew...
07.18.2019
129. The regeneration game
So does “cultured-led regeneration” actually work? Can a shiny new museum ever be enough to fix a struggling post-industrial city? Or a particularly big sports day? Carolina Saludes of the Young Fabians has been looking into these and other questions,...
07.04.2019
128. The country where I want to be
Finland, Finland, Finland, as Monty Python once sang: Finland has it all. Well, it has some things anyway, and more to the point its embassy in London was kind enough to invite me to visit, and to learn all about...
06.21.2019
127. A short history of council housing
This week's guest is John Boughton, teacher, historian and author of an excellent housing-flavoured blog, which last year appeared as a full-blown book. Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing is an incredibly readable look at the history,...
06.06.2019
126. After Grenfell and advanced Sheffield
In the early hours of 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in a west London tower block; 72 people died in the resulting conflagration, many of them, tragically, because they had followed the official safety instructions to remain in...
05.23.2019
125. Global Britain and local Liverpool
This week, two disparate segments linked by the idea of trading with the world. Well, vaguely. It’s there, but you have to squint. First up: I make my regular visit to the Centre for Cities office for the Ask the...
05.09.2019
124. North of the Tyne, south of the Strand
This week it's one of those two-for-the-price-of-one episodes where I'm not even going to pretend the conversations are connected. They are, however, both interesting, so here's more about them: In the first half, I talk to Skylines regular Paul Swinney,...
04.25.2019
123. Beyond the Wall, with John Lanchester
This week it’s another live episode, of sorts. In early April I was lucky enough to chair an event at the Cambridge Literary Festival with the journalist and novelist John Lanchester. John was mostly there to promote his latest...
04.11.2019
122. A place of worship
Last year, Burhan Wazir wrote a lovely piece for the New Statesman under the headline, “The changing shape of Britain’s mosques”. In it he talked about how the country’s Islamic community had initially co-opted sitting rooms and former pubs for...
03.28.2019
121. Everything Is Awful
The last few of these things have been quite serious, so let's mix it up a bit with some spurious nonsense. And what better way to do that than to invite Sarah Manavis back on, to answer a question I've...
03.21.2019
120: Brexit Brexit Bloody Brexit
I’ve been on holiday, and when I came back the entirety of British politics was on fire. So, on this occasion, I’ve fallen a bit behind with my podcasting. Sorry, gang. No matter, though, for here’s a guest episode. City...
03.07.2019
119. Live from the crypt 2: Still encrypted
This week’s podcast is a live show, recorded at the New Local Government Network’s annual conference on 26 February. (We did this last year, and nobody got fired, so here we are again.) The topic under discussion this time is...
02.21.2019
118. Flying high
Two interviews this week, which are both about the future of our cities but are otherwise unrelated except for allowing me to come up with a sort of pun on the word “high”. First up: drones, the remote-operated buzzy flying...
02.07.2019
117. Into the Vortex
Baby it's cold outside – or at least it was, in certain parts of the world, when we recorded this, ho hum. Anyway, that's the week's topic. Inspired by the polar vortex, which has seen temperatures of -30C in the...
01.24.2019
116. The biggest story in the world
This week, we’re off to China. Now the U.S. bureau chief for the South China Morning Post, Robert Delaney spent many years as a foreign correspondent reporting from the world’s most populous country. He now has a novel out: The...
01.10.2019
115. Food, glorious, food
This week’s podcast is a bit of a sandwich. In the middle, you’ll find an informative and nutritious conversation with Paul Swinney of the Centre for Cities, in which we try to answer a big question about cites. Generally speaking,...
12.20.2018
114. Driving home for Christmas
This week, 'tis the season for large chunks of the population of any major city to up-sticks and head back to whatever small town they grew up in. Also this week, the racing driver Lewis Hamilton alienated his entire hometown...
12.13.2018
113. Going green
Good news, everyone: this podcast doesn't even glance at Brexit. Bad news: it is about environmental catastrophe, or at least, the infrastructure that might save us from it. First up, I talk to the New Statesman environmental writer India Bourke...
11.29.2018
112. Council housing strikes back
This week, I’m chatting about the housing crisis with the Centre for London. Last summer, research manager Victoria Pinoncely was co-author of the think tank’s report, “Borough Builders: Delivering more housing across London”. She tells me about the role...
11.15.2018
111. Why aye, man
You'll be delighted, I'm sure, to learn this podcast is not about Brexit. I've been in Newcastle, capital in the north east of England, for a couple of days: partly for work, partly just because I wanted to get out...
11.08.2018
110. The rise of the robots
110. The rise of the robots This week, it’s about work, automation, fear and loathing in god’s own county of Essex. New Statesman tech writer Sarah Manavis has been to Tilbury to visit an “Amazon fulfilment centre”, which is almost...
11.02.2018
REPEAT: Sex* and the city (*gender)
This is a repeat – sorry gang, I’ve been horrendously busy. But, there are quite a lot of episodes of this thing now. And as the audience has grown, that means a lot of you haven’t heard our early work....
10.25.2018
109. Remember, Shaun Bailey is 47 years old
This week, it’s all about mayors, and also someone who the smart money says will never become one. I’ve dragged Stephen Bush back into the podcasting catacomb to discuss Shaun Bailey, the Conservative candidate to be the next mayor of...
10.18.2018
108. Brizzle
This week, we’re off to an English city that, to my shame, I’ve been neglecting: Bristol, the largest city in the south west, and indeed the largest city in the south outside London. I’m joined by Sian Norris, founder of...
10.11.2018
107. Social contracts
It’s a bit of a game of two halves this week. First up, I talk to Eric Klinenberg – director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University – about his new book, Palaces for the People. He...
10.04.2018
106. Walking with Elizabeth
Crossrail is running late. The opening of London’s £15bn new railway, also known, horribly, as the Elizabeth line, has been delayed by the better part of a year, to autumn 2019. This came as a bit of a surprise –...
09.27.2018
105. Scouse Exceptionalism
Exciting news, lads: Skylines has been on tour! Well, sort of: this is the first episode we’ve ever recorded primarily outside London. I’ve just got back from Liverpool, where I was attending the Labour party’s annual conference. While I was...
09.13.2018
104. London Blues, #2
And so to the second of our London Tory mayoral candidate interviews. This time it's Joy Morrissey: an American-born Ealing councillor, former staffer at Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice, and private renter. She tells me how she got...
09.12.2018
103. London Blues, #1
There are three people on the shortlist to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor in the 2020 election. So this week, we're speaking with them. First up: Andrew Boff, a long-serving member of the Greater London Assembly and former...
09.06.2018
102. God’s own country
Leeds! Sheffield! Bradford! Huddersfield! This podcast has, figuratively speaking, not spent enough time in any of them. So, this week we’re off to the ancient county of Yorkshire, Britain’s largest, home to the biggest metropolitan area in England not to...

What's Skylines, the CityMetric podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Skylines, the CityMetric podcast episodes:

150. So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

149. No Exit

148. Graphs of doom

147. Lockdown

146. London mayoral walks #3: Rory Stewart has his porridge

145. The Great Manchester Mayoral Election

144. London mayoral walks #2, with Green Sian Berry

143. Curtain raiser

142. London mayoral walks, #1: with LibDem Siobhan Benita

141. Commonwealth voices in Kingston, Jamaica

140. So This Is Christmas, with Jay Foreman

139: 2019 Election Special

138. The real Middle Earth

137. Into the Woods

136: Health and efficiency

135. The battle for number two

134. The Power of Yes

133. The ancient regime

132. A summer holiday with Map Corner

131. Trapped

130. Public enterprise

129. The regeneration game

128. The country where I want to be

127. A short history of council housing

126. After Grenfell and advanced Sheffield

125. Global Britain and local Liverpool

124. North of the Tyne, south of the Strand

123. Beyond the Wall, with John Lanchester

122. A place of worship

121. Everything Is Awful

120: Brexit Brexit Bloody Brexit

119. Live from the crypt 2: Still encrypted

118. Flying high

117. Into the Vortex

116. The biggest story in the world

115. Food, glorious, food

114. Driving home for Christmas

113. Going green

112. Council housing strikes back

111. Why aye, man

110. The rise of the robots

REPEAT: Sex* and the city (*gender)

109. Remember, Shaun Bailey is 47 years old

108. Brizzle

107. Social contracts

106. Walking with Elizabeth

105. Scouse Exceptionalism

104. London Blues, #2

103. London Blues, #1

102. God’s own country