logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2023
52m 38s

Katie J. Wells et al., "Disrupting D.C.:...

NEW BOOKS NETWORK
About this episode
The first city to fight back against Uber, Washington, D.C., was also the first city where such resistance was defeated. It was here that the company created a playbook for how to deal with intransigent regulators and to win in the realm of local politics. The city already serves as the nation’s capital. Now, D.C. is also the blueprint for how Uber conquered ... Show More
Up next
Today
Max Krahé and Sara Schulte, "Housing Policy At An Expensive Dead End" (Dezernat Zukunft, 2026)
If governments provide financial support for affordable housing, should they provide support for inhabitants directly, or rather for the construction of dwellings? Dr. Max Krahé and Sara Schulte both work for the German economic think tank Dezernat Zukunft, and they aim to answer ... Show More
56m 4s
May 21
Erica Bornstein, "A Revolution of Rules: The Regulatory Reform of India's Nonprofit Sector" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Erica Bornstein, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon (and Divisional Associate Dean), has a new book that delves into the regulatory reforms within the nonprofit sector in India. These reforms transpired over more than a decade, and Bornstein spent extended time ... Show More
41m 55s
May 13
Photis Lysandrou, "Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It" (Policy Press, 2025)
In a world shaken by crises, why does the dollar continue to dominate? In Dollar Dominance: Why It Rules the Global Economy and How to Challenge It (Policy Press, 2025) Photis Lysandrou explores the interaction between global instability and the enduring strength of the dollar. D ... Show More
54m 13s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2019
Recode Decode: Richard Walker
Historian and urbanist Richard Walker, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about his latest book, Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode: How California has historically been a ... Show More
55m 6s
Jun 2023
America’s Big City Brain Drain
<p>In recent years, well-paid and college-educated Americans have shed major cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington for places like Philadelphia or Birmingham, Ala.</p><p>Emily Badger, who writes about cities and urban policy for The Upshot at The New York Times, expl ... Show More
29m 50s
Sep 2021
Shannon Mattern, "A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Computational models of urbanism—smart cities that use data-driven planning and algorithmic administration—promise to deliver new urban efficiencies and conveniences. Yet these models limit our understanding of what we can know about a city. A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban ... Show More
45m 35s
Aug 2023
Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World
America's once-vibrant small-to-midsize cities--Syracuse, Worcester, Akron, Flint, Rockford, and others--increasingly resemble urban wastelands. Gutted by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and middle-class flight, disproportionately devastated by metro freeway systems that laid w ... Show More
12m 43s
May 2021
Nathan D. Grawe, "The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
In his highly influential book, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Carleton College Professor of Economics, Nathan Grawe, alerted college and university leaders to the challenges they would be facing with the accelerating decline in the number of U.S. high school g ... Show More
1h 4m
Jan 2020
Ben Green, "The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future" (MIT Press, 2019)
The “smart city,” presented as the ideal, efficient, and effective for meting out services, has capture the imaginations of policymakers, scholars, and urban-dweller. But what are the possible drawbacks of living in an environment that is constantly collecting data? What importan ... Show More
33m 51s
Oct 2023
New Dork City
Silicon Valley billionaires are battling local residents over plans to build a whole new city in California, part of a global trend of wealthy investors dreaming up cities from scratch. The San Francisco Chronicle’s J.K. Dineen and Sarah Moser from McGill’s New Cities Lab explain ... Show More
26m 7s