God Made the Country, and Man Made the Town

We sit down to talk about the recent history and far future of urban planning and design in China and worldwide with Sebastian Ibold, Project Director for the project Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport, GIZ. Sebastian has a rich past life as a consultant on urban planning issues and consulting in Asia, and his current work relates to rethinking urban mobility, shaping the city around an integration of the needs of users, technology, and sustainability.

At the end of the episode, we play a scenario analysis betting game based on a report, "The Politics and Practices of Low-Carbon Urban Mobility in China," from the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University, and the Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University. The report is available at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42416653.pdf.

The episode's title is from a poem by William Cowper: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/god-made-country.

Sebastian references Dutch-American sociologist Saskia Sassen. Her biography, bibliography, and various links can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskia_Sassen.