Finding out what our urban futures hold in Ljubljana

April 2, 2026·30 min·1 clip

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Ljubljana gives the programme its frame. The Urban Future Better Cities event lands in a compact capital that the correspondent describes through its good, bad and ugly urbanism, all sitting close together. Andrew Tuck lays out the themes: city centres, tactical urbanism, circularity, resilient societies, government innovation and shifts in communication. The episode keeps its feet on the pavement. It is more interested in how ideas work once they leave the conference room. One thread keeps returning: what happens when practices that started at the edge of civic life get taken up by city authorities. Tactical urbanism is the sharpest example. The guest says tools that once felt activist are now part of the everyday business of cities. That opens useful doors, but it also changes the job of active citizens. If city halls are using the same methods, residents may need new tactics, new tools or another way to work with the city. The setting makes the point harder to ignore. From the convention centre, the conversation looks toward Bezigrad on one side and major railway-station construction on the other. Empty ground sits beside a new shopping centre. That contrast leads to a blunt line of thought: each generation of city makers leaves behind monuments to its own failures, visible from the 60s onward. Shopping malls, mixed-use zones and commercial centres become future repair jobs for people who care about neglected public space. Circularity comes next, with the excerpt only starting that turn. The close stays human, as the crew head into party mode and leave open whether the connections made in Ljubljana might shape what comes next.

As heard by us

Ljubljana's Urban Future gathering turns city-making into lively cultural criticism, with tactical urbanism, circularity and branding kept close to the street.

Ljubljana makes a neat, slightly unruly host for The Urbanist's visit to the Urban Future Better Cities event. The episode treats the compact Slovenian capital as a working example, moving from shared spaces and repurposed factories to traffic, shopping centres and pockets of…

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Hear how Ljubljana complicates the promise of better cities.

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