Whose City? A Podcast about San Diego-Tijuana and Southern California-northern Baja California’s Urban Future

Cities are in the midst of a moment of significant transformation in the U.S. and across the planet. The post-pandemic shifts in urban living, the digital revolution, social media, smart vehicles, dockless transport, ride sharing, on-line rental platforms and other new technologies are altering the way city dwellers move around, inhabit, work and think about their urban lifestyles.
Meanwhile, climate change, escalating housing costs, shortages of land, homelessness, urban sprawl, air pollution, scarcity of natural resources (like water) pose significant challenges to stakeholders who live, work, invest, and vote in cities, especially in the southern California-northern Baja California region.

At the same time, there has also been an explosion of creative thinking about the future of cities in the context of sustainability, bio-regional thinking, green design, urban-rural resilience, healthy placemaking and the idea of universities as catalysts for bioregional community outreach.

California’s urban population will reach 67 million by 2050, and San Diego-Tijuana (along with metropolitan Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area) will be one of the three primary metropolitan regions housing the state’s millions of inhabitants.

“Whose City?” will tackle the critical issues facing the San Diego-Tijuana and southern California-northern Baja California metropolitan region, through the lens of the physical environment, resilience, bio-regional systems, neighborhoods, buildings, streets, public spaces, traffic circulation, land use, community planning, public art, and future development projects. The goal is to tackle many of the critical issues that impact every-day citizens and communities – issues that cut across economy, environment, land, property, transit and neighborhood.

This podcast is part of a “storytelling” approach to research, community outreach and the translation of complex scientific and research projects to the larger public, as one way of creating an informed and engaged citizenry.

The podcast will feature local urban/environmental policy, planning and design experts, community advocates and scholars, and will be hosted and produced by Dr. Larry Herzog, Lecturer in Urban Studies and Planning, and Designer-in-Residence in the Design Lab, UCSD. Herzog is also Professor Emeritus of City Planning, School of Pubic Affairs, San Diego State University and a globally recognized U.S.-Mexico border and international planning scholar and author. In addition to an invited expert or panel of experts, some podcasts will also have a guest co-host.