The DNA of Cities – Details, episodes & analysis

After 30 episodes, 60 guests, 16 Keynotes, 5 cities and 1 unforgettable opportunity to explore Amazonian cities, Greg and Caitlin sit down to celebrate the whirlwind that was Season 2 of The DNA of Cities podcast and look ahead at what's coming next. 

Thank you for listening!

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Mentioned in this episode:

• IDB report on Cities in Amazonia (2025)

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Tom Harrington and Dainius Kacinskas.

The future of the Amazon Rainforest depends on the health of its cities. In this episode, released as Belém, Brazil prepares to host COP30, we convene several experts on Amazonian cities and urbanisation to explore what needs to stop, change or begin to ensure that the Amazon, including its cities, will thrive forever. 

There is no single policy, solution or fix that can be deployed to secure or safe-guard the health of the cities, the forest and the rivers. An urgent mindset shift is needed to first acknowledge the existence of the rainforest's cities and then to embrace original Amazonian ways of city-making, allowing contemporary cities to be redefined and remade as champions of the forest. 

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We were honoured to be invited by the Inter-American Development Bank (the IDB) to work with them on a series of The DNA of Cities episodes about Amazonian cities. This is the first time that we have taken the idea of The DNA of Cities to look at a group of cities and we were really excited to do this in such an important part of our world.

Over three episodes, we convene seven experts on Amazonian cities, archaeology, anthropology, indigeneity, history, political economy and political ecology. We are incredibly grateful to Dr Adrian Lerner Patron, Professor Eduardo Góes Neves, Ana María Durán Calisto, Dr Tatiana Shor, Professor Felipe Correa, Isabel Peñaranda Currie and Professor Saint Clair Trindade Jr for joining us to decode The DNA of Amazonian Cities. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

In the first of our Leader Keynotes in Manchester, we meet Councillor Bev Craig, Leader of Manchester City Council. We were delighted to spend some time learning about her perspectives on The DNA of Manchester. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Tom Harrington and Dainius Kacinskas.

Did you know that over 70% of the 50 million people living in the Amazon live in cities? 

We were honoured to be invited by the Amazonia Forever team at the Inter-American Development Bank (the IDB) to work with them on a series of The DNA of Cities episodes about Amazonian cities. This is the first time that we have taken the idea of The DNA of Cities to look at a group of cities and we were really excited to do this in such an important part of our world.

Over three episodes, we convene seven experts on Amazonian cities, archaeology, anthropology, indigeneity, history, political economy and political ecology. We are incredibly grateful to Dr Adrián Lerner Patrón, Professor Eduardo Góes Neves, Ana María Durán Calisto, Dr Tatiana Schor, Professor Felipe Correa, Isabel Peñaranda Currie and Professor Saint-Clair Trindade Jr for joining us to decode The DNA of Amazonian Cities. 

In this episode, we turn to the dark soils of the forest to unearth the ancient traits and characteristics of cities in the Amazon: The cities of the world's largest tropical rainforest and the world's longest and most powerful rivers. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

In this episode, the final installment of The DNA of Manchester, we continue our exploration into the city's recovery but with a focus on how a distinctly Manchester approach to this was galvanised. 

We then explore mindsets in Manchester. We've heard several times over these three episodes that this is a place of collaboration, but where has that come from?

We'll then step into present day Manchester to ask where is the city now, where is it going next, and how might it's DNA shape that?

Thank you to Jessica Bowles, Victoria Braddock, Christine Cort OBE, Sir Richard Leese, Sukhbir Singh, Esme Ward, Peter Saville CBE and Keisha Thompson FRSA for joining us!

Stay tuned for some very special Leader Keynotes coming soon. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

It is not possible to talk about the character or traits of Manchester today without talking about deindustrialisation and the city's revival. In our work on The DNA of Cities, we see enduring and severe traumas such as this as a kind of epigenetic event – as a shock that alters a city. 

In the early 2000s, there was a feeling that Manchester could be capable of being more, again. It's not that Manchester wanted to re-instate itself as the world's industrial powerhouse in the 21st Century, but its own history and its sense of what and who it had once been formed a kind of aspiration for its own future. 

In this episode, we learn about the city's recovery with Brian Groom, Peter Saville, Sir Richard Leese, Mike Emmerich, Christine Cort, John McGrath and Jessica Bowles. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

If you are familiar with Manchester already, you may have heard it being described as the "shock city" of the Industrial Revolution and it also fits the description of an "instant city". It was the industrialisation of the textile manufacturing and finishing that transformed Manchester under an intense and dramatic process of urbanisation. Put simply, the scale of innovation that took place in this region in the 18th and 19th centuries revolutionised the world. Mills, warehouses and factories processed more cotton than anywhere else and through its pioneering inventions in transport, industrial techniques and factory layouts. It became a global symbol of industrial success.

We ask, why Manchester? Why did this place become the world's first industrial city?

We hear from Victoria Braddock, Brian Groom, Mike Emmerich, Sir Richard Leese, Peter Saville, Keisha Thompson, Esme Ward and Maya Wolfe-Robinson.

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

What does The DNA of Cities mean to global urban historians? Rosemary is Professor of History at Fordham University and she is the Director of the Urban Studies Programme. We were delighted to hear during this conversation about some of her recently published global comparisons from her book The Worlds of Victor Sassoon (The University of Chicago Press, 2024). Rosemary is also the President of the Global Urban History Project, which brings together scholars at all stages of their careers from around the world, with common interests in researching at the intersection of urban history and global history. 

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What are the Keynotes? These are the episodes where we zoom out from our city-to-city voyage to meet global expert voices from a range of different disciplinary vantage points (e.g. from history, to theology, to genetics, to archaeology, to design) to understand the place of cities in their work. We want to know how they would approach and investigate the relationship between cities and human experience and evolution. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Josh Latham. 

We trace and explore the social patterns and mindsets in Mexico City. We want to know, how and where is The DNA of Mexico City expressed, how can it be felt and experienced? In particular, we ask, where does that survival instinct reveal itself, how does it manifest?

We are joined by Tatiana Bilbao, Lorena Zárate, Felipe Correa, Gabriela Jauregui, Onésimo Flores Dewey, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Juan Villoro, Ana Elena Mallet Cárdenas and Matt Vitz. We wish to thank them and Gabriella Gómez-Mont for all of her support in putting these episodes together. 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.

Welcome to Part II of The DNA of Mexico City. This is the episode where we explore the kinds of traits and characteristics that Mexico City has inherited through its history and where we might see, feel and experience them today.

If our first episode on The DNA of Mexico City could be summarised in one word, it would be 'survival' and in this episode, the term that comes up again and again is 'layering'.

We are hugely grateful to the esteemed experts who joined us in this episode to unpack the decode The DNA of Mexico City. Thank you to Dr Gabriela Jauregui, Tatiana Bilbao, Onésimo Flores-Dewey, A/Professor Matthew Vitz, Professor Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Juan Villoro, Ana Elena Mallet Cárdenas, Professor Felipe Correa and Lorena Zárate. We also wish to thank Gabriela Gómez-Mont for all of her support in the making of these episodes.

To discover more about The DNA of Mexico and our guests, check out:

• Feral by Gabriela Jauregui
• Clara Porset: Butaque by Ana Elena Mallet
• Horizontal Vertigo by Juan Villoro
• A City on a Lake by Matt Vitz
• Mexico City: Between Geometry and Geography by Felipe Correa
• Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend
• I Speak of the City by Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo
• Lorena Zárate's writing on the right to the city
• Onésimo Flores Dewey's writing on transport and infrastructure 

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Bass Vibes - Rollin at 5 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100462

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Sound design by Dainius Kacinskas.