City Beautiful

City Beautiful on Discord!

Hi everyone! I've thought about creating a Discord for the channel for awhile now, and I thought now's the time to give it a try! I didn't realize that creating the integration with Patreon would a...

New Video: How to Fix America's Worst Streets

This one was fun to make because I show you how I prototype corridor redesigns using some basic information, Google Maps, and Streetmix. I hope this is interesting/helpful to people!

Early Access: Are the suburbs getting worse?*

This is an exciting video for me to share because it's based on my dissertation research, which I recently got published in the journal "Urban Morphology." It's always fun for me to make a video ab...

Early Access: How to Remove a Highway

Next video is up early on YouTube! I really enjoyed making this one because I got to check up on lots of the endangered highways here in the U.S. and check on their status. Unfortunately, not enoug...

Traveling to Japan -- Need Ideas!

Hi Patreon folks! 

I'm taking a 13-day trip to Tokyo and Kyoto in June. I'm looking for video topic ideas from you all. What kind of videos would you like to see? Here are some ideas I h...

Early Access: Should Cities Be Circles?

Here's my latest, which will go live on YouTube tomorrow! This is a fun video, meant to be a sequel of sorts to my hexagon video. I've also been wanting to tell the story of Circleville, Ohio for a...

End of Year Review!

It's the end of my seventh year on YouTube! I like to wrap up every year with a video to my Patrons about how the previous year went and what to expect next year. This is that video. Thank you for ...

Early Access: History of Paris

I love doing big history videos, so this was fun. And it was a chance for my writing/research assistant Hannah Woolsey to end her run with the channel in style. She took the lead writing and direct...

Early access: Can U.S. Cities Build Narrow European Streets?

This was a fun video to make, in part because I got to wander around some narrow Philadelphia streets to film it! This is a rare video that's not based on any existing knowledge about planning, but...

Early access: Can we fix the suburbs?

This is my first of two videos that came from a recent trip to Philadelphia. I was there at the end of March for the national conference for the American Planning Association. It's the biggest annu...

Early Access: Why Are College Towns So Great?

This is sort of early access, because in like 12 hours it will go live on YouTube. Sorry about that! I'm entering the busiest time of the year for me, as I'm in the final quarter of the academic ye...

Early Access: Why Did Humans Invent Cities?

I've always enjoyed Spiro Kostof's book "The City Shaped," particularly the first chapters on the designs of early cities. He also has a nice discussion of different definitions of "city" that help...

Early Access: Why Nobody Lives in Venice

The concept for this video has been floating around in my head since before YouTube existed. I visited Venice in 2004 and was amazed that I could walk through Venice at night and not see a single s...

Early Access: Does Your City Have Enough Parks?

I've been meaning to do a video on parks for a long time. I think there is even more content here that I didn't cover, but I meant for this to be a basic primer on concepts like active vs. passive ...

Thanks Patreon Patrons!

Here's a quick year-end recap. It's been a crazy six years; and I'm still doing it thanks to you all. I'll see you in the New Year!

Early Access: How We Can Make Streets Safer NOW (But Don't)

This video has been on my mind recently, as cities and planners have begun to reflect on "Vision Zero" efforts to eliminate road deaths in the United States. Many cities have not lived up to their ...

Early Access: The Pros and Cons of Airport Transit

This video has been a thought in my head for awhile. Jarrett Walker, the author of Human Transit, has been a critic of airport transit, and I found his arguments to be pretty convincing. But I trie...

Early Access: Should Cities Get Rid of On-Street Parking?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am incredibly grateful for all of your support this past year. Your contributions have truly made these videos better. I often have to do a cost/benefit calculation w...

Early Access: Can the Best US Bike Cities Compete with Europe?

This was a video I've been thinking about for awhile. I moved to San Luis Obispo (SLO), California two years ago, and over the past two years the city has rapidly expanded their top-notch bike faci...

Early Access: Why is Downtown Los Angeles So Small?

This is my last video that I produced from my trip to LA at the end of June. I think the topic came from a suggestion on Twitter, and answering that question was fun for me (and hopefully fun for y...

New Video: Introduction to Urban Goods Movement

This is a topic that hasn't received a lot of focus on this channel, but is critically important to cities: goods logistics! I originally thought this video would have more of a Los Angeles focus, ...

Can Public Transit Beat Uber?

This video was a fun one to make, because I got to do a little experiment. I found that Metro Micro was pleasant to use, and with a little pre-planning, could be a good replacement for Uber. This i...

Early Access: Should the U.S. Build More Public Housing?

Goes live tomorrow morning!

Early Access: The 10 Biggest Cities You've Never Heard of (Probably)

A beach read of a video just in time for summer.

New video: Urban Growth Boundaries: Effective or Worthless?

Last video from Portland. Hope you enjoy!

New Video: Transit Oriented Development, Explained

Here it is! My first of two Portland videos.

U.S. and European Zoning, Compared

Sorry for no early access on this one! 

Early Access: Delhi video!

This goes live tomorrow (Wednesday) but you get to check it out early.

Bracket Challenge Livestream!

We had a livestream this afternoon and it was a good time! If you missed it, here's a replay of the livestream—for Patreon Patrons only!

Help testing livestream!

Hi Patreon patrons, 

I'm going live next Friday to do a "Best Big City in the World" tournament bracket challenge. It's a fun, city-oriented take on March Madness. I need a little help. ...