U Is for Urbanism

Summary

99% Invisible: "U Is for Urbanism"

Original Air Date: December 2, 2025
Host: Roman Mars
Guests: Anna Codet, Alexandra Lange

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Overview

This episode of 99% Invisible explores how Sesame Street—a children’s television landmark—has helped to shape not only educational lives but also our collective vision of what good urban neighborhoods can and should be. Roman Mars and his guests analyze the show's real and fictional roots in urban design, its alignment with the principles of influential urbanist Jane Jacobs, and how its aspirational depiction of community remains relevant—and even radical—today.
The second half of the episode broadens the lens to focus on design for children and teens in urban spaces, in conversation with Pulitzer-winning critic Alexandra Lange.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. The Neighborhood of Sesame Street: More than a TV Set

[01:01–03:10]

• Roman Mars and Anna Codet introduce the premise that Sesame Street's value isn’t just its lessons in ABCs and sharing, but its subtle education in what a thriving, healthy neighborhood looks like.
• Anna Codet: “It’s actually shaped not only children’s education, but also our physical built environment. Like, at this point, there are actual streets that are renamed Sesame street in cities across America.” [02:12]

Memorable Quote:

• Roman Mars: “A good neighborhood keeps people safe. A good neighborhood makes you feel like you're a part of something. A good neighborhood makes the lives of its residents just generally good.” [01:01]

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2. The Origins: Joan Ganz Cooney and Social Intent

[03:10–06:05]

• Introduction of Sesame Street’s creator, Joan Ganz Cooney, and her background in media and social documentary.
• She saw TV as an accessible tool for societal change, aiming to close educational gaps in underprivileged communities.

Notable Quotes:

• Joan Ganz Cooney: “Research is woven into the total fabric of the show. Every segment is being tested and evaluated by the toughest critics of all, the children themselves.” [03:58]

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3. Setting Sesame Street: The Real City as Inspiration

[06:05–09:18]

• John Stone, another early creator, was inspired by the gritty realities and positive possibilities of New York City.
• The set designers purposefully didn’t erase the “rougher details”—there’s visible litter, weathered brownstones, and authenticity, not just TV gloss.
• Anna Codet: “There's trash. There's like wheat paste posters...the brownstone is not this, like, pristine brownstone. It has soot on the sides.” [08:51]

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4. Urbanism by Design: Who Sesame Street Was For

[09:18–10:06]

• The show was intentionally aimed at inner city, underserved children. The street was designed to look like “home” for them, aspirationally showing a harmonious, safe, supportive city block.

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5. The Jane Jacobs Connection: Sesame Street as Urbanist Blueprint

[10:06–13:07]

• Roman Mars and Anna Codet outline how Sesame Street wasn’t just idealistic—it directly embodies Jane Jacobs’ four-part theory of what makes urban neighborhoods thrive (The Death and Life of Great American Cities):
  • Mixed-use neighborhoods (stores, homes, laundromats, etc.)
  • Short city blocks for more interaction.
  • Mixture of old and new buildings (“survivor of gentrification”)
  • Dense concentration of people for vibrancy and safety.
• Anna Codet: “Sesame street ends up being this blueprint for a Jane Jacobsian utopia almost.” [12:44]

Essential Quote:

• Jane Jacobs: “Suppose we actually let the sidewalks do the job that they can do best, and suppose we stop trying to provide poor substitutes for them.” [12:12]

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6. The “Sidewalk Ballet” in Practice

[16:04–18:24]

• Roman Mars and Anna Codet discuss “sidewalk ballet”—those organic, everyday public encounters Jacobs observed and praised—which Sesame Street sharply dramatizes.
• The very first episode includes a tour of the block, spontaneous greetings, and invitations for milk and cookies, illustrating this concept.

Key Moment:

• Anna Codet: “You're seeing children play on the street, and it's like the quintessential sidewalk ballet. Just little moments of human interaction that are unplanned and pretty minor, but altogether they make you feel like you're part of something greater.” [18:06]

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7. Defending Urban Idealism: Grumpy Developers and Culture Wars

[18:24–22:59]

• The show’s utopian vision was deliberately at odds both with top-down urban planners (Robert Moses) and pop culture antagonists (like the Trump-parody “Ronald Grump” played by Joe Pesci).
• Sesame Street’s depiction of diversity and urban life is sometimes treated as political, especially in recent culture wars.
• Anna Codet discusses right-wing criticism: “Unlike other children’s shows, Sesame street took place in a dingy setting, an urban neighborhood street... he says [Ben Shapiro] that the show is about legitimizing urban liberal lifestyles.” [20:55]

Notable Quote:

• Roman Mars: “At a time when Americans increasingly don’t know their neighbors and communities feel more fractured than ever, Sesame street still shows us something different. A block where people of all backgrounds actually talk to each other, look out for each other, share space, not just peacefully, but joyfully.” [21:21]

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8. Radical Imagination and Representation

[22:14–22:59]

• Loretta Long (Susan on Sesame Street) reflects in her memoir on the quietly radical choice to make Susan and her husband Black homeowners and landlords, which pushed the bounds of racial representation on TV for its time.
• Anna Codet: “It's already a show that has little monsters running around, right? Why not show something like Black Home Ownership?” [22:59]

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9. Designing Cities for Children and Teens (with Alexandra Lange)

[26:31–41:18]

Playground Independence and Subtle Empowerment

• Lange highlights the importance of city design that gives children—and especially teens—real independence.
• Favorite moment: Sesame Street’s “loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter” errand cartoon.
• Alexandra Lange: “So much of what I write about is giving children independence... giving them opportunities like this, to be independent, like, that's it illustrates it perfectly.” [27:21]

Hostile Design for Teens

• Playgrounds are usually for ages 0–12; teens are often excluded from public space by both design and adult attitudes.
• The Annecy Verna Playground’s “mega swing” in Philadelphia is a rare park that invites teenagers as well as younger kids and adults to play and socialize together.

Key Quotes:

• Alexandra Lange: “When people are thinking of park provisions for teens, usually they're thinking about, like, sports courts...not every teenager wants to ball or wants to skate. And the swings really open up another avenue for physical activity, but also for social activity.” [32:59]
• Roman Mars notes that playground color choices—bright for kids, “coded” out for teens—subtly push older youth out.
  Alexandra Lange: “If you're a teenager...you don't necessarily want to go and play on those things.” [34:24]

Playground Trends, Risky Play, and All-ages Appeal

• Seesaws and sandboxes are fading from playgrounds; new rope structures and creative climbing equipment are increasingly popular and safer, while still allowing “risky play”—important for child development.
• Alexandra Lange: “It's really important for kids to engage in risky play, which does not necessarily mean dangerous play. But if you think about how we learn to do things, you usually have to try to do something and fail...” [38:05]
• Roman Mars recalls his own nerves letting kids use challenging playground equipment, acknowledging the essential balance between safety and learning.

Memorable Story:

• Alexandra shares the “viral cop on the slide” story from Boston City Hall playground: The problem wasn’t the playground, but an adult’s inexperience. “Plenty of children had used the slide safely... it became this kind of viral moment, like, oh my god, what are they doing to the children with these new playgrounds? And it was just that it was the cop's error, not the playground error.” [40:07]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Neighborhood Design
  “A good neighborhood makes you feel like you're a part of something.”
  — Roman Mars, [01:01]

• On Sesame Street's Mission
  “The show was very much aimed at closing the achievement gap...the way to do that, according to Stone, is to create this environment that they're familiar with.”
  — Anna Codet, [09:28]

• On Urban Idealism
  “The stories we tell our children shape what they believe is possible. So whether those stories are that they deserve to own a home one day, or that they have the power to build better cities, or that kindness matters, luckily we have Sesame street to tell them.”
  — Roman Mars, [22:59]

• On Playgrounds and Teens
  “Playgrounds by and large are designed for children from 0 to 12...people keep saying teenagers in America are having a mental health crisis and don't exercise enough and...it's just like, really, like, what do you want the teenagers to do?”
  — Alexandra Lange, [29:08]

• On Risky Play
  “It's really important for kids to engage in risky play, which does not necessarily mean dangerous play...if they don't do it, they will never learn how to do it safely, and then you're actually inhibiting their growth and independence.”
  — Alexandra Lange, [38:05]

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Segment Timestamps

• Sesame Street as aspiration and urban blueprint: [01:01–13:07]
• Jane Jacobs’ influence and urban design theory: [10:31–13:07]
• “Sidewalk ballet” and the fabric of community: [16:04–18:24]
• Urbanism as political/culture war debate: [18:24–22:59]
• Playground and public space design for older children/teens: [26:31–41:18]

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Conclusion

“U Is for Urbanism” vividly connects how a fictional street on a children’s TV show became one of society’s clearest and most tenacious refutations of urban pessimism. The episode ties Sesame Street’s hopeful vision to the most influential ideas in city planning, while also interrogating present-day challenges of inclusivity in cities and play. Both children’s shows and city design, the episode argues, have the power to nurture not just individuals, but community—and, at their best, to make us believe in better.

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For more resources and episode links, visit 99percentinvisible.org.

Transcript

[Roman Mars]

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[Roman Mars]

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. A good neighborhood should accomplish a number of important functions. A good neighborhood keeps people safe. A good neighborhood makes you feel like you're a part of something. A good neighborhood makes the lives of its residents just generally good. Not all of us were lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood like that. But for over half a century, millions and millions of kids around the world at least got to experience it through their television sets.

[Child Narrator]

Sunny day sleeping up Clouds away On my way to where the air is free can you tell me how to. How to get to Sesame Street?

[Anna Codet]

I think it has formed so many children's views of the world and how to interact with people and how they think life should be.

[Roman Mars]

This is Anna Codet. She's a journalist who covers the built environment and public space for the New York Times.

[Anna Codet]

Like, it's actually shaped not only children's education, but also our physical built environment. Like, at this point, there are actual streets that are renamed Sesame street in cities across America.

[Roman Mars]

Recently, she wrote about one of the most influential city blocks in the world, Sesame Street. Like millions of other kids, Anna grew up an Elmo fan, which is what kind of inspired the article.

[Anna Codet]

I selfishly wanted to see the set of Sesame street. So I was like, how can I come up with a story that fits into my beat? Is there like, some just, like, something fun and silly we could do with one of them? Like, could Elmo show us around his apartment? Like an apartment tour?

[Roman Mars]

By the way, I'd 100% watch the Elmo Architectural Digest tour.

[Anna Codet]

I was thinking more and more, and I was like, we don't really see that much of his home. It's not really about that it's more like the neighborhood and the community.

[Roman Mars]

For over 50 years, Sesame street has been teaching children language, math, and core development lessons. But Anna contends that the show has also been quietly educating kids about good urbanism and what a health the neighborhood should look like.

[Anna Codet]

After my article came out, I had a lot of people reach out and say, you know, I think this is why I always wanted to live in a walkable neighborhood, was because I watched Sesame street growing up, and that kind of shaped my idea of how life should be. And what's funny is like on the show, you see Muppets, you see children, and you see adults. So you have all these different ways of kind of imagining life.

[Roman Mars]

But in order for us to tell you how to get how to get to Sesame street, we first need to begin with a woman named Joan Gantz Cooney.

[Joan Ganz Cooney]

Research is woven into the total fabric of the show. Every segment is being tested and evaluated by the toughest critics of all, the children themselves. I think it's fair to say that by the time our program goes on the air, it will be the most thoroughly researched show in the history of the medium.

[Anna Codet]

Joan Ganz Cooney was this media executive. She had just won an Emmy for this documentary she'd done on the War on poverty program. And, yeah, naturally, cute little monsters are next, no? But she viewed television as this tool to effect change.

[Roman Mars]

Cooney was a former journalist turned television producer who was galvanized by so many of the social issues plaguing 1960s America. And working on the documentary made Cooney deeply aware of the inequalities in early childhood education.

[Anna Codet]

Specifically, in 1966, the same year she won the Emmy, she worked on this study called the Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education.

[Roman Mars]

Television programming at the time was described as a, quote, vast wasteland by the then FCC chairman. But Cooney realized that if television was already capturing the attention of children across the country, that power could be harnessed and put to good use, particularly if it were a television show for young children.

[Anna Codet]

She wrote that more households have televisions than bathtubs, telephones, vacuum cleaners, toasters, or a regular daily newspaper. So she viewed the TV as this tool that everyone had, this accessible way to educate people, and especially kids.

[Roman Mars]

This study led to the creation of the Sesame Street Workshop.

[Joan Ganz Cooney]

When the workshop goes on the air, the puppets you'll see in the film will be joined by real people who will set each segment into the proper learning context, recognition of the letters of the Alphabet, numbers, basic reasoning skills, and a better awareness of themselves and the world around them.

[Anna Codet]

Another person worth mentioning here is John Stone, who is also one of the early creators of the show.

[Roman Mars]

John Stone was a writer, producer, and director and had a huge hand in shaping the look and feel of what Sesame street would eventually become. According to Stone, he drew his inspiration from one of the most unlikely sources, New York City.

[Joan Ganz Cooney]

The subways are crummy and they're dangerous.

[Alexandra Lange]

You get pushed, you get shoved.

[Joan Ganz Cooney]

Sometimes you get mugged in the subway.

[Anna Codet]

Well, I guess I'll pull back a little bit. The city was not doing well at the time, and people were not viewing the city positively at the time.

[Roman Mars]

In the late 1960s, New York City was struggling with crime rates and social unrest. People were leaving the city in droves.

[Anna Codet]

There was riots. And at the same time, suburbs are starting to grow and we're in this post war housing boom and wealthy white people are moving out to the suburbs in hoards. And this would later be called white flight. Of course, all that is to say that cities were not viewed as the place to be at that time, especially New York. People who could leave and who wanted to leave were in fact leaving.

[Roman Mars]

But around this time in 1968, a public service campaign was launched by the New York Urban Coalition to convince people to care about the city's blighted neighborhoods and to stop leaving town. It was called the Give a Dam campaign.

[New York Urban Coalition Representative]

Almost half of all non whites are forced to live in substandard housing. You can help them through the New York Urban Coalition.

[Anna Codet]

And there was a television ad that was part of it, and it showed. It showed children playing in gutters in Harlem. And it had the tagline, again, give a damn.

[New York Urban Coalition Representative]

Give jobs, give money, give a damn.

[Anna Codet]

John Stone, who was working on Sesame street, he didn't have a clear idea of what it was gonna be at the time, but he's working on this children's show, and he's kind of watching the TV and he sees this ad and it's this, like, epiphany moment for him. He's like, wait, I've got it. It needs to be set on a city street. And actually, so after my article came out, his children wrote to me and, like, I would have loved to have interviewed him if he was still alive, but his children wrote saying that he loved to tell the story of, like, when he had the idea to set the show on a street, the color from Joan's face just drained. She was just like, wait, what? Like, how are we gonna do that?

[Roman Mars]

Stone and his set designer scouted locations around Harlem, the Upper west side and the Bronx to build an amalgam of what the brownstone of 123 Sesame street would look like and chose not to polish away some of the rougher details.

[Anna Codet]

There's trash. There's like wheat paste posters. There's. I mean, Oscar lives in a trash can, like, and, I mean, and it's not just that he lives in the trash can. There's like actual litter on the streets. And the, the brownstone is not this, like, pristine brownstone. It has soot on the sides and you can see that it just looks like a real city street. They didn't beautify it, but in a.

[Roman Mars]

Way, a New York City block was really the only place Stone and Cooney could have set a show like Sesame Street. And this was because of who they were trying to reach.

[Anna Codet]

The show was very much aimed at closing the achievement gap, right? They wanted to reach and educate inner city children, improvorous children. And the way to do that, according to Stone, is to create this environment that they're familiar with. He wanted to create an environment that would look familiar to them and look like home to them. But what's going on is not riots and crime and all this awful stuff. It's this, like, harmonious, integrated, happy little village where, where people get along and if they have problems, they will resolve them with each other.

[Roman Mars]

During a time when the city's reputation was mixed at best, Sesame street deliberately chose to portray the more positive aspects of living in a place like New York City. It depicted an inner city neighborhood that worked. And in doing so, the show found itself aligned with the ideas of one of the most prominent advocates of vibrant urban communities, the writer and activist Jane Jacobs.

[Jane Jacobs]

Some things are said so often that nobody thinks of what they mean anymore. For instance, for years we've been hearing, take the children off the streets, off the streets and into where.

[Roman Mars]

Although we haven't had a specific Jane Jacobs episode of 99 PI, her influence touches nearly every story we cover on the show. Jacobs wasn't an urban planner at all. She was a resident of Greenwich Village who saw firsthand how slum clearance and revitalization efforts in the 1950s devastated communities. Instead, she championed mixed use, pedestrian friendly cities, and a community based approach to urban planning.

[Anna Codet]

Jane Jacobs is this great observer of urban life. She's an expert noticer of what's going on in the city, and she's just paying attention to things in her own neighborhood in Manhattan. And she's writing down all these interactions that a lot of people are familiar with but have kind of taken for granted.

[Roman Mars]

In 1961, Jacobs compiled these observations and released a book called the Death and Life of Great American Cities.

[Anna Codet]

It's just one of those books that becomes part of the zeitgeist. It is hugely popular, hugely influential. The same way the concepts from the Feminine Mystique are in the air, the concepts from this book are also in the air. It's like the Bible for urbanists.

[Roman Mars]

In the book, Jacobs took aim at urban planners like Robert Moses who didn't understand how neighborhoods actually functioned. Instead of bulldozing, rebuilding, and further segregating neighborhoods, she believed that city planners should consider the needs of the residents.

[Jane Jacobs]

Suppose we actually let the sidewalks do the job that they can do best, and suppose we stop trying to provide poor substitutes for them.

[Roman Mars]

The Death and Life of Great American Cities was almost a love letter to what the city was already doing right. And in it, she identified a set of conditions that she observed. Every thriving city was built on. And because the creators of Sesame street were depicting what a healthy urban neighborhood looks like, you can actually see Jane Jacobs principles playing out. As you watch the show, Sesame street.

[Anna Codet]

Ends up being this blueprint for a Jane Jacobsian utopia almost. You have so many different principles that she outlined in her book play out on that actual block. And I think that's because the actual block of Sesame street very closely mirrors a real New York block.

[Roman Mars]

This next section is brought to you by the number four, because there are four different conditions that Jane Jacobs believed were key to a vibrant block. Starting with condition number one, a neighborhood.

[Child Narrator]

Should have multiple functions.

[Anna Codet]

I mean, it's a mixed use neighborhood. You have your laundromat, you have your convenience store, grocery store. You have a multifamily apartment building. You have everything you need there. It'll never be totally dead and empty. Like you'll have people going off to work, but then you'll have someone coming in to go shopping, and then you'll have people like kids out on the street playing. It'll always kind of be lively that way.

[Roman Mars]

Condition number two, city blocks should be short.

[Anna Codet]

The beauty of the blocks being short, especially on Sesame street, is that you have more contact with people in a real city too. That's the case, right?

[Roman Mars]

When blocks are shorter. It allows for many different paths and many different experiences and many different casual encounters for pedestrians.

[Anna Codet]

You're turning corners all the time and you're seeing new things and it's just more. I'm trying to think of a better way to say it, but it's more dynamic that way.

[Roman Mars]

Condition number three.

[Child Narrator]

There is A need for old buildings. New buildings and old buildings must mingle in a single district.

[Roman Mars]

In case you didn't quite catch that, the third condition is there is a need for aged buildings, and both old and new buildings must mingle together in a single district. This is because new buildings are expensive and rent reflects construction costs. If a neighborhood only has new buildings, the cost drives out diversity of businesses and people who can afford to stay there. You could see this dynamic playing out on Sesame Street.

[Anna Codet]

There was a redesign in the 90s and the set designers added a new hotel, a new apartment building, and the brownstone was still there. And one of the designers at the time said it was, and this is his quote, he said it was meant to look like a survivor of gentrification. But I say that to say you have this mix of the new and the old on Sesame Street.

[Roman Mars]

Condition number four, don't want to.

[Child Narrator]

You're just making me say stuff. Why can't I say whatever I want?

[Roman Mars]

Our kid narrators are clearly coming apart at the seams, so I'll handle this Last1. The fourth condition is that a neighborhood should have a dense concentration of people. This is key to a healthy city because high density supports the local businesses of a mixed use neighborhood and having more eyes on the streets helps keep them safer.

[Anna Codet]

Like all of these principles are intertwined, right? Like the dense concentration of people also goes hand in hand with the neighborhood serving multiple functions. Like, you have people just living there and maybe doing their laundry, and then you also have people working there like Mr. Hooper. So there's always, at any given time, a lot of people there.

[Roman Mars]

Jacobs believed that when these four conditions come together, cities become safer, more economically stable, more diverse, and more alive. And that when that happens, you can see it all unfolding on the sidewalk level. Jacobs even identified a type of spontaneous dance that pedestrians unknowingly perform when all these elements align. The sidewalk ballet.

[Anna Codet]

The sidewalk ballet is the term that Jane Jacobs coined to refer to all of those, like casual, improvised interactions that will happen in the public sphere of the sidewalk.

[Roman Mars]

It's the systematic dance of neighbors, shopkeepers, kids, workers and strangers moving through shared space, recognizing familiar faces, having spontaneous conversations, and watching out for one another. It's the visible manifestation of a neighborhood that's working the way it should.

[Anna Codet]

You can think about walking down a city block and you'll see a mom pushing a stroller. You'll see the shopkeeper, like, rolling up their gate and opening for the day. You'll see someone walking their dog. Maybe you see a neighbor, you know, and it's all of these. These people passing you by, and maybe you're saying hello.

[Roman Mars]

We actually see the sidewalk ballet playing out in the very first scene of the very first episode of Sesame Street. Sally, you've never seen a street like Sesame Street. Everything happens here, you know? Love it. Gordon is one of the few human characters on the show, and he owns the 123 Sesame St. Brownstone with his wife Susan. In this first scene, Gordon is showing a new neighbor, a young girl named Sally, around the block.

[Anna Codet]

And he's like, hi, there's Mr. Hooper. Oh, there's Big Bird.

[Alexandra Lange]

Hello, Big Bird.

[Child Narrator]

Oh, hi, Gordon.

[Jane Jacobs]

How are you?

[Roman Mars]

A man buys a newspaper from Mr. Hooper. Gordon's wife Susan pops her head out of the window to say hello.

[Anna Codet]

Oh, you just moved in, huh?

[Roman Mars]

Yes.

[Alexandra Lange]

Well, will you come back and see.

[Anna Codet]

Me later and have some milk and cookies with me?

[Alexandra Lange]

Okay, I'll see you later.

[Anna Codet]

You're seeing children play on the street, and it's like the quintessential sidewalk ballet. Just little moments of human interaction that are unplanned and pretty minor, but altogether they make you feel like you're part of something greater. And we see that all the time on Sesame Street.

[Roman Mars]

Jane Jacobs, much like the characters on Sesame street, taught us that a strong neighborhood can't just be built from the top down. And that, quote, cities have the capability of providing something for everybody only because and only when they are created by everybody. End quote. But of course, not every urban planner bought into this community driven vision. And while Jane Jacobs came up against Robert Moses, Sesame street faced Ronald Grumpy. Mr. Grump, we want to talk to you about your plans for Sesame Street.

[New York Urban Coalition Representative]

My plans? See for yourself. Out of the ruins of Sesame street rises the gleaming tower of grump.

[Alexandra Lange]

Where's 123 Sesame Street?

[New York Urban Coalition Representative]

I'm glad you asked that. It is now a luxurious boutique called. If you have to ask, you cannot afford it.

[Roman Mars]

Yes, that is the voice of Joe Pesci playing Ronald Grumpy.

[Anna Codet]

Ronald Grump is a real estate developer, perhaps inspired by someone in the real world. And he's played by Joe Pesci. And he comes onto Sesame street and he's got these plans for this glamorous new tower that he wants to build. And all the Muppets start freaking out and they're like, what do we do? We're going to get kicked out of our homes. You can't do this to Sesame Street. It's a special place.

[Roman Mars]

Of course, because this is a children's show. The residents of Sesame street were eventually able to overcome the terrible Ronald Grump and save their brownstone. But it isn't just the characters on Sesame street who have faced existential threats. The show itself has had to navigate several over the years. Since Sesame street is partly funded by public money and depicts a diverse cast in an urban setting, it's been accused of being overtly political.

[Anna Codet]

I was looking specifically when I was researching this article, criticism of the set in particular, and the main thing I found on that was from the right wing pundit Ben Shapiro, of course, and he called the set dingy. So this is what he said. Unlike other children's shows, Sesame street took place in a dingy setting, an urban neighborhood street. One of the characters, Oscar the Grouch, lived in a garbage can. And then he also says that the show is about legitimizing urban liberal lifestyles. It really seems like he's viewing any urban block, even a fictional one, as part of this big city liberal kind of idea.

[Roman Mars]

Because the show has been such a beloved institution for over half a century, Sesame street has been somewhat immune to attacks like these. But right now, public media is under threat, and Sesame street has gotten caught up in a culture war with a lot of casualties.

[Anna Codet]

I think there was a point where people would be too scared to touch something as beloved as Sesame street, but the fear of that has gone out the window, pretty much.

[Roman Mars]

Sesame street is facing probably its biggest challenge in decades, which is a shame, because at a time when Americans increasingly don't know their neighbors and communities feel more fractured than ever. Sesame street still shows us something different. A block where people of all backgrounds actually talk to each other, look out for each other, share space, not just peacefully, but joyfully. That vision feels almost radical now. And maybe depicting that gap between idealism and reality has always been the point.

[Anna Codet]

You know, I think Sesame street is very idealistic. I think the creators wanted to give children a vision of how urban life could be. But there's also a power within that kind of idealism.

[Roman Mars]

I would say the strongest example of that idealism came from the actor Loretta Long, who played Susan, the owner of the 123 Sesame Street Brownstone.

[Anna Codet]

And this is what she said in her memoir. Not only were we a black married couple, we also owned that house. We had some strange tenants like Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Ernie and Burt, but we were landlords, which was not the typical case for black families on television. And I think that kind of tells you why it's important to be idealistic at times. It's already a show that has little monsters running around, right? Like, why not show something like Black Home Ownership?

[Roman Mars]

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[Roman Mars]

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[Roman Mars]

Welcome back. All this talk about Sesame street has got us thinking more about kids and design, so we wanted to have frequent contributor Alexandra Lang back on the show. She's the author of the Design of Childhood. And like me, Alexandra loves Sesame Street. She told us her favorite moment is the cartoon where a mother sends her kid to the grocery store for three very specific items.

[Child Narrator]

Now, don't forget a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. I won't forget. I remember loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. Loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. Mr. Could I have a loaf of bread, a container of milk and. Gee, I can't remember.

[Alexandra Lange]

You know, so much of what I write about is about giving children independence. Like it's right there in the subtitle of my, my book. And this little clip just, I feel, perfectly illustrates why it's so empowering for kids to have independence. Like, the kid is so fixed on this activity. Like, we've all seen kids try, you know, so hard to be just that much more grown up and giving them opportunities like this, to be independent. Like, that's it illustrates it perfectly.

[Roman Mars]

So, Alexandra, you hold the record for the most appearances of a guest expert on 99% invisible. And a lot has happened since the last time we had you on, including that you won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, which is amazing. Congratulations.

[Alexandra Lange]

Thank you. It still feels quite unbelievable to me, too.

[Roman Mars]

And specifically, you won the Pulitzer Prize for your writing about design and childhood.

[Alexandra Lange]

That's right.

[Child Narrator]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Lange]

It was a whole series for Bloomberg City Lab on building more family friendly cities.

[Roman Mars]

Nice. Well, congratulations again. It's just so much fun to watch your success and I love your work and that's why you're drawn so much. And so it's a delight to see other people recognize it and enjoy it as much as we do. But I want to talk a little bit about design and childhood while we're in this space of Sesame street and urban spaces. And one of the things you identify in your reporting is in particular is that there's a lot of design that's hostile to teens. Like young children get a little bit of support, respectable adults get some support in public spaces. Teens have lots of places cut off to them, particularly in public spaces. Can you talk about that problem?

[Alexandra Lange]

It's like playgrounds by and large are designed for children from 0 to 12. And parents and caregivers get really uncomfortable if teenagers come into those playgrounds and start getting loud, start climbing on the play equipment in some ways that are unorthodox, et cetera. And meanwhile, you know, adults who run corner stores, you know, adults who run other kinds of semi public places also don't want teens hanging out because they think they're not going to spend money and they're also going to scare off the adults. And then on top of all of that, people keep saying teenagers in America are having a mental health crisis and don't exercise enough and don't leave the house and are playing too many video games. And it's just like, really like, what do you want the teenagers to do? Where do you want them to go? And so, yeah, I've tried a lot in my work to advocate for teenagers not being scary, but also to describe the kind of places that teenagers actually like and kind of might want to be out there in the world.

[Roman Mars]

And one of the places you describe in your book was designed by a design studio called WRT Design. They made an amenity that goes against this trend of excluding teens and made a park or designed a park that was really kind of teen friendly. Actually it's kind of open to all people. But the fact that it focuses a little bit on teens is what's particularly notable about it. And it was this FDR park in Philadelphia. So what did they make?

[Alexandra Lange]

So, yeah, it's the Annecy Verna playground in FDR park, which was designed by WRT and Studio Ludo, who are kind of a playground design expert firm. And the object that they designed they call the Mega Swing, which is this amazing swing set that is a 120 by 100 foot ellipse that has 20 swings hanging from it and, and a seating area in the middle. And basically it takes your ordinary playground swing and jacks it up beyond anything that most people can imagine. And the swing set also has five different types of swings for basically any ability level. Most of which can be used communally or in groups. So the idea is really making the swing into a social space that is also physically challenging and kind of like a puzzle to solve as you figure out, like, how to get higher, stronger, faster on any one of the swings.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah, they have ones that are kind of like a two person swing that kind of function together. They have these ones that the. With the netting. I've seen these more commonly that you can kind of lay down in. Yeah, yeah. It looks delightful and inviting and kind of amazing.

[Alexandra Lange]

Yeah, it really is, because, I mean, I went there once and there was a group of teenagers who all piled on one of the adaptive swings, which are those molded plastic kind of heavy duty swings, you know, intended for people with disabilities. But they piled like four different people on it, like standing up and sitting down and began rocking it, like really fast, back and forth, back and forth, and then jumping off when it reached the height. So it's like somehow like making this swing into a slightly unfamiliar object, I think also really fires up people's imaginations on like, oh, okay, I don't have to swing in just one way, and maybe I want to swing with my friends. And, you know, it becomes a whole story in itself.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah. What does a swing in particular provide that other sort of apparatus or other sort of amenities inside of a park doesn't provide for. For. For teens?

[Alexandra Lange]

Well, when people are thinking of park provisions for teens, usually they're thinking about, like, sports courts, especially like basketball courts, or they're thinking about skate parks. But not every teenager wants to. Wants to ball or wants to skate. And the swings really open up another avenue for physical activity, but also for social activity. Because swings can just be something that you can sit on and chat with a friend if you want to be outside, you want to be in public, you want to be hanging out, but you don't want to do either of those specific sports activities.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah. And, you know, why is a large mega screen, like, a good way to attract teens? Like, you wouldn't necessarily assume they'd be drawn to that. But why does it work?

[Alexandra Lange]

I think because older kids and teens don't necessarily want to use something that looks like it's been designed for kids. But the designers of this playground were very careful. Like, there isn't a lot of plastic, There aren't a lot of bright colors. You know, everything is kind of nature toned stainless steel. It doesn't necessarily scream, this is for kids.

[Roman Mars]

You know, I've never really thought about that. Like, the bright colors are these sort of Attractive, you know, beacons for little kids. But they're kind of not exactly repulsive to teens. But they're kind of indicators that teens shouldn't be there.

[Alexandra Lange]

Yeah. I mean, you can even see that, like, as you look at the clothes from like the children to the preteen to the teen section. Right. All the color gets leached out. We've coded the bright primary colors as things for kids. And so if you're a teenager and you're trying to make sure that people understand you're not a baby, you don't necessarily want to go and play on those things.

[Roman Mars]

So you write that most playgrounds are built just for kids. And they always include these four S's, which are swings, slides, seesaws, and sandboxes. And we're all very used to seeing these things on a playground. But how is that changing?

[Alexandra Lange]

Well, unfortunately, the sandbox and the seesaw are becoming somewhat endangered sandboxes because they're very high maintenance. And seesaws also because of fall dangers. But I'm happy to see some of these swings that kind of replicate the seesaw motion so that kids can still have that like, we've got to work together feeling. But they're considered so much safer than the old fashioned, like wood plank seesaws, I would say. You know, also now we see more different types of climbing structures. Like so many rope ladders, rope netting, big round kind of rope balls. And those can be really fun and challenging. And I think those replace things like the old fashioned jungle gym, but they are a lot safer and they can actually go a lot higher than those old structures could.

[Roman Mars]

I love seeing those. I want to climb on those. When I see these large rope ladder structures, I'm often specifically excluded by a signage that says people without children can't go into this space. But they look amazing. They look so fun.

[Alexandra Lange]

They can be really fun. I mean, I have climbed on many structures, so sometimes you just gotta go after all the parents with small children have left the playground because they're the ones who are going to report you. But yeah, they can be really fun. I mean, I think there's a reason climbing gyms are really popular now. Everyone wants to climb. It's a whole body exercise. There's just something about getting to the top that is so appealing and just such a natural challenge.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah. You know, when I was reading your essay and when I read your work, I think about the closest. The closest park to me in Berkeley is called Cordonissas park, and it was built in 1915 and it has What I would consider to be a fairly terrifying concrete slide built into the landscape. I mean, like, the kids, they're supposed to. I mean, kids, adults, like, you salvage some piece of cardboard, and you go to the top. You climb to the top, and you slide this thing down. You go extremely fast. I used to bring my little kids there, and it used to really, truly terrify me. I used to call it Concussion park and not Courtney's Park. And so there's this tension that if you do create something that's kind of fun for everyone, because playgrounds are sort of designed. 98% of them are designed for little, little kids. As soon as you have one that has something that is a little bit more challenging and appeals to adults and te alike, there is a little bit of attention that the younger kids want to do what the older kids are doing, and maybe that's not appropriate or something. How do you sort of balance all that stuff? It sounds like wrt and those group, you know, they figured out something, but what are they figuring out?

[Alexandra Lange]

I mean, what they're really figuring out is how to manage risk. It's really important for kids to engage in risky play, which does not necessarily mean dangerous play. But if you think about how we learn to do things, you usually have to try to do something and fail or try to do it and just not get it quite right. And that's really what risky play is for. The body, it's like, okay, I see all the big kids going down this slide. I've been watching them. I want to do it, too. But can I also absorb the lessons about how you dismount from the slide, how you should position your body on that piece of cardboard? Maybe the first time I do it, I don't want to use cardboard, because I can see if you just go down on your clothes, it's actually, like, slower than the cardboard. So, like, a. Exposing kids to, like, giving them the opportunity to watch other people do it and learn some lessons from observation is great. But also, at a certain point, you just have to let them do it, because if they don't do it, they will never learn how to do it safely, and then you're actually inhibiting their growth and independence. So, yeah, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion in psychological circles about how kids really don't have enough opportunities for risky play. So these newfangled playgrounds are trying to push the limits on what is allowed by safety regulations, but also will give kids opportunities to do something they've never done before.

[Roman Mars]

Yeah. And for the Record, I did let my kids go down the slide. I overcame my own fear to allow that to happen.

[Alexandra Lange]

Yes.

[Roman Mars]

But it did make me nervous every single time.

[Alexandra Lange]

Well, I mean, have you watched the video of the cop slide in Boston?

[Roman Mars]

No.

[Alexandra Lange]

Do you know about that?

[Roman Mars]

No, I don't.

[Alexandra Lange]

Okay. So when they remodeled the big plaza outside Boston City Hall a couple of years ago, they put in a playground right next to City hall, which I think is amazing symbolically. And there is a long metal slide as part of that playground that goes down a hill. And gosh, I think it was two years ago, there was this viral video of a policeman going down the slide. And he goes down the slide and he just shoots out the end like a bullet. And all of these people were like, oh, my God, what happened? And the truth was the cop did not know how to use the slide. The cop was, like, heavier than a child, was wearing a polyester uniform, and hadn't been on the slide in years. So he was not using the slide. Right. Plenty of children had used the slide safely. I went and used the slide because I go on slides all the time. I used it perfectly safely. But it became this kind of viral moment, like, oh, my God, what are they doing to the children with these new playgrounds? And it was just that it was the cops error, not the playground error.

[Roman Mars]

That's fantastic. Well, it is a pleasure to talk with you. I'm so excited by your success and your recognition by the Pulitzer Committee. Thank you so much for speaking with me. I enjoyed it.

[Alexandra Lange]

Me too. Thanks again for having me.

[Roman Mars]

99% invisible was produced this week by Vivien Leigh and Chris Barube. Mix by Martine Gonzalez, music by Swan Real and George Langford. Fact checking by Sona Avakian. Special thanks this week to our kid narrators, Emma, Fiona and Eleanor. Kathy Tu is our executive producer. Kurt Kohlstedt is the digital director. Delaney hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Jason De Leon, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Lashma Dawn, Joe Rosenberg, Kelly Prime, Jacob Medina, Gleason, Talon and Rayne Stradley, and me, roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family now, headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of [e-mail].