Why co-housing could be the answer to urban loneliness

Summary

The Urbanist – “Why Co-housing Could Be the Answer to Urban Loneliness”

Podcast: The Urbanist (Monocle)
Host: Andrew Tuck
Guests: Johnny Ansteed (Town, co-housing developer), Carlotta Rebelo (Monocle)
Date: May 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the potential of co-housing as a modern antidote to urban loneliness and the challenges of traditional housing models. Host Andrew Tuck and Monocle's Carlotta Rebelo engage Johnny Ansteed, founding director of Town (a community-led housing developer in the UK), to unpack how intentional, community-focused housing could dramatically transform well-being in cities beset by isolation. The episode also includes reports from Vietnam’s burgeoning tourism sector (with special focus on Hanoi’s "Train Street") and explores the expanding network of city mayors resisting authoritarian government pressure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Concept of Co-housing

• Definition and Origins ([02:46] – [03:46]):
  • Johnny Ansteed describes co-housing as “a community where you know your neighbours ... a very old-fashioned idea, a bit like an old village.” He notes that while everyone has their private home, they also share communal spaces—indoors (like kitchens and playrooms) and outdoors (gardens, shared lanes).
  • Co-housing is rooted in intentionality, where people “consciously decide … to support one another.”
• Comparison with Cooperatives ([03:49]):
  • Co-housing is “similar to a cooperative” in spirit, but typically features private ownership of homes with jointly-owned shared spaces, unlike some cooperatives focused on collective property ownership.

2. Addressing Urban Loneliness and Social Issues

• Why Town Was Founded ([04:25] – [05:48]):
  • Town was started after recognizing a “mismatch between the quality of housing and the way people want to live.”
  • Notable statistics highlight the problem:
    • “One in four people experiences loneliness in their life. One in ten people really suffer from isolation.”
  • Modern housing, focused on "nuclear families," is seen as contributing to isolation. There’s a need “to create a form of housing that would change some of those ideas around in their head.”

3. Community-Centric Design Principles

• Optimal Community Size ([06:23]):
  • Ansteed: “Co-housing is typically between 20 and 45 homes … at that scale you can know your neighbors.” This fosters “a social contract, a form of trust.”
  • The Danish “social maths of design” informs their approach—large enough to share resources, small enough for familiarity.

4. Real-World Examples: Marmalade Lane

• Case Study: Marmalade Lane ([07:38] – [10:03]):
  • 42-home development in Cambridge, completed 2019-2020.
  • Intergenerational: residents range “from their 90s down to first year of life.”
  • “A mixed community where people can really benefit from having different kinds of people around them.”
  • Child-friendly features: shared gardens, playrooms, “eyes on the garden” for safety (a nod to Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street”).
• Benefits for Children
  • Greater independence and “autonomy”; “They don’t need to be ferried across the city ... They can just go and knock on somebody’s door.” ([08:53])
• Benefits for Older Residents
  • Strong support network makes ageing “dignified … address[ing] the risks of isolation.” Cohousing reduces the health and care burden by fostering daily interactions that help “spot if somebody hasn’t been around very much and address isolation before it becomes a real issue.” ([10:30])

5. Resident Involvement in Co-housing Planning

• Co-design Approach ([11:41] – [13:22]):
  • Residents may start as a group looking for land, or join a project instigated by the developer. Each case emphasizes co-design, where “future residents collectively work together to work out what will work, what won’t work, to … set the design for the community.”
  • Marmalade Lane draws over 400 people on its waiting list—showing high demand for this housing type.

6. Is Co-housing “Revolutionary”?

• Back to the Future ([13:22] – [14:29]):
  • Ansteed confesses he doesn’t live in co-housing, but enjoys similar neighborly qualities in his central city neighborhood. He suggests co-housing “is doing the same thing as good urban neighborhoods do, intrinsically.”
  • “In a world where a lot of housing is not built like that ... [co-housing] is a response ... at small scale.”

7. Next Steps and Future Developments

• Upcoming Projects ([14:35]):
  • Town is developing “around five new schemes” over two years: two in Northstow (one with Buddhist values), and one with the Crown Estate in Hemel Hempstead.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Old Meets New:
  • “Co-housing in its essence is a very simple idea. It’s a very old fashioned idea … a modern interpretation of this old fashioned idea.” – Johnny Ansteed ([02:46])
• On Community Scale:
  • “At that scale you can achieve a lot of things, but first and foremost you can know your neighbors.” – Johnny Ansteed ([06:23])
• On Loneliness:
  • “One in four people experiences loneliness in their life. One in ten people really suffer from isolation. It's a really society wide problem.” – Johnny Ansteed ([04:25])
• On Children’s Independence:
  • “They don’t need to be ferried across the city to another child for a play date. They can just go and knock on somebody’s door.” – Johnny Ansteed ([08:53])
• On Ageing Well:
  • “How we grow older in a way that is dignified, maintains quality of life, reduces … risks of isolation … is really critical not just within co-housing but for society.” – Johnny Ansteed ([10:30])
• On Demand:
  • “There’s a huge demand and waiting list for co-housing through Marmalade Lane, where 400 people are … on the waiting list to live at Marmalade Lane.” – Johnny Ansteed ([11:43])
• On Urban Neighborhood Parallels:
  • “I think in some ways co-housing is kind of doing the same thing as good urban neighbourhoods do, intrinsically.” – Johnny Ansteed ([14:01])

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Key Segments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Section | Notes | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------| | 00:31–02:46 | Introduction to co-housing and episode preview | Sets theme; what’s coming up | | 02:46–03:46 | Definition and concept of co-housing | Ansteed’s description | | 04:25–05:48 | Motivation for starting Town; issues with traditional housing | Societal trends and problems | | 06:23 | Scale and benefits of cohousing communities | Danish roots, trust building | | 07:38–10:03 | Marmalade Lane case study | Community features; social impact | | 10:30 | Impact on aging populations | Health, community support | | 11:41–13:22 | How residents plan and co-design their communities | Collaborative process | | 13:36–14:29 | Ansteed on his own living situation; lessons from urban neighborhoods | Larger takeaways on urban fabric | | 14:35 | Upcoming co-housing projects | New initiatives |

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Additional Topics Briefly Covered

Vietnam’s Tourism Boom and “Train Street” ([16:03] – [21:56])

• Evolution of tourism after movement restrictions were lifted; the urban micro-economy of Hanoi’s Train Street.
• Locals pivot from traditional jobs to tourism-based entrepreneurship, creating new urban vibrancy but also safety and regulatory concerns.

Pact of Free Cities: Cities Defending Democracy ([22:01] – [29:11])

• How cities are banding together internationally to resist authoritarian overreach and protect democratic norms.
• Ambassador Nina Hatchigian: “Mayors do a lot of things that are essential to democracy ... Cities invented democracy, and now their job is to protect it.”

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Memorable Moments

• Child Independence: Description of the ease with which children can manage their own social lives by simply knocking on neighbors' doors ([08:53]).
• Community Diversity: Unusual mix of ages and backgrounds at Marmalade Lane ([07:38]).
• Real Demand: Marmalade Lane’s 400-person waiting list, exemplifying the thirst for alternative housing models ([11:43]).
• Intergenerational Support: The gentle support network for aging residents, not formal caregivers, but organic community concern ([10:30]).
• Parallel with Good Urbanism: Ansteed’s admission that vibrant, dense city neighborhoods can foster the same neighborliness as co-housing ([14:01]).

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Tone & Style

The episode is thoughtful, rich in practical stories, and hopeful but clear-eyed about social challenges. The language is accessible, direct, and interwoven with lived experience.

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Conclusion

This episode positions co-housing not as a fringe or revolutionary concept, but as a practical return to traditional social networks—redesigned for modern life. Through real-world examples and candid discussion, it makes a compelling case for intentional, people-focused urbanism as a credible solution to loneliness and social fragmentation in cities.

Transcript

[Johnny Ansteed]

This episode of the Urbanist is brought

[Andrew Tuck]

to you by arup. Arup, the firm behind some of the

[Johnny Ansteed]

world's most iconic public and structural projects,

[Andrew Tuck]

works with leaders to plan and deliver

[Johnny Ansteed]

the systems that shape how cities and societies function across transport, energy, water and buildings. Arup's approach to design is how complex decisions get made, seeing the whole picture and creating outcomes that work in the real world.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

Because the future does not just arrive, it's shaped by the choices we make today.

[Johnny Ansteed]

Learn more [e-mail] Next Arup Design for what's next. Co housing in its essence is a very simple idea. It's a very old fashioned idea where in past times you would be familiar with the people living around you, you'd be able to rely on them for trust and support, to keep an eye on your children for you, to help you with problems that we all face in life.

[Andrew Tuck]

How could CO housing have an impact on the loneliness epidemic? This is the Urbanist Monocle's programme all about the cities we live in. I'm your host Andrew Tuck. In this episode we explore a new way of designing neighborhoods which could improve social connection with while also easing the cost of living in our cities. We also assess Vietnam's evolving tourism landscape while taking a trip to the now infamous tourist attraction Train Street. And we see how mayors are standing up against authoritarian governments. That's all ahead right here on the Urbanist. With me, Andrew Tuck. Is there an antidote to loneliness in our cities? If you ask the Danes, the answer could be co housing, a community led way of living that could improve quality of life while also making city life more affordable. The concept has also started gaining traction in the UK with more than 30 co housing projects already established in the country and more than 60 currently in development. But how well does this Scandi inspired way of life fit into the personality and legislative structure of of the British Isles? Well, recently we caught up with Johnny Ansteed, one of the founding directors of Town, a company pioneering this new way of living which has secured investment from the Crown Estate to run up more broadly across the uk. Monocle's Carlotta Rebelo spoke with Johnny and Carlotta began by asking what exactly the term cohousing refers to.

[Johnny Ansteed]

Cohousing in its essence is a very simple idea. It's a community where you know your neighbours. It's a very old fashioned idea, a bit like an old village where in past times you would be familiar with the people living around you, you'd be able to rely on them for trust and support, to keep an Eye on your children for you, to help you with problems that we all face in life. And co housing is a sort of modern interpretation of this old fashioned idea. The basic idea being that people have their own home, but in addition to that they have shared spaces alongside which might be interior spaces, such as a common house where people can cook and eat together. And also some shared outdoor spaces where people can choose how to make use of it, but typically for shared gardening, children's play and other uses like that. At its heart, the model of co housing is a form of intentional community where people decide consciously that they're going to live amongst other people and that they're going to support one another through their daily lives.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Is that different from what some people might describe as a cooperative?

[Johnny Ansteed]

It's similar to a cooperative. The idea of it is in cooperative behaviours, living amongst other people and drawing on one another for support. Cooperative can mean something a little more specific in terms of the financial model of a community where things are owned jointly. In the case of co housing, the usual model is that homes are owned privately, but in addition to those private homes, there's a level of community ownership of these shared spaces.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Well, let's talk then about Town, which you co founded in 2014. This is one of the specialisms of the company. Tell us about that journey and why you decided to set it up.

[Johnny Ansteed]

Well, we set up town in 2014 because we saw kind of the shortcoming of the way that housing is planned, designed and built. And there's a mismatch between the quality of housing and the kind of housing that's delivered in the UK and the way people kind of want to live. And housing reflects some of the problems that we have as a society. People are lonely, people are, they feel isolated. So one in four people experiences loneliness in their life. One in ten people really suffer from isolation. It's a really society wide problem. For children growing up in the kind of housing that we create, there's a real shortcoming in their quality of life. So where 100 years ago children had real kind of opportunities to play out, to explore the world independently of their grown ups, these days the expectation is much more that they will be inside, obviously on screens, and that the outside world is sort of something to be feared rather than explored. And the mode of production of housing kind of reflects that. It's very, very focused on nuclear families. The expectation that we'll all live in the same way and that private space is kind of the only space that's really of value to consumers. And we saw an opportunity to kind of create a form of housing that would change some of those ideas around in their head.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

What I really love is that you define as the mission statement from town to be this idea of building good places for better lives. And we talk a lot about the importance of people centric design and designing places that are at scale and with humans in mind, but often at different height, for example, and density, that's difficult to deliver. But here you seem to have found a way that, you know, you bring things down to a much more relatable sense of living in all senses, both socially and the physical built environment.

[Johnny Ansteed]

I mean, the model of co housing is very much built around a scale, which makes some of those things easier. So co housing is typically between 20 and 40, 45 homes within a community. And the idea of that is that at that scale you can achieve a lot of things, but first and foremost you can know your neighbors, you can have that relationship, that social contract, that form of trust with the people living around you. And that's a tremendously valuable thing because it means that if you have kids, you have that level of trust with your neighbours that they can keep an eye on your children for you, maybe they can help out when you're having the inevitable difficult times with little ones. It means that, you know, you can leave things around, you can share spaces with people, knowing that, that you trust the people living around you and that there's a sort of sense that you're collectively looking out for each other. So the modern co housing movement, which has originated in Denmark, talks about social maths of design. The idea being that at these sort of scales you can share spaces and you can share assets and resources because you've got that kind of familiarity with the people around you.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Let's now dive into some of the projects of these specific co housing communities that you've worked on. What are some that come to mind and what do you particularly like about each of them?

[Johnny Ansteed]

Well, we have one completed scheme that town has delivered directly, which is called Marmalade Lane. And Marmalade lane is a 42 home project in Cambridge that was completed in 2019, 2020, and it has a community of around 100 people, a mix of ages. It's an intergenerational co housing community, which means that where the oldest resident is in their 90s and the youngest resident is in their first year of life, and it has a whole diverse mix of people from people who live on their own downstream sizes, families with young children and so on. And what I really like about that is this sort of sense of a mixed community, which is super unusual in the way that most especially sort of suburban housing is built, where houses are identical and, you know, aimed at very, very specific demographics. So you have a mixed community where people can actually benefit from having different kinds of people around them. So for instance, at Marmalade Lane, a lot of adults who have little ones in their homes report that it's really nice having other adults around who take some of the burden of childcare away from them.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

You mentioned earlier when you were describing what co housing is, that, you know, there's always this idea of shared facilities and in the case of Marmalade Lane, there's also some facilities for the younger ones. Right.

[Johnny Ansteed]

At Marmalade Lane there's an awful lot of things for children to do. So you have a shared garden which has got trees to climb, a kind of wild quality that makes for great exploration for kids. That's overlooked by housing on all sides. So it means for an essentially a very safe and overlooked place. It kind of follows the principle of the way that Jane Jacobs saw the world, that kind of sense of eyes on the street, in this case, eyes on the garden. There's a shared lane as well, which is car free and where children can play. There's also sort of more specific facilities for children within the CO housing common house, which is a set of shared spaces that enable the community to get together and to spend time together. There's a playroom where children can spend time. And all of this means that children have got a vastly improve quality of life because they get much more independent. They've got children who they can play with on their doorstep. They can manage their own social lives a lot more easily. They don't need to be ferried across the city to another child for a play date. They can just go and knock on somebody's door. Sometimes they can say no to a child who wants to come and play with them because, you know, that's up to them. They might not feel like it that day, but that kind of sense of autonomy, that sense of freedom, that sense of being able to get out and explore and live your own life is really, really valuable for children.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Well, and then you mentioned there the fact that this is an intergenerational community. So then you have the other side of the equation, which, you know, residents that are older, you said, I think the eldest is in their 90s, where issues such as loneliness, accessibility, being exposed to people and feel like they're part of a community really can be Vital to, I guess, enhanced quality of life and ensure, you know, even we know there's health benefits to tackling these issues too.

[Johnny Ansteed]

Yeah, we're all living longer, we're all aging. And the question of how we grow older in a way that is dignified, that maintains quality of life, that reduces and addresses the risks of isolation which become greater as you become older is really critical not just within co housing but for society. And how we reduce that burden of health care and the expenditure that goes with that, how we sort of create new models where people can rely on one another for addressing some of these risks rather than purely relying on healthcare services. And cohousing is a really valuable model for ageing because it means that as you become older and as your needs change, you have people around you who can address some of your day to day needs. They're not carers for one another in an official sense, but what they will be able to do within a cohousing community is look out for each other. If somebody's unwell, they'll be able to support them, they'll be able to help them get support when they need to from outside. They can spot if somebody hasn't been around very much and address isolation before it becomes a real issue. And so cohousing is a really tangible and beneficial way to address some of the challenges of older people.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

I'm curious, just how involved are the residents in planning their own communities? So do you move into a community

[Carlotta Rebelo]

or how does it work?

[Johnny Ansteed]

It can be both. A lot of co housing communities have come from people getting together, having the idea of forming a group, looking for an opportunity to find a site, working together on bringing that forward. And you know, there's a real legacy to those kind of developments where the struggle in making something real is a really kind of valuable thing to the creation of a community, the process itself. But where we're sort of looking as a company to move co housing is to make it a bit easier for people so that you don't have to spend years attempting to find land to become developers, to learn all the skills to raise the money. So our model consists of a couple of different ways of doing it. In some cases we work with groups who already exist, where if the group already exists and there's an opportunity for us to help, we do that. And there we act as a developer, we work alongside them, we help them to plan and to design their community. In other instances we start the project and we advertise, we use our social media networks, we use the fact that there's a huge demand and waiting list for co housing through Marmalade Lane, where 400 people are, you know, on the waiting list to live at Marmalade Lane. We work with those kind of people to set up the scheme from scratch and in those cases we sort of instigate the project. Then we gather a group of potential future residents around us and we work together. And in both cases the process is very similar. We appoint a design team and then collectively with the design team and with the future residents, we sit down and have design sessions where we collaborate. It's called co design. And the idea is that we, with the future residents collectively work together to work out what will work, what won't work, to sort of set the brief and then to set the design for the community.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

And Johnny, fascinating to hear about this way of living, which sounds revolutionary, but it's not because it's taking on an ancient concept and just bringing it into modern days. I guess my final question is, do you live in co housing?

[Johnny Ansteed]

I don't live in co housing.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Then why not?

[Johnny Ansteed]

And in some ways I'd very much like to. And I suppose that comes to the question of the qualities of co housing. I suppose does where I live embody some of those same principles? It does. I'm lucky to live in a dense city centre where I have many of those same qualities of place around me. I have neighbours who. So I live in a Victorian inner suburb of a city and in where I live I have lots of people around me who I know if I'm running late, can pick up my kids from school, who can help me out, who can babysit, who can offer support and we can sort of spend time together. And so I think in some ways co housing is kind of doing the same thing as good urban neighbourhoods do, intrinsically. And it's not a, you know, a weird different kind of model. But in a world where a lot of housing is not built like that and doesn't have the mixed uses around and doesn't have the neighbourliness, it's a sort of response to that that can work at, you know, at small scale.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Well, Jonny, just before we let you go, I know there are other developments currently underway. Just give us a little sneak peek.

[Johnny Ansteed]

Yeah, sure. Well, we've got around five new schemes that we're bringing forward over the next two years. Five co housing communities, two I would immediately mention, are at Northstow, which is a government led new town which is currently under development, and there we have joined forces with a housing develop and we're bringing forward two co housing communities there, one which is built along Buddhist values and the other one which is a mainstream intergenerational co housing group. And then similarly we're bringing forward a community in Hemel Hempstead where we're working with the Crown estate to bring forward Hemel Hempstead's first cohousing community.

[Andrew Tuck]

Jonny Anstead there in conversation with Carlotta Rebello. And my thanks to both of them. It's 30 years since Vietnam lifted freedom of movement restrictions for tourists and today the country is a tourism giant. Vietnamese cuisine is now a global hit too. And the social media icon that is Train street, narrow road where visitors brush shoulders with a train which runs directly through it, has only increased international attention. So how has the country's self perception and the tourism market evolved over the past three decades? Ash Bardwaj sent us this report speaking to some of the original tour guides as well as their modern day successors. And he included of course, a visit to the infamous or famous Train Street. Let's have a listen.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

I'm in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, because this year marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of Audley Travel, now one of the world's largest bespoke tour operators. And they began with trips to Vietnam back at a time when it wasn't on most tourists radar. Not long after they began those trips, the Vietnamese government lifted movement restrictions for foreign visitors and that led to a tourism boom that has shown no sign of slowing down since then. I'm looking around with Long Lee Long is a guide who's been working with Audley since those very early tours because I'm interested to learn how to tourism in Vietnam has evolved in that time. And how tourism has changed Vietnam, that

[Long Lee]

is a big question. You know, it changed a lot. It jumped from, you know, just couple of hundred thousand tourists into last year we had something like 23 million tourists visiting Vietnam, which is an amazing number. We used to have traditional nationalities visiting Vietnam, such as French Americans from other English speaking countries. But now we have tourists from all over the world. We have the biggest number of tourists coming from a very friendly country to Vietnam, which is China and then South Korea, Taiwanese, Japanese and American. And I have to say people now everyone is going to Vietnam. I mean, you know, the one who likes traveling. And what is change in Hanoi? The one big thing is the transtrate, you know, which is a piece of 300 tons of metal on the move at the speed of 50 km being like few inches away from you. And that is not only A watch. It is a feeling, you know, I mean, you discover some Hanoi which is different than normal, and you also can do something adventurous, like by being that close to the train. And to be honest, officially, it is not legal.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

In the mid 2010s, a photographer running photography workshops in Hanoi came to a narrow alleyway where there's a train track, and the train runs through that alleyway, and there's a couple of feet either side of the train to the houses where people lived. It was a fairly deprived area back then, but once those images ended up on YouTube and Instagram, every tourist coming to Hanoi wanted to come to what became known as Train Street. For people that lived here, that was an opportunity. One or two of them started to sell coffees and beers. The tourists who wanted to watch the train go past in this very dramatic location. And then everyone else saw an opportunity. And today there is a thriving community, thriving industry, thriving economy around people coming to sit and watch a train go past inches from their face, taking photos and videos and uploading it to their own social media. Every now and again, the police in Hanoi tried to shut it down for safety reasons. But this has changed the lives of the people that live here. And it's just an interesting example of the intersection of opportunity, tourism, travel, how it can change lives.

[Harry]

My name is Harry.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

This is your home, is it?

[Harry]

Yes, it is. Yeah. This is my place. Yeah.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

So it's changed a lot since you've grown up.

[Harry]

It's changed a lot. I mean, like, thanks for the social media. Like, some videos, it went viral. So a lot of tourists, they. They know this place after that video. So somehow this place is very chaos when the. When the train is about to come.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

Looking up and down the train track, I can see these buildings are, like, 2, 3 meters from the train. And the people that live here, there's shops all on the bottom floor, selling coffee, selling beer, selling food, selling T shirts. So it must have really changed life for the people that live here.

[Harry]

Yes, it is. It's changed a lot. Like, back in, like, just five or six years ago, like, all the people who live in here, they had the recent job, like, at the office or, like, whatever they did. And when they see, like, a lot of tourists come here, they see an opportunity to do the business at home, which is, like, they don't need to pay for the rent. They just. They don't need to pay for the stuff or anything like that. They just need to arrange a little bit on the first floor to customize it to look like a shop and then the business gonna stop.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

So it's created opportunity. Tourism has brought something.

[Harry]

I mean it's quite good like for me and for the other people, local people, they feel like a little bit annoying for the people who don't do the business at home. But when we do the business in here, we are responsible for every single one who sit or stand in our property to make sure everyone in a

[Carlotta Rebelo]

safety spot and every now and again they close it. But how is that for you guys? It's like you lose business when that happens.

[Harry]

If they close the train street. So yes, we will lose the business. We have to do the other things like find another job or start a new business like that. But you know, it's just a plan. It's already have a plan seen 2009, now 2022, 2026. You see everything is still here, even like the old buildings, old houses is still here. They threaten us. They're going to demolish the whole area. They're going to remove all the business and the shop, something like that. But like nothing happened yet. So we are happy for now. We're still happy for now.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

So for you guys, you're glad that people are coming here to see this?

[Harry]

Yes, of course I'm glad. Like come on, just bring more tourists. Come here.

[Andrew Tuck]

My thanks there to Ash Bhardwaj for that report. Finally today, cities are often described as democracy's first line of defence. They are places of shelter and safety where people have the freedom to gather and are at the forefront of social issues. But around the world, municipalities are facing pressure from national governments which challenge these values. That's why this week, 10American cities joined the Pact of Free Cities, an alliance launched in Central Europe to protect against the backsliding of democracy. And the fact that mayors from the United States are now deciding to join this European initiative is telling in regards to the challenges that they feel they are facing currently, as Monocle's Carlos Rebelo explains in this report.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

In 2019, the mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw decided to rally together to create the Pact of Free Cities, an alliance of local leaders who wanted to collaborate to protect democracy and their city's own autonomy in the face of pressure from their national governments. It's a network that has allowed mayors to have solidarity with one another through and discuss shared problems. And it also has sent a strong message of resistance against authoritarian governance. Over the last seven years, the pact grew, admitting new members of cities beyond Central Europe. And this week in Bratislava, it was further expanded, welcoming a new cohort of 10American mayors marking a significant milestone in the network's transatlantic expansion. Ambassador Nina Hatchigian is the CEO of Allies, the alliance for Local Leaders International. She was Also the first U.S. special representative for city and state diplomacy. Her organization helps connect local elected leaders internationally so that they can work with each other to solve global challenges, which has made Allies the perfect strategic partner for the Pact of Free Cities.

[Ambassador Nina Hatchigian]

Well, I have been a fan of the Pact of Free Cities for a very long time. I think their work is exciting. I think it's needed. This is about mayors supporting one another in some very difficult times and speaking boldly about our civil liberties and our rights, not to mention other issues that our constituents really care about, like affordability and housing, et cetera. So I think they have come to realize that democracy is on decline more rapidly, maybe now than it was, and that now is the time to make some adjustments, to make it a pact that can be more active and just increase its capacity a little bit. And that's why I think this partnership came to be.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

The word resistance is usually described in dictionaries as the act of refusing, refusing to accept something. But it can also mean the ability to withstand the effects of an opposing force. Indeed, strength is in numbers, and it's by cooperating with each other that leaders can learn how to tackle challenges back at home.

[Ambassador Nina Hatchigian]

I think most people don't realize that many mayors look internationally on a regular basis to learn lessons from each other. So I think it's most pronounced in the space of climate action. And how do I procure an electric bus? How did you plant all those trees and keep them alive? Those kinds of questions and many more in that space. And so they've been meeting on a very routine basis to learn from one another in that space. And in this space, too. I think we have a need to renew democracy. It's obviously not working for a lot of people. And so one aspect of this collaboration is about building democracy from the ground up. So all kinds of interesting experiments happen in Europe and in the United States around things like giving your citizens a piece of the budget to decide how to spend themselves, or engaging young people in governing. And many more citizens assemblies, different kinds of voting. There's one mayor in Seattle where they give vouchers to the public and they can then give them to their candidate of choice. That's the way they fund local elections. So anyway, all these kinds of experiments, we need to learn from one another. And then there's also the other side of it, which is protecting democracy. So mayors do a lot of things that are essential to democracy. They protect rights of communities, especially vulnerable communities. They, for example, protect the freedom of speech by issuing permits for protests and the freedom of assembly. They keep the norms and the systems alive. They seek transparency in their operations. They have accountability. They try to route out corruption. And they also just create spaces for community to come together and to celebrate pluralism. So for all those reasons, mayors and cities are really critical to democracy. And in fact, as you know, cities invented democracy, and now their job is to protect it, so they all can learn about how to do that from one another. When you have situations where the federal government is putting a lot of pressure

[Carlotta Rebelo]

on local communities, having 10 US cities join the pact is quite revealing about the pressures local leaders are facing under President Donald Trump's administration. Late last year, headlines were covered in the news of the deployment of the National Guard to cities that refused to comply with deportation orders. And budget cuts have been used to threaten mayors into toeing the line set by the current administration. I asked Ambassador Hershigian if she was worried about the current state of democracy in her nation.

[Ambassador Nina Hatchigian]

This is a hard question. Yes, I am concerned. I'm concerned that I see the erosion of some values that have long made America strong and successful and collaborative. And I do, on the other hand, have a lot of faith in local leaders. And I think that's where the optimism that I have comes from. Because whatever's happening at the national level, at the local level, these leaders are on the front lines of many challenges. And they are just day by day doing their best to get the work done. And that's beautiful and exciting to me. And this cohort of American cities is amazing. These are great mayors. They come from all across the United States, from Seattle to Montgomery. And they are big cities and small cities and really wonderful, wonderful leaders. So I'm very excited for Monocle.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

I'm Carlota Rebelo.

[Andrew Tuck]

That's all for this week's episode of the Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week. And you can subscribe to Monocle magazine for reports on all things design, architecture and urbanism, too. Just visit monocle.com this episode of the Urbanist was produced and edited by David Stevens. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye.

[Interviewer (possibly Carlotta Rebelo or another Monocle host)]

Thank you for listening.

[Johnny Ansteed]

City lovers.