118. Flying high

Two interviews this week, which are both about the future of our cities but are otherwise unrelated except for allowing me to come up with a sort of pun on the word “high”.

First up: drones, the remote-operated buzzy flying things that recently managed to shut down several of London’s airports. The innovation charity NESTA has produced a report looking at what drones will do for our society, how we need to regulate them, and what role local government is likely to play in that. I spoke to the report’s author Kathy Notstine about all those things and asked: is it worth it?

In the back half, I talk to Skylines regular Paul Swinney of the Centre for Cities about the future of the high street – that, for non British listeners, is what towns generally call their central retail area (the name is roughly analogous to “Main Street”). Paul tells me how cities can regenerate their high streets in the age of Amazon.

Next Tuesday, incidentally, I’ll be recording the second live edition of Skylines at the New Local Government Network’s annual conference in London. If you’re a local government professional, why not pop along?

Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman’s cities site, CityMetric. It’s hosted by Jonn Elledge and produced by Nick Hilton.

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