107. Social contracts

It’s a bit of a game of two halves this week.

First up, I talk to Eric Klinenberg – director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University – about his new book, Palaces for the People. He argues that what he terms ‘social infrastructure’ has a major effect on everything from crime to disaster resilience. Solving the problems of the future, he suggests, is going to mean investing more in infrastructure, public space and community links.

After that, it’s our semi-regular “Ask the experts” slot with the Centre for Cities. This time, I drag director of policy Paul Swinney into one of the noisiest debates going on in UK urban policy circles today: have we focused too much on cities, and not enough on towns?

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

Skylines is supported by 100 Resilient Cities. Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, 100RC is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.

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