S7 Ep26: Ed Glaeser on the perfect city and the demons of density

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney and Kurtis Lockhart's conversations on cities. YouTube: Apple Podcasts: Spotify: Audioboom: Substack: What does a perfect city look like in a low- or middle-income country – and how do you get there? In the closing episode of the Ideas in Development cities series, Ed Glaeser joins Kurtis Lockhart and Oliver Hanney for a wide-ranging conversation on what makes cities work. He sets out the three foundations every city needs (safety, mobility, education), why infrastructure without the right incentives and institutions fails, what 19th-century New York's cholera outbreaks teach Lusaka about water, why “bus good, train bad” still holds, and what the medieval European city has to offer sub-Saharan Africa's fastest-growing urban regions. We also discuss the political art of being a great mayor, why "capacity eats policy as a light afternoon snack", and his three priorities for African cities over the next decade.

You can listen to S7 Ep26: Ed Glaeser on the perfect city and the demons of density online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

S7 Ep26: Ed Glaeser on the perfect city and the demons of density is an episode from VoxDev Talks by Audioboom.

This episode is 36:31 long.

This episode was published on May 15, 2026.

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