Carlo Castelli

Greg Clark 

Well, we were delighted to discover that Carlo Castelli is one of the listeners to The DNA of Cities podcast and it's great to have Carlo with us today. Carlo, what have you been enjoying or found meaningful about The DNA of Cities podcast?

Carlo Castelli 

Thank you, Greg, so many things and so much out of the podcast which is a brilliant resource for all us urbanists or people that work on cities but also passionate about cities because that's ultimately what is driving us. And I found many, many things, as I was saying. First of all, the confirmation of what I've been passionate about for a while that everything is urban, you know, our contemporary era is driven by the fact that cities are the predominant form of living. I'm not gonna go into figures because too many people mention those, so we all know them very well. But the interesting thing is that even the non-urban part of the world is actually kind of affected heavily by urban dynamics, you know, indirectly or directly or in a catalytic way. And that comes so vividly through the podcast, and all the fantastic guests that you had throughout in the introductory sessions, but also the local ones.

The second thing is, there's something about which is related to the first element, which is the inevitability of cities. It came very strongly through the Istanbul podcast episode but also cities like London, which is my adopted city, proving that. There's something moving about it, something that is connected to human nature, in a way, in all its aspects. And it reminded me about the dichotomy about cities which is between nature and artifice which is something that comes across very strongly when you land in a city and there's a point in height where you really realise this kind of dichotomy of cities. That was also kind of coming through and, of course, the three traits, thirdly, endowed, inherited and acquired traits that I think is a brilliant contribution to the discourse.

Greg Clark 

Thank you very much, Carlo, I really appreciate you your last remark about the approach. But I love what you're saying about the inevitability of cities and the fundamentalism and in a way this podcast more than anything is trying to take a kind of epigenetics perspective, and to say that, because humankind is becoming more urban, then human nature is becoming more urban as a result and I think you've really hit that very clearly. So, let me ask you the second question Carlo, what does the DNA of Cities mean to you now, and how does it apply it in your life and in the way you work and how you live your life?

Carlo Castelli 

One is the constant tension between what cities are about: the urban dimension, which has regional dimensions and beyond, but you know, the urban dimension for this conversation, and the national element, the nation state dimension that is constantly in tension with the city one. It's something that in our professions we are constantly faced with. But it's also kind of a useful lens to look at things and to kind of try to promote and help deliver leadership, which is what we're trying to do and somehow connect the various dimensions of governance, which is such a fundamental ingredient for success in any dimension.

How to use the idea is actually using those three traits or three categories of traits that you've introduced to the discourse in order to help cities and mayors and officials to shape and chase and pursue a strong vision. I think vision is too much of an underrated element. We have been too pragmatic about how we go about things. I think that the importance of the vision is something I spent a fair amount of time with to convince people that we need to kind of come up with a very strong vision, even a dream. It's not like a fluffy vision, but something that we can measure in goals, objectives and KPIs. Dubai, for instance, is a fantastic example about how you know that can be really kind of changing things dramatically in a transformational way. It's again about leadership and is coming very strongly through for the podcast to the episode dedicated to Dubai. But those traits and how vision can be shaped is one of the ways I'm going to use the podcast outcomes.

Greg Clark 

Just recently Carlo you've established a new practice called Urban Purpose. How does that relate to what you've just been saying about vision and dreaming and understanding the role of the urban in the context of the nation state and all of that? How does that make sense in your practice?

Carlo Castelli 

In multiple ways, but one underlying one element is going to be sort of pursuing a purpose case approach which is what is driving me and has been driving me for the last few years. Particularly when we stop measuring success only through kind of financial economic returns lenses, and we start really embedding social, economic, environmental and cultural values into the viability equation, if we want to kind of be pragmatic about it, but also how the vision can be informed by those considerations. And through also conversations with you over the last few months is also being deliberate and purposeful about things. We somehow act at times like the future is happening to us, rather than us shaping it. I think there's a real need nowadays to be purposeful about our ability of dreaming for our cities, our communities and ourselves, and be really kind of determined about that.

Greg Clark 

Carlo, one of the things I really admire about your work and about the new practice you've established is this idea of purpose and intentionality at the heart of it, and I suppose what we're trying to do, in part with the DNA of Cities podcast, is to show or to reveal that cities are shaped by purpose and by intentionality. And if you like, the idea is that the decoding of the DNA of Cities unleashes the agency of the city itself and provides the city and its current leaders or its society with opportunities. Does that make sense?

Carlo Castelli 

I think, absolutely, yes. It's that purposeful-- so, determination and leadership in driving, shape our cities and accepting somehow that feeling of vertigo that is given by the fact that the what we try to determine is going to be for sure different from what we're going to achieve in 10, 20, 30, 50 years time, because cities are about processes of approximation of the vision, but that shouldn't prevent us to have a strong vision in the first place. So I think the way that we manage that sort of gap between planning and realisation is one of the ingredients for success. And ultimately, you know, what we're doing in our work is actually kind of applying iterative processes to tackle that element and just kind of keep kind of reinventing, keep going back to what we did five years earlier.

Greg Clark 

Carlo let me ask you the next question, which is, please take one city that you know well or that you like and tell us what you think about the DNA of that city.

Carlo Castelli 

II'm from Genoa, a city that has gone through so many of the dynamics that you've been describing. It was a great city, you know, the 16th century was the "Century of the Genoese" you know, as Rubens said. It was sort of lending power, the first check was invented, you know-- it was actually-- I kind of joke about saying that the pesto was actually one of the first products of local globalisation because all the ingredients were coming from different parts of places that Genoa was trading with.

But I have to pick up London because it's my new Venice as, Marco Polo in Invisible Cities defined the many cities that he's travelled to. And I think one of the key elements or one of the key reasons I choose London is that a) he chooses me and I choose it or her depending on, you know, do cities have gender? I don't know. That's an interesting question. Maybe for another podcast or maybe The DNA of Cities. But also it's got key traits of openness and diversity which link directly cities to people, which I think is, again, one of the key things that kind of come out of the podcast episodes. You know, if you're there, and you want to be a Londoner, you're a Londoner. I think that ultimate to me is the is the main character or the main city-ness element. And I think London probably has no rivals in that, in my personal opinion.

Greg Clark 

Well, look, I'm really delighted that you've told us about the DNA of pesto, because I didn't know any of that. And Genoa is obviously such an important city in the Middle Ages and invented so many things that have now been scaled up elsewhere. But I didn't know that the ingredients of pesto came from all of the different places that Genoa was trading with. So that's fascinating. I'm very grateful that London has attracted you, Carlo, because we're enjoying having you here in London. I love what you say about London's ability to connect people to each other, and to give people an experience of interacting that's so rich, that is so compelling, actually, for so many people who are urbanists as well at the same time. And there's, there's something rather beautiful about our city that I really want to celebrate. Now, Carlo, I want to ask you, we've got a plan a few more series of the DNA of Cities, we're going to invite guests on, we're going to look at more cities. Give us some recommendations, which cities do you want us to look at in the next series, and why?

Carlo Castelli 

I'm gonna give you a few I warn you because there are so many and the way that you go into those cities is so interesting that I don't want to miss the opportunity. First of all, I'm in Riyadh at the moment, I'm spending a fair amount of time here. I think it's an, incredibly interesting city to think about in terms of acquired traits, the amount of deliberate sort of leadership investment and infrastructural enhancement is just at, you know, incredible scale. Hong Kong is probably on your list again, but the way that Hong Kong deals with density and natural capital is quite something. It is a trade city par excellence. I think it's very interesting. I wouldn't discount of course, the Australian cities, in particular, Sydney and Melbourne. I've been spending quite a bit of time in Melbourne in the last few years and has a great ambition from an infrastructure point of view, again, to really kind of go from a monocentric city to a polycentric city and you know them well. I have to say, Rome, because again, in terms of change through time and inevitability of cities, I think there's very few cities in the world that are, you know, equivalent to Rome. I always think about Cape Town-- I'm getting to the end of my list-- Cape Town is fantastic in terms of endowed trains and also inherited and acquired and it's got kind of really interesting history from a number of points of view. And the last one that is probably going to be one of the most interesting ones is Jerusalem. Because I think that well-- probably not gonna even try to explain that the level of interest and the reasons why would be so interesting to learn about Jerusalem and to think about the future of such a city.

Greg Clark 

Wow, Carlo, this is such a compelling list. So we've got Riyadh, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Rome, Cape Town and Jerusalem. I'd like to do all of those cities. I don't know if we'll get to do them all in the next series. But we'll certainly do them before we put this podcast to bed. I so agree with you about all of them.

But let me just pick out Jerusalem there is something about Jerusalem, which a bit like with Istanbul which we started series one with because we felt it was so compelling that we had to do it. Jerusalem is one where we're going to have to get ourselves ready. We're going to have to empty our minds to make them really open. We’re going to have to we're probably going to have to do four programmes on Jerusalem to get anywhere near doing it justice. But you won't be surprised to hear that we've actually already recorded most of Sydney and Melbourne and they will be part of the next series. We’ve had a lot of people voting for Cape Town, I can tell you. But I agree with you that Riyadh is fascinating. The idea that you would set as an objective to double the size of the population of a city in a fifteen year period and then go for it is something that really demonstrates this urban purpose that you are now so associated with, and this idea of intentionality and using it to really craft a city is fascinating. Of course, we want to do Rome, we want to do Athens, we want to do Baghdad, we want to do Tehran, we want to do all of the ancient capitals. And of course, no journey through cities is complete without Hong Kong. So I'm really with you.

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Carlo.