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Brilliantly Boring
In this bonus episode, Roman unearths the surprising story behind the 99% Invisible's name and delves into the unnoticed brilliance of everyday desig…
1 year, 11 months ago
Christiania
Episode 598
In the heart of Copenhagen, a former military base transformed into Christiania, a self-proclaimed anarchist commune where residents built a new way …
1 year, 11 months ago
The Infernal Machine
Episode 597
The unexpected story of how Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite—designed to build the world—was co-opted by anarchists to bring about its destructio…
1 year, 11 months ago
Cue the Sun!
Episode 596
What started as Emily Nussbaum’s “guilty pleasure” of watching Big Brother became a deeper dive into the world of reality TV, leading to her book, Cu…
1 year, 11 months ago
The Power Broker #9: Majora Carter
This is the ninth official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro.
This week, Roman Ma…
2 years ago
Planet Money: Zombie 2nd Mortgages
Episode 595
Karen MacDonough had paid her mortgage for years, raised her family, and lived a quiet life in her Quincy, Massachusetts home—until one day, a group …
2 years ago
Medellin, Revisited
Episode 594
Once considered the most dangerous city in the world due to drug cartel violence, by the early 2000s Medellin had reinvented itself. But gentrificati…
2 years ago
Not Built For This #6: Maximum Temperature
The impacts of climate disasters are often measured in terms of property damage. But in places like Phoenix, Arizona, and in hot places all over the …
2 years ago
Not Built For This #5: The Little Levee That Could
Most of the stories in this series have been about places that are ill-prepared for the extreme weather that is coming their way. But this story is a…
2 years ago
Not Built For This #4: Unbuilding the Terrace
All across the country thousands of people are living in locations that regularly flood, and many of these places will only get more flood-prone as t…
2 years ago