Challenger Cities

Iain Montgomery talks with Glenn Auerbach about why sauna, bathing and cold-water culture has suddenly gone mainstream in cities around the world, and why the reasons go far beyond health trends or wellness hype.
From floating saunas and mobile heat rooms to dawn swims in urban rivers and harbours, we explore how shared rituals of heat, cold and recovery are reintroducing forms of social connection that cities have quietly lost.
Glenn traces sauna’s roots as everyday civic infrastructure rather than luxury amenity, reflects on the risks of gatekeeping and elitism as the scene grows, and explains why inclusive, well-held sauna culture can strengthen community, public trust and even environmental stewardship.
The conversation reframes sauna not as a fad, but as a clue to how cities might better balance pressure, release, togetherness and solitude.

We reconnect with Jasmine Palardy almost eighteen months after our very first conversation to reflect on what has changed in how we think and talk about cities, and what hasn’t.
Exploring why real progress in cities comes not from imposing control but from embracing uncertainty, loosening the grip of over-planning and letting “accidental urbanists” and informal city builders shape change on the ground.
Jasmine reframes urbanism as a messy, lived practice rather than a rigid discipline, and highlights how everyday friction and irritation are often the beginning of meaningful change.
This episode reframes control, imagination and experimentation in the design of cities.

Ruchita Bansal discusses what happens when modern infrastructure projects are built at speed but don’t connect with the deep, informal systems that make cities work.
Drawing on her experience across Indian urban planning and large-scale delivery, we explore how cities in India are being transformed rapidly with metros, highways and ambitious timelines, yet often miss the connective tissue of everyday life such as first-mile/last-mile walking, informal transport, street life and safety.
We dig into whether building faster actually deepens resilience or erodes memory, how imported models can misfit local context, and what it means to design infrastructure that truly serves people rather than object-centric headlines.

Chris Fair, CEO of Resonance and publisher of "World's Best Cities" talks about what really separates the world’s cities.
As Chris explains, obsessively measured performance isn’t enough to explain why some cities feel magnetic and others feel interchangeable.
We unpack the World’s Best Cities framework and how liveability, prosperity, and a often-overlooked dimension of lovability shape both the experience of place and its global perception.
We explore the gap between performance and perception, why most cities lack resonance on the world stage, and how the interplay between infrastructure and experience may determine the future of urban success
https://www.worldsbestcities.com/

Researcher and strategist David Akermanis talks about how young people are navigating a world where traditional financial stability has eroded and cities themselves shape economic life.
We explore why the familiar narratives about youth finance, savvy versus reckless, miss the deeper tension underneath. Across stories of early career precarity, the blending of gambling and investing, the limitations of traditional banking advice, and how mobility and access matter as much as income, we dig into how young people are improvising within a system that no longer feels trustworthy.
The conversation reframes stability, money, and the urban experience, and challenges cities and institutions to rethink how they build opportunity and trust for future generations.
https://www.fasterhorses.ca/blog/young-people-amp-money