Published on January 14, 2026 (Episode 439)
Introduction
On November 1, 1755, the city of Lisbon was devastated by a catastrophic earthquake—and a new era of urban planning began. What followed was not merely reconstruction, but one of the first sustained attempts to reshape a city according to an explicit vision of the future. What tectonic plates did to Lisbon in the eighteenth century, bulldozers and wrecking balls would later do by design. We take that for granted now. We shouldn’t.
In The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World, my guest Bruno Carvalho tells two intertwined stories. One is the history of cities as they were planned, built, demolished, and rebuilt—from Lisbon to Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, and Lagos. The other is an intellectual history: how people imagined the cities of the future, often long before the technologies or political conditions existed to make those visions real. One of the book’s central claims is that these two histories—planning and imagination—intersect far less often than we might expect.
From the Lisbon earthquake and the contingency of reform, to the Manhattan grid as an “anti-plan,” to garden cities, automobiles, utopias, and megacities, this conversation explores why cities so often frustrate the intentions of planners—and why, despite centuries of criticism and anxiety, cities remain one of humanity’s most enduring experiments.
About the Guest
Bruno Carvalho is a professor at Harvard University, where he teaches courses on cities and urban history. He is also the author of Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro.
For Further Investigation
Bruno Carvalho, The Invention of the Future: A History of Cities in the Modern World
— Porous City: A Cultural History of Rio de Janeiro
Jules Verne, Paris in the Twentieth Century: The Lost Novel (Del Rey, 1997)
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow
Related Episodes
City of Light, City of Darkness: Michael Rapport on Paris in the Belle Époque
Madrid: Luke Stegeman on Power, History, and Spain’s Restless Capital
Prague, the Heart of Europe: Cynthia Paces on a millennium of history both at the center and on the periphery
Philadelphia: Paul Kahan on Diversity, Conflict, and Forgetting the Past in the City of Brotherly Love
Street Food: Charlie Taverner on street vendors, London, and the history of urban eating
Reflection Questions
What might the reconstruction of Lisbon reveal about contingency and power in moments of crisis?
In what sense can the Manhattan grid be understood as an “anti-plan”?
What does the persistence of cities suggest about human social life, despite centuries of criticism?
Tags
Urban history; Cities; Urban planning; Modernity; Lisbon earthquake; Manhattan grid; Haussmann; Garden cities; Automobiles; Megacities
