In Episode 1, Rebecca talks to Annalee Newitz about their new book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate. Here, listen to Rebecca and Annalee talk about what it is that makes urban life urban, what happens in cities, and how people come together in cities. 

2,20 "The delightful chance meetings and life-changing random encounters" of urban life
5,30 Feasts and parties
7,30 Role of farming, city versus country, agriculture as a part of the urban process
11,30 Change and transition in community,
14,30 Early Viking Dublin
18,00 Towns and Cities along travel routes
20,30 Cahokia & its pyramids
25,00 Role of religion in coming together to create urban places
30,00 Populations and comparative sizes of settlements
34,15 Migration to cities & labour forces
38,00 Slavery
40,00 Responses of cities to their environments, resilience and materiality of settlement
47,00 Hinterland relationships
51,30 City at the centre of its network