# Challenger Cities EP73: Showing a City to Itself with Phil Tabah

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/challenger-cities-6959558/challenger-cities-ep73-showing-a-city-to-itself-with-phil-tabah
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/challenger-cities-6959558/challenger-cities-ep73-showing-a-city-to-itself-with-phil-tabah.md
Podcast: [Challenger Cities](https://stenobird.com/podcast/challenger-cities-6959558)
Published: 2026-04-14T19:36:21+00:00
Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/challengercitytoronto/2735632
Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/278784/2735632/challengercitytoronto/2026_04_14_16_48_05_48e374d2-0c2a-4b59-a464-3e49a82f299d.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/challenger-cities-6959558/episodes/challenger-cities-ep73-showing-a-city-to-itself-with-phil-tabah
Duration seconds: 2630

## Resource

Phil Tabah is the co-founder of The Main, Montreal's city magazine, and one of the most thoughtful people working on the question of how cities see themselves and tell their own story. In this conversation we get into why Phil started The Main at 21 as a Twitter account and what it's become, the publications that used to do this job well and what happened to them, why Montreal is a city that has cracked culture but not confidence, the economics of being a springboard city, and what it would actually take for Montreal to claim what it's already built. We also get into why the stories worth telling about a city are exactly the ones AI can't tell, and what a refined bullshit meter has to do with good editorial judgment. The Main is at themain.com . Go subscribe.

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## Transcript

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