{"podcast":{"title":"The David McWilliams Podcast","slug":"the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453","podcast_index_feed_id":512453,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/20b97d01-ba9b-5fb0-9acf-161391a88cb0","website_url":"http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/61b9fedc1a8cbefa383cf076/show-cover.jpg","author":"David McWilliams","episode_count":678,"summary":"The aim of this weekly podcast is to make economics easy, uncomplicated and accessible. With the world at a political, technological and financial tipping point, economics has never been so important to all of us and yet, it’s made inaccessible and complicated by so many. I’ve always thought what is complicated is rarely important and what is important is rarely complicated. That will be our motto. Every week we are going to tease out some big economic or political issue facing us, not just here in Ireland but in Europe and further afield. Globalisation has brought us all together. We all face similar challenges whether you live in Dublin, London, Minnesota or Milan. If you would like to enjoy all of our content ad-free and have early access to episodes, subscribe to DMCW+ on Apple Podcast. Want to join our crew? Join at davidmcwilliams.ie/crew , where you can enjoy ad-free listening, as well as exclusive bonus content such as premium episodes, our macroeconomics course, early access to episodes and pre-sale access to tickets for Dalkey Book Festival & Kilkenomics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-06T18:19:51.080822+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453"},"episode":{"title":"Can You Prosper Without Building Proper Cities?","slug":"can-you-prosper-without-building-proper-cities","published_at":"2026-02-24T04:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453/can-you-prosper-without-building-proper-cities","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453","url":"https://shows.acast.com/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/episodes/can-you-prosper-without-building-proper-cities","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast/e/699c80d1e3f0d89ce2c0d679/media.mp3","summary":"This episode begins at the ancient seven-arch bridge in Killaloe, the crossing point where Clare, Tipp and Limerick collide, and jumps to Višegrad in eastern Bosnia, where Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina uses one structure to tell a five-century story of tribes, trade, love, and conflict. Back in Ireland, the row over closing the old Killaloe bridge is about suburban sprawl swallowing once-separate towns and turning them into commuter satellites. Ireland has built a low-density model that forces people into cars, clogs villages with traffic, and makes the whole system fragile. Just 13% of Irish people live in apartments, compared to 46% across Europe, and the gap between where jobs and services are concentrated and where people actually live is now being paid for in time, congestion, and quality of life. So where do you look for a better model? Japan. We end in the Tokyo–Yokohama mega-region, 38 million people living densely, safely, and efficiently, and ask why Ireland keeps choosing a “rainbelt” version of American car sprawl, instead of building compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods that let people live near where they work, study and socialise. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.","meta_description":"This episode begins at the ancient seven-arch bridge in Killaloe, the crossing point where Clare, Tipp and Limerick collide, and jumps to Višegrad in east…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2308,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453/episodes/can-you-prosper-without-building-proper-cities/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast-512453/can-you-prosper-without-building-proper-cities.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}