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Wisconsin Public Radio

EVOLVING CITIES

Program 06-01-01-A

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Every sixty seconds a hundred and thirty new people show up in the world's cities. No one is building housing for them. No government is planning for them. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we'll explore the evolving city in a world of a billion squatters, with another billion on the way.

SEGMENT 1:

Robert Neuwirth is the author of "Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World." He tells Steve Paulson about the process by which people acquire and improve dwellings in the world's cities even when they don't own land and says squatters will shape cities in the future.

SEGMENT 2:

Charles Monroe Kane reads a passage from William Gibson's novel "Virtual Light" describing an imagined future where squatters have built a community on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Also, Simon Winchester, author of "A Crack in the Edge of the World," talks with Jim Fleming about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, how good the official response to the disaster was, and what we still haven't learned about coping with Mother Nature.

SEGMENT 3:

Andrea di Robilant is an Italian journalist from an old Venetian family who's made a novel out of the story contained in some letters from his family's attic. "A Venetian Affair" tells a story of a doomed love affair between a young Venetian nobleman and his lover. Andrea di Robilant tells the story to Anne Strainchamps, and we hear excerpts from the letters read by actors Colleen Madden and Jim Burns of American Players Theater, all set to music from the great days of the Venetian Republic. Also, John Berendt is the author of "The City of Falling Angels." He tells Anne Strainchamps that Venice still feels like a stage set, and that Venetians still carry on in dramatic, even operatic ways, and cites the example of the fire in the famous opera house.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 06-01-01-A.

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Books:

• Robert Neuwirth Shadow Cities: A Billlion Squatters, A New Urban World (Routledge)
  
• William Gibson Virtual Light (Bantam Spectra)
  
• Simon Winchester A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 (Harper Collins)
  
• Andrea Di Robilant A Venetian Affair (Knopf)
  
• John Berendt The City of Falling Angels (Penguin Press)

Music:

• Button after Neuwirth: Voz Ativa by Racionais mes, Sao Paolo
  
• Option after Neuwirth: Como Sobreviver Na Favela by MV Bill, Rio
  
• Music under Gibson: www.lyricsborn.com
  
• Button/Option after Winchester: I Left My Heart in San Francisco; The Fifty Guitars of Tommy Garrett
  
• Music under Robilant: Selections from Vivaldi Concerti per archi performed by Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini Opus 111 OP 30377;
  Vivaldi Concerti per mandolini and concerti con molti strumenti performed by Europa Galante/Fabio Biondi Virgin veritas 45527-2
  and Concerto Veneziano performed by Venice Baroque Orchestra/Andrea Marcon Archiv B0003849-02
  
• Button after Robilant: Concerto Veneziano (as above)
  
• Music after Berendt: Concerto Veneziano (as above)

Distribution dates:

week of 01/07/2007 - hour 2 week of 01/01/2006 - hour 1

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Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

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