‘Who Does It Best’ is finally here!
It’s here!! It’s finally here.
Today, we launch the first two parts of our new series, ‘Who Does It Best?’. At a time when many people feel like their governments are not taking care of them, we wondered: how do policies actually shape our daily lives? And are there places getting it right?
We are beyond grateful to all of you for making this series possible. As you know, this is the first time The Europeans have ever produced a series that is 100% crowdfunded, and we’re super proud of the outcome. We can’t wait to hear what you make of these episodes.
Our ask to you
Once you’ve listened, we’d love it if you would send an episode to four people, mentioning something specific that really resonated with you. Word of mouth is by far the most effective way to spread a podcast, and we want to make sure the reporting you funded reaches as many people as possible.
So, what awaits?
In your podcast feeds, you can find part 1 and part 2 of ‘Housing Policy: Who Does It Best?; where Katz investigates: Why is your rent so high? What are the policies that created this housing crisis, and what policies can get us out of it? In Part 1, Katz takes us on a journey through Vienna, Finland, and Paris, looking for Europe’s most ambitious housing policies and what we can learn from them (and maybe even copy?!). But first, Katz and Dominic sit down to face the elephant in the room: money, housing, and inheritance. And as Dominic points out, these aren’t the conversations you usually have with your colleagues, facing wealth inequality inside your team head-on. That takes a certain level of trust, and we aren’t sure that we could have made this episode had we not been working together for the past six years. So, an extra shoutout to the people who have been supporting us for a long time, giving The Europeans the longevity needed to make these first two episodes as intimate and honest as they are.
In Part 2, Katz goes back to the drawing board. If the housing crisis is really about wealth inequality, doesn’t the policy we need to fix it… need to address wealth inequality? We go in deep, and what Katz finds makes us wonder: are we even having the right conversation when it comes to the housing crisis?
More stories from the field
In the weeks running up to publication date, Katz and Wojciech were invited to speak at Internazionale Festival in Ferrara, Italy. What. An. Amazing. Festival.
We used the opportunity to showcase a couple of clips from the series (pre-sound design!), and it was so exciting to see and hear people respond. We almost never get that experience, seeing the people listening and responding in real time - we just quietly upload .mp3 files to a website.
So having people immediately react? It felt like a dream world. Walking around with the October sun on the cobblestones, in a town filled with 70,000 people who were engaged in what is happening in the world, but not in a judgemental way - seriously asking themselves how their thinking could change and what they could do differently. And between running around to present audio and be on panels, there was Italian food everywhere and people came to tell us how our work had touched them. How to go back to normal life, after that?!
Alright, go listen!! And stay tuned for more next week: Childcare!
Love, radio and pistachio ice cream,
Katz, Wojciech, Maja, Uršula, Jasmin, Katy, Dominic, Morgan, Jesse and Rosa
