166. From the Sidewalk Up: How UTSA's School of Architecture Is Rethinking San Antonio's Urban Core

This week on bigcitysmalltown, Bob Rivard sits down with Dr. Michelangelo Sabatino, director of UT San Antonio's School of Architecture and Planning and the Roland K. Bloomberg Endowed Professor in Architecture. Six months into his role, Sabatino is making the rounds — meeting architects, developers, civic leaders, and students — and bringing a historian's eye and a pedestrian's sensibility to one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.They discuss:What drew Sabatino from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago to San Antonio, and why the city's UNESCO World Heritage sites and River Walk made it an easy callHow the school's move to One Riverwalk Place is transforming not just where students learn, but how — using the downtown core as a living laboratoryWhy adaptive reuse, not new construction, is where the most creative architectural thinking happens — and how San Antonio has long led the wayThe challenge of knitting together UTSA's expanding downtown campus across four compass points of the urban core, and what 6,000 students downtown by end of 2026 could mean for the cityHow San Antonio's growth into a megaregion with Austin raises urgent questions about equity, infrastructure, and who benefitsThe "bird's eye view" problem: why seeing cities only from above — or from a car — leads to dangerous planning mistakesWhy first-generation students from San Antonio's working-class neighborhoods may be the city's most important agents of changeRECOMMENDED NEXT LISTEN:▶ #151. 8.3 Million New Neighbors by 2050 — Henry Cisneros and Bob Rivard on the Austin-San Antonio Megaregion — Essential context for this conversation. Henry Cisneros and Bob Rivard examine the demographic forces reshaping the San Antonio-Austin corridor and what it means for how both cities plan, build, and grow... ..GET THE NEWSLETTER🗞 If you found this conversation valuable, Bob Rivard's newsletter goes deeper on the stories shaping San Antonio — analysis and context you won't find anywhere else, delivered to your inbox. Independent, nonpartisan, and free to read.Subscribe here.CONNECT📸 Connect on Instagram🔗 Join us on LinkedIn📺 Subscribe on YouTubeSPONSORS🙌 Support the show & see our sponsorsTHANK YOU⭐ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts⭐ Rate us on Spotify