Why Footpaths Are Never Fixed in Our Cities ? HC E33| Nuria Forques | Ruchita Bansal

About the Episode: Have you ever walked down a street and felt like you were constantly in the way? Like the footpath just... ends? Or the sidewalk looks great on paper but leaves you with barely 90 centimetres to actually walk?That's not an accident. That's a design choice.In this episode of Human City Podcast, I'm talking to Nuria Forqués Puigcerver — urban designer, co-founder of Fitted Projects, and the creator of the Global Street Atlas — a platform that measures streets worldwide at a granular level.. Nuria travels the world with a tape measure and a notebook, measuring streets to understand what's actually usable versus what just looks good on a plan. What she's found is both fascinating and frustrating and it has a lot to say about how cities are failing the people who walk them every day.We talk about:— Why streets keep getting designed for the press release and not for the person walking through them— Why Kenyan cities still follow 19th century British colonial planning rules— The "sidewalks to nowhere" problem — beautiful infrastructure that connects to nothing— Why Europe has all the data, all the studies and almost no implementation— The hot take on demonising the car — and why it's the wrong approach— Why it's not important for things to look good on day one — it's important for things to look good after five yearsAbout the Guest: Nuria Forqués Puigcerver is an urban designer and the Founder and Principal Urban Designer at Fitted Projects — a market-centric urban planning practice that works predominantly with the private sector across the Global South.She is the creator of the Global Street Atlas — an open platform that documents street dimensions and design at a granular level across cities worldwide.She now travels with a tape measure, a laser measure and a notebook, measuring streets city by city, making the data freely available for urban designers and planners everywhere.Her work spans greenfield urban development, street design, housing and public space — with a particular focus on making projects financially sustainable and actually implementable, not just visually compelling.Nuria brings a rare combination of global perspective and on-the-ground pragmatism to urban design — questioning inherited colonial planning standards, pushing back on performative sustainability and advocating for streets that work for the long term, not just for the launch day photograph.Connect with her on LinkedIn:   / nuriaforques  ------------------------About the Host:The Human City Podcast is hosted by Ruchita Bansal, an accomplished urban planner and project management professional with 15+ years of experience. She has led multi-billion-dollar development projects and sustainable mobility programs across India, including her leadership role at the Ayodhya Development Authority.Ruchita is also the founder of SheCity India, a platform for gender-inclusive urban planning, storytelling, and data-driven advocacy.--------------------------About The Human City Podcast:This podcast brings together global voices and local insights to explore how cities can be made more inclusive, sustainable, and human-centered. Each episode uncovers what it takes to design cities that truly work for people.“The Human City Podcast is an initiative of SheCity India — building gender-inclusive, human-centered cities.”