The Project

A few months ago I left France to travel the world in order to study cities. Why cities? Because we live in them. Today, more than 4 billion people live in cites which is 50 percent of the world population. As we all know cities are facing major issues: pollution, overcrowding, poverty, security, floods, and so much more.

But let's forget about problems and focus on solutions! All over the world, individuals, NGOs, associations, governments are working very hard to solve those challenges. My goal this year is to travel to 12 countries around the world, in Latin America, North America, Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe, to study problems cities are facing, solutions to solve them, and share it with you!

Why YouTube?

Free for me, free for you. YouTube is the largest online video sharing platform and it is used by millions of people everyday. I chose to share my videos on YouTube because I wanted them to be accessible to everyone for free!

Every week (when I travel I don't post for one week) I am sharing with you my adventures, studies, stories, encounters on my channel "AN URBAN ODYSSEY".

What have I done until now?

As this project is very meaningful to me (and I hope for you as well) I didn't wait for you to start. Until now I have done 15 videos in France, Colombia, Mexico and The United States. I have studied various topics such as: gender equality, urban security, housing, homelessness, and urban mobility.

These past four months have been full of encounters, with locals (former gang members in Colombian ghetto, homeless people in Los Angeles, people living in slums in Mexico), but also with professionals (the NGO Techo, Casa y Ciudad, Camino al Barrio, the INVI, Designing Hong Kong, the C2D Bordeaux). These people are the ones who make things change and my role is to share their work with you.

What is Next?

I left Hong Kong a few days ago and I just arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh to study the adaptation of cities to climate change. Then I will travel to India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Turkey. I will study topics such as, the energy transition, water and sanitation management, social segregation, migrant integration, rebuilding of cities, waste management.

In every place I travel I meet people, I discover places and histories that inspire me, and I feel the need to share them. Therefore, since last month I also decided that apart from my initial study I will also produce videos about other subjects. It will vary the kind of content I am doing and make it more enjoyable for you.

Who am I?

I am passionate, adventurous, hardworking and a bit reckless. I am a freshly graduated urban engineer from France, 25 years old, from a town named Rambouillet. These past years I have traveled in more than 40 countries in Europe, South and North America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. I crossed Argentina, Iceland and Australia hitch hiking, I worked in Colombia, Brazil, South Korea and Argentina, I hiked mountains in Patagonia, Morocco, Mexico and Norway, I survived sauna with Russians in Moscow (that's a challenge). Anyway what I want to tell you is that I have experience travelling and I won't let you down!

The final documentary

After travelling for a year in the world's most challenged cities, I will have a global vision of the current situation. And I think it is important for me and useful for you to share what I learned during this trip.

I therefore decided to realize a long documentary (30 - 45mn) about this year. The point is not to repeat what I shared in my weekly videos, but to look back on this whole experience, problems cities are facing, what we are doing about it and what hopes we have for the future.

An Urban Odyssey - A YouTube series about cities

The publications