How deserted places find a second life

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lots left vacant, offices full of equipment but devoid of people, entire villages literally left to the wolves--this hour, TED speakers share stories about bringing new life to abandoned places. Guests include evolutionary biologist Shane Campbell-Staton, entrepreneur Garry Cooper, urban renewal expert Anika Goss, and conservationist Alysa McCall. (Original broadcast date: September 8, 2023)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you that, friend, the one who's constantly recommending podcast episodes to anyone who will listen?
0:06.9	Well, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter and nerd out with us.
0:12.1	You'll get fresh podcast recommendations every week, handpicked by the people that live for this stuff.
0:18.7	Subscribe at npr.org slash pod club.
0:23.4	You'll also find the link in the description for this episode.
0:26.7	See you there.
0:28.8	This is the TED Radio Hour.
0:32.8	Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.
0:35.5	Our job now is to dream big.
0:36.9	Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're going to find. Challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you.
0:55.0	I literally feel like I'm a different person.
0:57.2	Yes.
0:58.1	Do you feel that way?
0:59.9	Ideas worth spreading.
1:02.2	From TED and NPR.
1:06.6	I'm Manushe Zamoroti.
1:08.5	Today on the show, Abandoned Places.
1:13.3	I remember walking through some villages where you look through the windows and there are still
1:21.3	shoes near the door. There's still books next to the bed. There's still a child's toy on the floor. There's still books next to the bed. There's still a child's toy on the floor.
1:31.2	There's so many remnants of the lives that were left on very short notice.
1:36.3	For nearly four decades, ever since the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl,
1:41.3	the surrounding 30-kilometer radius known as the exclusion zone, has mostly
	...

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