This is an episode of Inside the Tent, a podcast going behind the scenes of Campside’s award winning shows.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Our cities and towns are deceptively simple. You flip a switch, and the lights come on. You turn a faucet, and water flows. You tap “buy,” and a package lands at your door.
Usually, we don’t think about how these systems work or how we interact with them… it all feels effortless. But behind each of those ordinary moments are invisible systems and the people who keep them running.
From 99% Invisible and Campside Media, Service Request is a new series that starts small: a call to 311, a traffic jam or a single flipped switch. We then zoom out, tracing that moment through the networks that keep a community organized and comfortable.
Delany starts at the beginning, when Campside approached 99% Invisible (99PI) with the idea of making a show about infrastructure. Together we developed the format: a question from a listener leads us into a system, and we dissect how it works.
Shoshi goes back even further, when Delaney started at 99PI more than ten years ago. Delaney didn’t arrive fascinated with architecture and design, but appreciated the lens that Roman Mars and other colleagues brought to storytelling: the ordinary world is really interesting and worth exploring.
Shoshi asks about episode one of Service Request, noting that 311 is not a typical example of infrastructure. Indeed, Delaney and Shoshi both settle on the idea that the show’s definition of infrastructure includes public services and systems that contribute to the public good.
Delaney then describes something that stuck with her when making the first five episodes. It’s an approach to preparation that one guest calls, “remembering the floating luggage.”
Finally Shoshi and Delaney discuss the Service Request episode suggestions already coming in from listeners, including elevators, toll roads and the pipes that bring us water. It turns out that many listeners are well aware of the importance of infrastructure and the consequences of a system not working!
Listen to Inside the Tent on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Email us with questions or comments: questions@campsidemedia.com.
We hope to see you inside the tent again soon. Subscribe now for updates on all of Campside’s hit shows.
