Welcome to Coolville
Telling Positive Urban Stories to Inspire the World
All around the world, cities large and small are making urban change happen. They are transforming streets into vibrant public spaces, investing in climate resilience, prioritising people over traffic, and designing neighbourhoods that feel alive rather than engineered. The question is not whether your city is doing something good. The question is whether the world knows.
We are living in the age of urbanism. Cities are growing, climate change is forcing creative solutions, and the global competition for talent, investment and cultural relevance has never been sharper. In this environment, strong urban ideas are not just local achievements. They are global currency.
Some cities are not simply expanding or renovating; they are leading. They are reclaiming streets for people, embedding climate resilience into everyday infrastructure, strengthening neighbourhood life and rethinking mobility in ways that make daily experience tangibly better. Visitors feel it immediately. Residents benefit from it for decades. That kind of transformation is not just policy. It is narrative power.
Good ideas deserve to travel. Good stories deserve to be told properly. If your city is building something meaningful, Coolville wants to amplify it. We create content that inspires travellers. Stories that simply must be shared.
The Host
World-renowned urbanist, author and TV host, Mikael Colville-Andersen, has been dedicated to curating and presenting these stories to the world for years. He has been referred to as the Anthony Bourdain of urbanism. He brings his passion for urbanism and architecture to his audience with passion and authenticity.
He’s been at it for a while. Through four seasons, Mikael explored global cities with his TV series The Life-Sized City. The series was sold to more than 30 countries and now enjoys life on Mikael’s YouTube channel. Where The Life-Sized City was a large, broadcast production, this Coolville Series is more flexible, nimble and immediate.
It is a shorter-format, online series where Mikael visits cities and curates a handful of the best urbanism stories and presents them on his Instagram and YouTube channels. He’ll interview the people behind the projects, get a feel for the urban development in the city and package it into professional content for online distribution. As well as posting on social media during the shoot.
A Nordic Team
Tuomas Autio is the series producer. He is Finnish and based in Paris. Together with Mikael he maps out potential cities and topics for the series and brings a wealth of experience in media production, marketing and architecture to the team.
See trailers for The Life-Sized City below to get an idea of style and format:
Mikael will be at the helm of intriguing and creative encounters with those who make up the social fabric that redefines city life, talking about public space, transport, family life, urban sprawl, bikeability and green initiatives- all on a life-sized scale. Interacting with true urban heroes, he gets dirt under his fingernails and puts theory to practice as he takes part in surprising urban innovations.
Sustainable, Green Tourism
Tourism is changing. And the smartest cities are already adapting. People today don’t just want to visit a place. They want to participate in something meaningful. Tourists are increasingly seeking out cities that inspire with how they tackle climate adaptation, mobility, public space, livability and community wellbeing. They want cities that reflect their values — not just their bucket lists.
61% are specifically drawn to destinations known for responsible practices (American Express Travel Trends)
76% of travellers want to travel more sustainably (Booking.com)
90% of travellers look for sustainable options when booking (Expedia Group)
80% of Millennials and Gen Z surveyed like using social media to help them plan their travel (AmEx Travel Trends)
76% of global travellers say they want to travel more sustainably (Booking.com)
Today’s traveller is informed, values-driven and selective. They notice bike infrastructure. They photograph pedestrian streets. They talk about climate adaptation and public life. They actively seek cities that reflect their own priorities. They are choosing destinations that feel like the future.
Cities that communicate their urban progress clearly and credibly attract more than visitors. They attract ambassadors. People who return home and say, “you won’t believe what I saw! ”Sustainability is no longer a side message. It is a competitive advantage.
Below you can see Mikael’s videos from Paris and Ukraine, which is the kind of positive storytelling narrative that Mikael wants to spread about the good things happening in a city.
The Audience
The Coolville Series attracts a similar audience as The Life-Sized City series. The content appeals to a diverse and engaged audience with a shared interest in urban development, sustainability, and the intricate relationship between people and their urban environments. The Life-Sized City had a wide range of viewers. It was popular with urbanism and architecture professionals, sure, but it reached a strong family segment, as well a broad age range. In Belgium, the series was the most popular series in its timeslot for women and the analytics on Mikael’s Instagram and Facebook show an even gender split among viewers.
The Coolville Series will continue to reach the same audience. People drawn to its accessible and authentic narrative style and thought-provoking discussions on topics such as green spaces, transportation, and community interactions.
The series captivates a global audience, drawing in viewers from diverse cultural backgrounds and geographical locations, reflecting the universal curiosity about the evolution of cities.
The Clients
Mikael and the Coolville Series has already collaborated with tourism bureaus in cities and regions who are keen to show off their urbanism goodness. We have seen that in some cases the City teams up with the Tourism Office in helping off-set the costs of financing the shoot.
Among others, Mikael has worked as a content maker/influencer with the following tourism bureaus or cities: Helsinki; Umeå, Sweden; Oulu, Finland; Tallinn, Estonia; Groningen, Netherlands; Visit Ukraine; Copenhagen; Oslo; Puebla, Mexico; Montréal; Dublin.
There have also been collaborations with various brands, including Skoda; Selle Royal, Velorbis, Global Covenant of Mayors, C40 Cities; Bosch.
Sponsorship & Collab
We are always open to collaborating on a longer relationship with brands or corporate partners, in order to expand our reach and have flexibility in covering cities and topics. We’ll be able to shoot content relevant to urbanism but also have the ability to target specific markets that are of importance for the sponsor’s corporate strategy.
Social Media
Mikael will use his own social channels: His main Instagram @colvilleanderen (60,000+), his urbanism Instagram (15,000+), Facebook (15,000+), LinkedIn (1400+).
Add to that cross-posting and native posting on a growing SoMe presence for the series: YouTube channel (45,000+), Analogville on Facebook (24,000+).
Here are some of the best performing posts on Mikael’s Instagram over the past year:
A selection of the best performing reels over the past couple of months (Feb 2026) on @colvilleandersen on Instagram.
1.2 million views - How to fuck up a train station - Prague Central
1.2 million views - Why people in the Nordic countries aren’t moving to the USA
800,000 views - Helsinki Central Station
700,000 views - Developers destroying heritage buildings in Kyiv
630,000 views - Winter Cycling in Copenhagen #vikingbiking
610,000 views - Pedestrian-hostile infrastructure
375,000 views - Placemaking in Copenhagen
350,000 views - Architecture Guide to Eight Buildings by Arne Jacobsen in Copenhagen
314,000 views - Amazing new architecture in Prague
230,000 views - How to fuck up a train station - Milano Centrale
200,000 views - Seven outdoor skating rinks in Copenhagen this winter
180,000 views - How to fuck up a train station - Copenhagen
250,000 views - How a simple arch became passive-aggressive architecture
The Shoot & The Crew
With a shorter format, shooting in a city for the Coolville Series will not require a long shoot. Our researcher will find the best stories for us to cover, in advance. We will arrive with Mikael and a crew consisting of a cameraman and a sound man and we’ll employ a local “fixer“ to help us navigate the city and get to places on time.
We will plan for two days of shooting. This will require a minimum of four nights in a hotel for destinations in Europe and more if we have to travel further. The process, once we agree with a client, is as follows:
Research >> Remote interviews with potential guests >> Prepare shooting schedule >> Arrival and Shoot >> One-two weeks of editing >> Launch online. Add to that more immediate posting from the shoot in the form of reels and stories.
About the Host
Mikael Colville-Andersen has been working passionately to transform and improve cities for over a decade. He has worked tirelessly on urban planning projects in over 100 cities around the world. A much sought-after speaker, Mikael has given his inspirational keynotes in scores of cities, combining his many urban philosophies with his work experience in cities in entertaining and thought-provoking presentations.
Mikael is best known for his philosophy about simplifying urban planning and urban cycling and how we should be designing our cities and streets instead of relying on traffic engineering. Using design - a human-to-human process - to make better the urban landscape will get more results quicker and teaming design up with anthropology, sociology and transport psychology first will ensure effective urban transformation.
He is based in Copenhagen but has lived in cities around the world including Los Angeles, Suva, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Moscow, Paris, Kyiv and London.