Charlie Hilton

Biography

I am the founder of Urban Times. Undergraduate and postgraduate alumni of University College London & University of Pennsylvania. I want to save the planet, change the way news works and make Hip Hop. It's that simple. I love you.

My Urban Times Story

In May of 2010, I was in the interim period between my undergraduate degree finishing and the beginning of my masters degree. Jobs were thin on the ground and, being the eternal optimist, I thought that I could create my own job. I had a fairly successful website beforehand which I started a couple of years previous, and decided to have another go. The idea of Urban Times was born, the domain name was in my hands and the concept was forming quickly. I was rapidly writing as many articles a day as I could, knowing that I only had an audience of about 10-25 people. I had mentioned, in passing, the concept of my sustainable magazine for the built environment to all of my friends and they said it was "cool" but I had no biters - no-one really jumped at the idea. A couple of months down the line my friend Alex (who is now the co-founder of the company) was taking a long tube journey to a friend of ours' house. I knew that it was one of those moments when Alex had been thinking hard and energetically because he always sounds flustered and incapable of letting a word in edgeways! He declared his undying love for theurbn.com and said he was on board whatever it took.

The next couple of months were spent discussing the remit of the site, what we were attempting to create, what our ethos was, what our scope was to be and to become. That discussion is still happening today, in fact, and the scope is only getting larger as new people join in and participate. We hope one day that you can participate too in some way, shape or form, but until then we hope you enjoy what we are offering and I hope you stay optimistic for us.