Housing advocate Oksana Mironova investigates the planning policies and housing developments that have shaped the often-overlooked residential side of Coney Island and calls for investment in a neighborhood facing challenges of poverty, climate change, and affordability loss.

Labor journalist Ari Paul visits Electchester, a Queens housing complex constructed by a labor union of electricians, and uncovers a history that provokes urgent questions about contemporary housing challenges.

In advance of The Architectural League's Beaux Arts Ball on September 28th at the 69th Regiment Armory, we take a look back at the civic and social role of National Guard armories in the American city.

Writer Steven Thomson and photographer Cameron Blaylock respond to Thomas Hirschhorn's Gramsci Monument, a conceptual sculpture commemorating an Italian philosopher installed at a NYCHA complex in the Bronx.

In the last of a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts around the five boroughs, Summer Brennan explores the existing cultural community in St. George, Staten Island, and plans to encourage and capitalize on it to create "a high visibility gateway for cultural activity in Staten Island."

Yukie Ohta looks at the dramatic transformation of SoHo over the past 50 years, from a center for light manufacturing, to a desolate and dangerous wasteland, to one of the most affluent neighborhoods in New York.

Deborah Helaine Morris, one of two runners-up of the Fuzzy Math writing competition, charts the shifting demographics of one pocket of Brooklyn through the dairy aisle of her local supermarkets, delis, and specialty food stores.

In our third of a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts around the five boroughs, Joey de Jesus takes us on a tour of Hunts Point, Bronx, to explore how artists, activists, and educators have turned social and environmental challenges into opportunities.

Malaika Kim, one of two runners-up of the Fuzzy Math writing competition, traces how the intangibles of her life — the passage of time, acquired knowledge, and changes in lifestyle and family — have shifted her perception and experience of the physical environment in very measurable ways.

Announcing the winner of our Fuzzy Math writing competition: Steven Higashide imagines a near future in New York, in which a new City agency — the Department of Externalities — monitors and evaluates the social and environmental effects of everyday actions.