In the final selection from the Unfinished Grid Essay Competition, Annie Choi takes us on a neighborhood stroll that reveals the grid's subtle influence on our everyday experience of the city.

Another selection from the Unfinished Grid Essay Competition considers what two centuries of interpretation of Manhattan's street grid can tell us about ourselves.

Announcing the winner of the Unfinished Grid Essay Competition: a personal essay that blends family history with individual mobility to explore Manhattan's built and natural environment.

Thaddeus Pawlowski reflects on his participation in a recent professional urban design exchange between São Paulo and New York.

Architectural historian Nina Rappaport analyzes the evolution of factory design and calls for the reintegration of urban industry into the fabric of our cities.

In the final installment of a Country of Cities, Vishaan pens a love letter to Japan, a country that has shaped his beliefs in the importance of dense urban living.

Jana Leo, the author of Rape New York, a candid account of sexual assault, discusses how the ordeal changed her perspective on property neglect, systemic gaps and neighborhood transition.

In the ninth installment of A Country of Cities, Vishaan examines the protests unfolding across the Middle East in terms of how urban space can enhance or prohibit social change.

Kirsten Hively describes her effort to seek out, document and encourage appreciation of the best neon in New York and shares her photography of the city's glow.

Who would vote to replace their neighborhood playground with a sewage treatment plant? But what about finding a “third way” between the extremes of destruction and fossilization, of megalomania and retrenchment.