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.

Typecast is a long-term Architectural League study into architectural typologies that begins with a closer look at five "towers-in-the-park," one in each borough of New York City.

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.

In the second in a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Mercedes Kraus looks at how a cultural community has flourished by leveraging its legacy of artistic production in the face of intensifying real estate pressure and outside influence and interest.

Juliet Helmke traces the origins and prospects of a genre of art that aims to educate and more effectively influence consumer behavior through the reinterpretation of ecological data.

The founder and president of the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDco) talks about the difference between building structures and building communities, the musical legacy of the Bronx, and how the persistence of memory affects neighborhood growth.

Urban ecologist Alexander Felson proposes a new kind of ecological practice, one that moves from analyzing nature to shaping it and embeds scientific experiments into the design process.

In a personal reflection on growing up in middle-class Rockaway, Yael Friedman calls for more nuanced understanding of how planning for a more resilient city can — and must — incorporate more than environmental concerns alone.

In the first in a series of profiles of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts, Caitlin Blanchfield reports on how a robust network of community-based groups in Corona, Queens, has put local cultural vitality and institutional partnerships to work in reclaiming a public space for neighborhood use.