The Human Harbor
Birds, fish, and marine mammals dodge traffic, hitch rides, and make the most of unlikely opportunities in the city’s many waterways.
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When Care Gets a Charter
Will a new Business Improvement District bring stability and support to East Harlem's placekeepers, or does it spell the end of community stewardship and power?
Cloudbusting
A decade after its original publication, a revised field guide to the urban internet offers a fresh perspective on the era of mass surveillance and AI blitzscaling.
Lessons from 2044
Urban infrastructures are transformed by crisis and ingenuity in three stories pulled from a newspaper of the future.
Meet the 2026–2027 New City Critics Fellows
New City Critics fellows will turn their critical gaze over the city.
Uber 911
With the exorbitant costs of healthcare, untrained rideshare drivers are increasingly forced to take on the role of emergency medical professionals.
What Water Wants
The low-lying Jewel Streets neighborhood, once coastal marshlands now cut off from the waterfront, is prone to extreme flooding. What happens if planners and advocates learn to go with the flow?
The Planks of Theseus
New York City generates more than 2 million tons of construction and demolition debris every year. An age-old parable suggests that waste is in the eye of the beholder.
Temu’s Last Mile
The river of packages running through the city inscribes a hidden geography of resource-intensive e-commerce.
Desire Paths
During a three-month experiment, a critic forgoes algorithmically determined pathways through the city by courting and cataloging her chance encounters with strangers.
Pothole Chic
Civic leaders have long expressed their allegiances and courted public trust through sartorial choices. Can the current mayor’s OSHA-compliant uniform inspire a new guard of civic engagement?
Locations, Locations, Locations
Location scouts have shaped representations of New York for decades. Now, changes to the film industry and the built environment both threaten a carefully cultivated way of seeing.
Tide and Current
Over more than 20 years, an artist ferrying passengers through New York’s waterways in small boats has shared a unique vantage on an always-changing island city.
The Null Hypothesis
It’s easy to be a visionary when the alternative is an ash heap. A casino megaproject promised for Queens reveals the persistent failures of imagination driving “development” and its discontents.
Infrastructure Enclaves
In a dense city, borders and barriers made of steel, concrete, and asphalt can create unexpected pockets of protection for habitat-starved plants and animals.
New City Critics 2025–26: City en Regalia
Join the New City Critics on June 17 for a publication launch and conversation.
Keep the Change
Landmarking has long been one of the few tools available to preserve a building. Can historic preservation adapt to protect affordability and utility alongside cornices and columns?
Waste Watering Holes
Bird watching at an unlikely urban oasis: the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant
The City in Our Hands
At the Black Zine Fair, now in its third year, the power of DIY publications as movement- and city-building technologies is on display.
Dancing About Architecture
How have dancers and their movements shaped the built environment of New York — and how has the city shaped them in return?
A Way Out of No Way
Contact with life’s sharper edges guides artist Guadalupe Maravilla’s quest to assist the most vulnerable New Yorkers.
Notes from the Industrial Zone
New York was founded on industry. As e-commerce rewrites the supply chain, how are we protecting the small businesses left behind?
A Labor of Love
Up a marble staircase, in the attic of City Hall, a trio of civil servants steward an eclectic archive of city objects.