Policy
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.
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.