Cleaning Up?

Air Grievances

In environmental justice communities, knowledge about air pollution hotspots comes from the ground up. Shouldn't remedies start there too?

Cleaning Up?

Bless This Mess

The urban landscape is formed by uneven practices of denial and redemption, while stuff stays with us. What are we doing when we are cleaning up?

What About Jane?

As cities, and the way we understand them, have changed, so has the reputation of a preeminent urban thinker. If gentrification and structural racism are the problems, does Jane Jacobs still have the answers?

This Has Become My Town (NORCs of New York Revisited, Part Two)

In two conversations, five years apart, residents of a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community reflect on the ups and downs of aging in place in New York City.

This Has Become My Town (NORCs of New York Revisited, Part One)

A decade ago, Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities seemed like a really good idea. How are they doing now?

Follow the Frontline

Communities of color have long been the vanguard of New York City's environmental justice movement. How can designers support and learn from their efforts to mitigate a climate crisis that is up close and personal?

Dispatches

We're About Getting People Free, Period

With the pandemic churning inside city jails, a proliferation of mutual aid networks are crowdsourcing funds to get as many people out of pretrial detention as they can. We hear from organizers of COVID Bail Out NYC about what securing someone else's freedom really means.

Dispatches

What People Need and What the Stock Provides

Sarah Watson of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council talks about crafting policy at the intersection of public health and private home, and the urgency to build and adapt dwellings that reflect how New Yorkers live — alone or together.

Dispatches

Making Science Actionable

The Urban Systems Lab talks about overlapping social vulnerabilities to climate change and COVID-19, and their efforts to gather and share the data that matters most in a complex and ever-shifting situation.