In our seventh Brass Tacks discussion, Rasmia Kirmani-Frye, President of the Fund for Public Housing, leveled with us on public housing’s unique role in the city and the challenges NYCHA must face.

This time on Housing Brass Tacks: Where does the money come from, and what’s it used for? Mark Willis, the Senior Policy Fellow at NYU’s Furman Center, takes us through the structure of affordable housing finance.

Introducing the Circulation Desk, a bimonthly snapshot of the urbanist titles that turn our gears. On Inauguration Eve, could four recent biographies of real estate giants deliver insight into the years ahead?

The Real Estate Investment Cooperative wants to support community-oriented commercial development in New York City. How can a grassroots organization compete in the nation's most expensive commercial real estate market?

Yael Friedman delves into the history of the City's former poor farm, plans underway to turn it into a luxury 55+ community, and the questions each raise for how best to adapt our existing models of housing to an increasingly aged population.

The week before New Yorkers hit the polls in the city's participatory budgeting process, journalist John Surico tracks its evolution from non-profit project to institutionalization within the Council Speaker’s office, learns of its achievements and frustrations, and contemplates the future of this exercise in direct democracy.

Stephen Rustow outlines the powerful, intertwined influence of zoning, finance, and building codes on urban form through their discrete histories, objectives, and languages.

Aaron Reiss dives into Beyond the Grid, an ambitious plan underway in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan to create a more resilient, connected, and sustainable Lower East Side by fusing heating, power, and communications infrastructures.

Can limited profit be good business and create better housing?