Singer-songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane describes the way architecture, literature, and historical research inform his compositions and why he's drawn to storytelling tied to place.

Soaring rent can often seem like a vague, mysterious force, like bad weather, for which no one in particular is responsible.

Marcus Moore and Sam Miller of Picture the Homeless, an organization led by homeless and formerly homeless people, discuss their activism on issues of affordable housing, police harassment, and shelter reform.

Oksana Mironova charts an alternative strategy to land ownership and property management that helps communities solve a broad range of problems — including widening inequality and decreasing community control over housing costs — that affect residents across the country.

Sarika Bansal investigates how local traditions of advocacy, a history of community tensions, and the chronic underfunding of public housing inform residents' opposition to a controversial new development proposal at Smith Houses.

Hester Street Collaborative's Anne Frederick and Dylan House discuss a temporary pop-up public space on the Lower East Side that creates an asset for the neighborhood while informing and building momentum for the design of a future permanent park.

Yukie Ohta looks at the dramatic transformation of SoHo over the past 50 years, from a center for light manufacturing, to a desolate and dangerous wasteland, to one of the most affluent neighborhoods in New York.

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.

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.

Adam Greenfield maps the flows and processes of an Occupy Sandy relief hub to demonstrate the potential of a permanent mutual-aid infrastructure for New York.