TOPIC

Street

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.

New City Critics

Uber 911

With the exorbitant costs of healthcare, untrained rideshare drivers are increasingly forced to take on the role of emergency medical professionals.

New City Critics

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?

New City Critics

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.

New City Critics

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?

Shelf Life

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.

City Habitats

Waste Watering Holes

Bird watching at an unlikely urban oasis: the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

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?

New City Critics

The Plaza Paradox

In the shadow of the Flatiron, a writer spends an hour conducting her own public space audit.