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Unique insights into what is happening in cities worldwide.

Eight Questions for Andrea San Gil Leon

Mar 25, 2021

We had the pleasure of speaking with Andrea San Gil Leon, “one of Latin America’s important female figures working in transportation,” about her introduction to cities, the future of urban sustainability, gender-inclusivity, and her new ventures with the Global Partnership for Informal Transportation. – March 25, 2021   Q: Can you tell us a bit…

Whose City at Stake? Reflections on a Pandemic Year

Mar 17, 2021

By Greg Lindsay, NewCities  It has been a year since the pause on urban-life-as-we-know-it across much of the Global North. A year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, since the day the NBA suspended play, since New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers — in a moment of either…

16 OF OUR 2020 FAVORITES

Dec 23, 2020

Finding yourself with extra time over the holidays to finally sit back and watch some of the content you pinned during the year? We compiled a list of our favorite NewCities event panels, webinars, and blog posts! Scroll down or watch directly on our 2020 Staff Pick Youtube channel. 1.[Webinar] The Big Rethink | Housing:…

Brave New Homes – with Diana Lind

Nov 17, 2020

Photo by Alvin Engler on Unsplash With the U.S. elections in the rear-view mirror and a vaccine on the horizon, it’s time to start thinking about what a new administration — and new normal — might look like. Brave New Home author Diana Lind joins us to discuss the cognitive dissonance between the pandemic-induced desire…

Dubai’s Fractal Development – with Todd Reisz

Nov 05, 2020

Photo by Johannes Schwaerzler on Unsplash Before the Burj Khalifa and before the Palms, there was the British architect John Harris, tasked with drafting a town plan for Dubai in 1959. This would be the first iteration of the emirate’s fractal modern history — the visionary sheikh, the Western consultants, the “Dubai Model” and “Dubai…

China’s Blockchain Chicken Farms – with Xiaowei Wang

Oct 28, 2020

Photo by yue su on Unsplash By now it’s a cliché to note more than half the world’s people live in cities. But how does the other half live? That’s the question tackled by both the Guggenheim Museum’s “Countryside: The Future” exhibit and Blockchain Chicken Farm author Xiaowei Wang, who spent several years exploring the…

Wall Street Wants You to Rent Forever – with Ryan Dezember

Oct 20, 2020

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash After the housing crash, private equity firms bought foreclosed homes by the thousands, removing them from the market and creating a new class of affluent renters. With another wave of evictions about to break, those firms are back at it again — this time while prices are rising, not…
Photo by Rachel Martin on Unsplash

Black Housing in America – with Melvin Mitchell

Oct 06, 2020

Photo by Rachel Martin on Unsplash. The history of black housing in America is one of segregation, stigma, and wealth destruction, not creation. Architect Melvin Mitchell, CEO of Bryant Mitchell Architects, calls for a new black-owned and controlled corner of the housing industry, one capable of creating household wealth for black communities rather than funneling…

Mobilizing the Global Goals through Collective Action and Collaboration

Oct 01, 2020

The United Nations General Assembly in 2015 established a shared set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for achieving sustainability and prosperity around the world by 2030. To achieve the 17 goals and 169 targets by 2030 will requires collective action to occur at a scale never witnessed before and sustained collaboration from sectors such as…

Can‘t Stop Columbus – with Jordan Davis

Sep 21, 2020

Photo by Jason Mowry on Unsplash This week’s guest, Smart Columbus director Jordan Davis, talks about her city’s platform, Can’t Stop Columbus, along with retasking her new mobility pilots for assisting the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Watch Now Transcript Greg Lindsay It’s my pleasure to introduce Jordan Davis, Director of Smart Columbus, coming out from behind the…

“The Unmet Needs of Housing”

Sep 02, 2020

Any conversation about affordable housing should start out with the stipulation that there is an unmet need for housing of all types. In many areas of the country we are simply falling short in terms of the number of new units that need to be built each year to keep up with housing formation and…

You Can’t Get There From Here: Moving Beyond Traditional Approaches in Addressing the Affordable Housing Crisis

Aug 24, 2020

The ongoing events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, growing social and civic unrest, constrained fiscal environments and festering social inequality represent an opportunity to examine how we engage problems that are beyond traditional and are considered wicked. As described by the Kettering Foundation, wicked problems are complicated problems beyond reasoning that grow in intensity despite efforts…