Next City

Property taxes are how most people pay for their local government. These taxes fund a range of local services, from our public schools to our fire departments. But those property tax systems overburden some – and undercharge others. And when mapped out, these disparities looks suspiciously like another pattern of disparities that you should be familiar with by now: redlining. It seems counterintui...

Cognitive dissonance. That's what David Abel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who's spent a decade reporting on climate change for The Boston Globe, saw in his city. At the same time that he was covering the increasingly dire projections about sea level rise in Boston Harbor, Abel tells Next City, “we were watching this entirely new urban district being built at sea level, on landfill, hard on t...

Climate change can be scary, but the documentary “How to Power City” focuses on solutions. One solution often touted for addressing climate change is switching to renewable energy. And people want to make that switch but many don’t know how to get started. The feature-length film follows people in six different U.S. cities who are leading various types of renewable energy projects, from as small a...

Just over a year ago, we delved into a groundbreaking initiative by a foundation in Vancouver. Their question was: What if we gave people experiencing homelessness a lump sum of cash, no strings attached? The results were nothing short of remarkable — though they probably shouldn’t be surprising. Now, two years after that experiment ended, the idea is spreading to cities across the United States....

In this episode, we dive deep into success stories emerging from Lexington, Kentucky, a “big town” taking on big challenges – breaking down partisanship, reinventing the ways the community engages with its leaders, creating new ways to close the racial wealth gap – by actively cultivating collaboration and experimentation.“Our politics set the tone for the city,” says Christian Motley, the Vice Pr...

If you're in the world of urban planning and transit systems, there's a good chance you're familiar with veteran transportation planner Jarrett Walker and his classic book 2011, “Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives.”We recently published an excerpt from the newly updated edition of the book – catch that here. And back in February, we ho...

In Los Angeles, there’s a transportation experiment underway. In this episode, Maylin Tu, Next City's Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Social Impact Design who lives in LA describes the stress of owning a car there coupled with the difficulty of navigating the city without a car. But in a sprawling city like LA, people have to have some way to get around. Last May, the LA Department of Transp...

Gina Merritt, head of Northern Real Estate Ventures, didn’t set out to become a developer. But when she landed an interview for a job with the affordable housing development arm of a construction company, she fell in love with the field. Merritt who grew up in affordable housing showed up on her first day and knew it was where she was supposed to be. “The only thing I saw [on site] was a bulldozer...

Today, we will hear from multiple Chinatown organizers who are fighting to ensure their neighborhoods remain for generations to come.

Cities too often respond to a person experiencing a mental health crisis with carceral systems. Toronto’s Gerstein Crisis Centre provides an alternative and proves that when people have access to care, they’ll reach out when they need help. Increased access can lead to more opportunities for problem-solving and less crises and punishment. Next City Reporter Maylin Tu first reported this story and...

In light of the Academy Awards ceremony, we're re-highlighting our episode featuring Arlo Washington, the Black barber-turned-visionary behind People Trust Community Federal Credit Union and the central figure of the Oscar-nominated short documentary, "The Barber of Little Rock." When neighbors started coming to his Little Rock barbershop to borrow money, Arlo Washington went a step further and ch...

In this episode of the podcast, civil engineer and transportation researcher Veronica O. Davis talks about her new book, “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities,” how choices made in the 1950s and '60s have left neighbors effectively cut off from public transportation, and what it means for cities to give their citizens the right to connection. Davis, a city planne...

When Baltimore built a new sewer system a century ago, it tried to control nature by diverting the city’s waterways, like many other American cities in the 19th and 20th century. In many cases, cities turned these rivers into part of the underground sewer system by turning them into underground pipes and concrete culverts. Through a recently launched public art installation, “Ghost Rivers,” many r...

Take a guess. Which of these banks is making more small-business loans in Brooklyn: Citibank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America or Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union, a small financial institution that has only about $50 million in assets? That's a mere rounding error compared to the major players, or even many other community banks. But, as our economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello...

Rising temperatures have ripple effects on our health, our economy and more. So to deal with the problem of extreme heat, we need to bust out of our silos and embrace collaboration. And as high as the stakes are, we know the solutions to address the problems. Nature-based solutions, solar reflective surfaces and shade, among other lessons we can glean from the communities that have long dealt with...

Six years after Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico, killing almost 3,000 people and causing $139 billion worth of damages, the island is still rebuilding. To support these vital restoration and climate resilience efforts, residents turned to a local mutual aid model known as cooperativas. When Puerto Ricans were completely isolated, with no power, communications or banking system, cooperatives o...

At Next City, we've covered a lot of community land trusts: CLTs developing disaster-resilient housing, CLTs helping recruit Black public school teachers through housing opportunities, CLTs helping house Indigenous foster youth aging out of the system. They're a potent and increasingly popular tool for creating permanently affordable housing amid – but CLTs also have some drawbacks. Yet some of th...

In Richmond, Virginia access to quality food can be a challenge, particularly in marginalized communities. But mutual aid, community building, and collaboration among people working in the food justice space have made a difference in the city. Intergenerational collaboration has also been key to addressing food insecurity and promoting food sovereignty. Barry Greene Jr., Next City’s Equitable Citi...

Next City is turning 20! And our journalists are publishing a special 20th-anniversary edition of our annual Solutions of the Year magazine in which we’re talking about the solutions we want to see expand in cities over the next 20 years. As part of the celebration, we’re re-airing some of the stories that we’ve covered here on the podcast. Today, two community organizers in Atlanta who won legal...

Next City is turning 20! And our journalists are publishing a special 20th-anniversary edition of our annual Solutions of the Year magazine in which we’re talking about the solutions we want to see expand in cities over the next 20 years. As part of the celebration, we’re re-airing some of the stories that we’ve covered here on the podcast. Today, how community-owned real estate in East Boston is...

Next City is turning 20! And our journalists are publishing a special 20th-anniversary edition of our annual Solutions of the Year magazine in which we’re talking about the solutions we want to see expand in cities over the next 20 years. As part of the celebration, we’re re-airing some of the stories that we’ve covered here on the podcast. Today, how a Kentucky non-profit increased participation...

Next City is turning 20! And our journalists are publishing a special 20th-anniversary edition of our annual Solutions of the Year magazine in which we’re talking about the solutions we want to see expand in cities over the next 20 years. As part of the celebration, we’re re-airing some of the stories that we’ve covered here on the podcast. Today, the Black barber whose work inspired him to launch...

When Latinx entrepreneurs go to the bank to seek a loan to build or grow their businesses, they often leave empty-handed. Now, Greenline Access Capital, a community development financial institution (CDFI) in Philadelphia, is trying to change that – and help advance prosperity for the city's quarter-million Latinx residents. To do that, they're offering bilingual services, character-based lending,...

More than giving back, the NFL acknowledges it makes money by depending on Black athletes, and its new investments are considering the communities where its athletes come from. In 2021, 71% of players in the NFL in 2021 were people of color, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. So when the NFL needed to borrow $78 million last year, the...

Today, we’re partnering with ThirdSpace Action Lab on this sponsored episode about The Anti-Racist Community Development research project, which has documented the range of ways that structural racism still shows up in community development and the many ways that people are trying to make community development anti-racist.