Urban Design

Solidarity Economies And The Unmaking Of Racial Capitalism

February 6, 2026 Manifold.UMN.edu. Create! Capitalism, Gentrification, Racism, Solidarity Economy, Urban Design

Two large, painted signs sit at the entrance to the César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden, a large community garden roughly the size of a city block located in North Philadelphia. “WELCOME. BIENVENIDOS. GROW SHARE GATHER,” reads the first in lavender and green. Beside it, in yellow and red, a second sign declares, “ESTE TERRENO NO ESTA EN VENTA” (this land is not for sale). A raised fist—the universal symbol of solidarity—is painted beneath the text. Together, the two signs convey complementary messages about the garden.

How Stockholm Is Sprouting Healthy Trees From Concrete

January 20, 2026 Peter Yeung, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Environment, Sweden, Trees, Urban Design

When Stockholm’s Traffic Office conducted a general assessment of street traffic in the Swedish capital in 2001, it came to the shocking conclusion that two-thirds of all trees in the city center were dead or dying. City authorities agreed that an urgent response was needed to nurse these leafy urban ecosystem pillars back to health. Enter Björn Embrén, Stockholm’s first “tree officer.” Under his leadership, various technologies and materials were tested in an attempt to create a more suitable living space for trees in the urban environment.

Urban Gardens Can Bolster American Democracy

January 14, 2026 Sam Delgado, Civil Eats. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Urban Design, Urban Gardens

When people walk or drive past urban gardens, they often just see what’s on the surface. Raised beds on a small plot. Seedlings poking through the dirt. Perhaps bright pops of colorful produce, like tomatoes or peppers. But when Kate Brown, an environmental historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), looks at urban gardens, she sees a deep-rooted history of activism and sustainability—one that spans centuries, continents, and communities. Brown distilled her research on the subject into her forthcoming book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City.

Refugees Are Developing A First-Of-Its-Kind Community Land Trust

January 5, 2026 Roberto Camacho, Next City. Create! Community development, Refugees, San Diego, Urban Design

When Ramla Sahid was five years old, she and her family fled Somalia to escape the civil war that had engulfed the nation. Nearly 35 years later, living in San Diego as a refugee, she’s working to create what might be the country’s first community land trust for immigrant and refugee families. In 2015, Sahid founded the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA), a nonprofit staffed by refugees and working toward building economic, social and civic power for refugees and displaced communities around San Diego.

Building A National Movement To Protect Small Businesses From Displacement

December 8, 2025 Eliana Perozo, Next City. Organize! Displacement, Gentrification, Small Businesses, Urban Design

Willow Lung doesn’t come from a background in finance or business. She’s a scholar and professor focused on gentrification, social inequality and urban development. But five years ago, near the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, she founded the Small Business Anti- Displacement Network (SBAN) at the University of Maryland, a member-based national network dedicated to helping small businesses survive and thrive as their neighborhoods change. Since then, SBAN has amassed 180 members and counting. “We have a lot of attention paid to housing issues and gentrifying neighborhoods and affordable housing policies, but we don’t have an equitable amount of attention, resources and policymaking around issues of commercial gentrification,” says Lung.

Could Cities Partner With Guerilla Urbanists For Safer Streets?

November 24, 2025 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! California, Los Angeles, Pedestrians, Public safety, tactical urbanism, Urban Design

Painting a crosswalk is cheap and easy. A group of neighbors can paint an entire intersection in one morning for $100 or less. Getting the city of Los Angeles to paint a crosswalk, on the other hand, might take 14 years and the death of a 9-year-old boy. Across L.A., neighbors are banding together to paint crosswalks to protest the city’s failure to protect people outside of cars. Jonathan Hale, a UCLA law student who goes by “Jonny,” spent four Saturday mornings painting crosswalks with neighbors at Stoner Park this summer, covering each corner of the park. After the city removed them, he went to the press and vowed to repaint them.

Zoning For The Future In Northwest Arkansas

November 15, 2025 Jordan P. Hickey, In these Times. Resist! Affordable Housing, Arkansas, Hyper-Gentrification, Urban Design, zoning

If this were the first city council meeting someone attended in Fayetteville, the construction proposal for The Hub would likely seem like a good prospect: seven stories of sleek new housing, in a city with desperate need for more of it, with 37 of its 312 apartments reserved as income-controlled “workforce units.” As the council members and a standing-room-only crowd listened on August 5, the representative from Chicago- based housing developer Core Spaces presented a plan that seemed almost ideal for the Northwest Arkansas college town.

How Tactical Urbanists Make The Water Visible To The Fish

October 20, 2025 Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, and Aaron Naparstek, Next City. Create! Car-Free Community, Parks, Urban Design, Urbanism

Tactical urbanism has the power to pierce the automotive bubble that so frequently surrounds politicians — sometimes in an almost literal sense, because so many elected officials are driven everywhere. It can force them to see that they can become catalysts for rapid change if they really want to. But the value of these tactics goes well beyond the safety (and frequent smiles) that these interventions provide for cyclists or pedestrians who pass by while they’re in place — or even the permanent infrastructure changes they might inspire.

How Cities Are Reimagining Shelter For People Who Are Homeless

October 6, 2025 Robert Davis, Next City. Create! Homeless, Shelters, Urban Design, Wellness

Shelters are one of the most contentious topics in the homeless services sector, but a new crop of models seeks to change that paradigm. Homeless shelters have long been criticized as a means of warehousing people who are homeless rather than providing them with a pathway to stable housing. Some unhoused folks have said they experienced violence, sexual abuse and other traumatizing experiences while in shelters. Some advocates have also chided the traditional shelter model for creating high-barrier, treatment-first programs that exclude more unhoused folks than they help. “Everybody who became unhoused experienced some kind of trauma, and then by the time they get to the shelter, they’ve experienced multiple additional traumas and mental illness challenges – all those kinds of things that happen when someone is homeless,” says Lena Miller.

Residents Built A $10,000 Bike Lane In Atlanta

September 28, 2025 Aysha Kahn, Next City. Create! Atlanta, Bikes, Transportation, Urban Design

In 2020, city planning and transportation officials in Atlanta launched a tactical urbanism program to enable neighborhood groups to lead and fund alternative street design and safety changes through low-cost, temporary interventions. “These projects are often used to advance longer-term goals related to street safety and the design of public spaces,” the city explains in its tactical urbanism guide. “Tactical urbanism is temporary in nature, using tactical materials while demonstrating the potential of long-term change.” The 20th project under this initiative was just completed: turning street parking on one side of Virgina Avenue NE into a pop-up, protected, two-way bike lane, connecting a local high school and elementary school.

The ‘Project Marvel’ Deal That San Antonians Deserve

September 11, 2025 Paola Aguirre Serrano, Next City. Strategize! Community Assemblies, San Antonio, Sports, Urban Design

In 2025, the familiar story of sports-and-entertainment megaprojects plays out once more. On one side are the skeptics, wary of whether millions in public funds truly benefit everyday San Antonians; on the other are the enthusiasts, captivated by glossy renderings and big promises. In September 2024, Project Marvel was covered by media for the first time — a new vision to return the Spurs to downtown, near the Alamodome, reshaping the area into a sprawling entertainment and mixed-use district. The city’s 2002-built Frost Bank Center, previously known as the AT&T (and SBC) Center, opened at a cost of approximately $175–190 million, financed via hotel and car-rental tax increases alongside a Spurs contribution of $28.5 million.

The Fight For The Roof Depot Continues

August 30, 2025 Akičita Šuŋka-Wakaŋ Ska, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Democracy, Minneapolis, Roof Depot, Urban Design

Minneapolis, MN — On August 11, 2025, the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) held a press conference in front of the Roof Depot site. They have fought continuously for three years around the Roof Depot issue, which was sparked when the City of Minneapolis wanted to demolish the former Sears warehouse building on 27th Street and Longfellow Avenue. The building had been built when a pesticide plant was in operation nearby, and it had effectively trapped arsenic particulates; this was the main reason the community stopped the demolition – to avoid being poisoned by toxic clouds. The city’s original plan for the site included a public works expansion, which drew pollution concerns over the possible introduction of over 800 diesel trucks moving in and out of the area, kicking up air impurities in the process.

FRSO Leader Sydney Loving Reflects On How China Is Building Socialism

August 7, 2025 Fight Back! News. Educate! China, Communism, Socialism, Urban Design

Fight Back! sat down with Sydney Loving, a participant in the 2025 Friends of Socialist China delegation, which recently returned from a ten-day visit across five cities in China. From revolutionary bases to high-tech cities and green development, the delegation witnessed firsthand the power of socialism to uplift the lives of the people. Loving is a member of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Fight Back!: How did you go to China? What was the purpose of the trip? Sydney Loving: The delegation was organized by Friends of Socialist China, a political project aiming to strengthen understanding and support for China on the basis of solidarity and truth.

New York Finalizes Rule For New Buildings To Be Electric

August 5, 2025 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Create! climate crisis, Electrification, Fossil Fuels, New York (NY), Urban Design

New York is now the first state in the U.S. to require new buildings to be built entirely electric, without hookups to fossil fuels including gas, the New York State Assembly reported. The rule was initially passed in 2023 as the All-Electric Buildings Act and was finalized with the State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council’s approval in late July 2025. According to the new mandate, residential buildings up to seven stories tall and commercial or industrial buildings up to 100,000 square feet with building permit applications for initial construction approved on or after Dec. 31, 2025 will be required to meet the requirements by that date.

America Should Sprawl? Not If We Want Strong Towns

July 21, 2025 Charles Marohn, Resilience. Create! Communities, Housing, Sprawl, Sustainability, Urban Design

There’s been a lot of buzz around Conor Dougherty’s recent New York Times piece, “Why America Should Sprawl.” The article argues that the country’s housing crisis is so severe—and infill development so insufficient—that we need to embrace aggressive outward expansion of our metro regions, what many would call sprawl, to build the millions of homes America needs. It’s a compelling, well-written piece, and it’s struck a chord with a lot of readers. But from a Strong Towns perspective, the core argument is fatally flawed. Because sprawl doesn’t solve the underlying problem. It is the underlying problem.

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