Next City

When wildfires hit Los Angeles in January, people did what they always do in a crisis: They stepped in to help. And many of them donated clothes. Lots and lots of clothes. Volunteers were quickly overwhelmed as bags of clothes began piling up at relief centers.“What happens is the help that's being offered actually clogs the ability for those cities and the community to help, because it's a mismatch of what the community and the city needs versus what's being offered,” says chief strategy officer Annie Gullingsrud at Trashie, an organization that worked to recirculate those donations and keep them from the landfill. “When these things happen, we just need to know that what we're offering is actual, informed help—not just perceived wishful thinking.”As donation centers struggled to handle tens of thousands of pounds of clothing, sustainable fashion initiatives and recyclers stepped up. Their initiatives are part of a larger effort to ensure that reusable and recyclable clothing doesn't end up in landfills.You can also read our Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow Maylin Tu's original Next City article on textile waste recycling after the L.A. wildfires here.

We're off this week for our Spring Break, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week.

Five years after the start of the COVID pandemic, we revisit journals from the nurses who lived through it. The stories are part of a first draft of history being remembered by the official Manhattan Borough Historian in his new book on New York's essential workers, “When the City Stopped: Stories from New York's Essential Workers.” 

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson is the former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, having resigned when President Trump took office. She talks about how the arts are shaping urban policy, including by “healing, bridging and thriving” in communities. 

In this sponsored episode with Results for America, learn how Santa Clara County helped thousands of Californians stay housed. In 2024, homelessness surged by 18% nationwide, with 23 out of every 10,000 people living on the streets or in shelters. The costs of homelessness are enormous – not just to the health and well-being of those experiencing it, but also to taxpayers, as governments spend billions on housing and services. But there's a smarter solution: prevention. Santa Clara County, California, has proven it works. By helping at-risk residents stay housed — 93% remained in their homes two years later — the county kept families stable and saved taxpayers money. Every $1 spent on prevention returned $2.47 in public benefits.

Land Trusts

Banks can be a force for good. It's an idea that's greeted with skepticism in some circles, given the endless list of inequities and disasters perpetuated by our country's leading financial institutions. But if you're a Next City reader, the idea that financial institutions can be part of the solution isn't foreign, given our senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello's in-depth coverage of community development financial institutions, credit unions, alternative lending practice and mission-driven banking.In his debut book, “The Banks We Deserve: Reclaiming Community Banking for a Just Economy,” Abello makes the case that it's time to shake up America's highly-concentrated banking system by shifting banking's power back to local institutions – thereby putting power back in the hands of local communities.“If we want to close the racial wealth gap, if we want to make these investments in clean energy and energy efficiency, if we want to make the investments in housing that people can actually afford, we cannot and should not be expecting big banks to come and do that,” he says. “They're not built to do it. We should go to the community-based model.”Listen to this episode to hear how Abello's new book demonstrates ways banks' money-creation power can be democratized. Helping communities tap into that power could address our climate, housing and economic crises.

The housing crisis isn't just about supply. This episode explores innovative solutions like community land trusts, tenant protections, and expanded assistance programs that are making homes affordable — and keeping them that way.

This is Lucas Grindley from Next City, a show about changemakers and their stories. We're off this week but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week.

Preserving the stories and spaces that define LGBTQ communities is an act of resilience and resistance. Hear from designers, historians, and activists about the vital work of safeguarding these cultural landmarks and ensuring their legacy endures.

Stories shape how we see the world. In this episode, we bring together philanthropic leaders to explore how funders are relying on journalism to dismantle harmful narratives, amplify underrepresented voices, and create equitable communities.

What happens when a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on deep-pocketed developers? In this episode, we talk to the directors of "Emergent City" and the organizers who fought to preserve Sunset Park's future.“Emergent City” (emergentcitydoc.com) documents the 10-year saga of how Brooklyn's Sunset Park community came together to fight a rezoning wanted by deep-pocketed developers. Against all odds, residents won. Filmmakers were there from the very beginning, when developers proposed transforming Industry City, a sprawling industrial site on the Brooklyn waterfront, into a high-end retail and office complex – or, as some residents put it, a “mall.” They were there when Sunset Park residents protested that the Industry City complex, if it won rezoning, would accelerate gentrification and displacement in a neighborhood where about 70% of households are renters. They were there for some 200 days of public meetings.By the way—this is our 100th episode! Thank you to everyone who has listened over the years. If you'd like to support and celebrate this work, please visit nextcity.org/donate to pitch in.

IDs aren't just about identification — they're about connection. This episode dives into the power of municipal ID programs to foster trust and open doors. We learn from successful programs in two very different cities — New York City and Greensboro, N.C. — that strive to be inclusive. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter joins us alongside Allison Sesso of Undue Medical Debt to explore how cities can lead the charge in addressing medical debt — and what it means to rethink our systems of care, equity, and economic justice.In the final days of the Biden administration, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule to prevent medical debt from being included in credit scores. It's a reminder that in medical debt isn't just a financial burden; it's a reflection of deeper systemic inequities that force individuals to take on “survival debt” — debt incurred just to meet basic needs like health care – and can impact their lives for years to come.That's why more and more cities, counties and states have been pairing up with the national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to purchase their residents' debt portfolios from collectors and healthcare providers – and then forgiving the debts en masse, paying mere pennies on the dollar to provide serious financial relief. Many have been using federal funds from the American Rescue Plan to do so.“We have folks who look at us and say, this doesn't solve health care,” says St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who worked with Undue Medical Debt to erase $100 million in medical debt for thousands of residents. “And I go, no, that's absolutely accurate. This doesn't solve health care for the planet, for the country, for even our city. It does provide a real, clear breath of fresh air for a whole lot of people who need it right now.”

In the United States, medical debt isn't just a financial burden; it's a reflection of deeper systemic inequities that force individuals to take on “survival debt” — debt incurred just to meet basic needs like health care. Today, Mayor Carter joins us alongside Allison Sesso, the Executive Director of Undue Medical Debt, to explore how cities can lead the charge in addressing medical debt — and what it means to rethink our systems of care, equity, and economic justice.

Today, we nod to the past while paving a new way forward for the future of anti-racist community development. This episode explores the layered history of American community development and the policies that have shaped — if not torn — the fabric of our communities.If we're going to achieve community development that is actually anti-racist, a baseline understanding of its history is not only a prerequisite.To build that fundamental understanding, Third Space Action Lab's Anti-Racist Community Development research project documents some of the early exclusionary government policies that shaped U.S. communities and responses of community development, from the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932 to the Housing Act of 1949.In today's episode, we hear from Tonika Johnson, a social justice artists visualizing the arc of community development in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood (read more about her Folded Map art project) and historian Claire Dunning, an associate professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy and author of “Nonprofit Neighborhoods: An Urban History of Inequality and the American State.” “The ways that federal housing policy is being designed and implemented is enabling white families to build equity, and Black families, if they're able to buy housing, are not able to build equity at the same rates or in the same kinds of ways,” says Dunning, whose research focuses on how nonprofits have used and critiqued government funding to develop alternative responses to urban problems. “It's just more expensive to occupy housing as a Black family … as a result of the ways that the government has intervened.” This sponsored episode was produced in partnership with Third Space Action Lab. Its Anti-Racist Community Development research project was developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. To learn more about strategies for advancing practical, concrete change in the sector, visit The People's Practice.

Participating in elections is just one part of civic engagement. The many other ways of influencing your community and public policy are arguably the greatest difference to rebuilding trust.

We're off this week for Thanksgiving, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week. 

In this special episode, Next City's editorial leaders share what they're hearing from readers and listeners about resisting setbacks at the federal level and driving changes locally.

We're off this week for Veterans Day, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week.

“There's that R-word that wants to come up that I despise – resilience,” says Tiffany Sturdivant, executive director of Appalshop, a media, arts and community economic development organization that's been operating in the Kentucky mountains for more than five decades.“People are so strong….I think that's probably a testament to mountain people, right, or people anywhere who are disenfranchised and are just working with what they have. Use what you have until you can get more.”When you think about climate issues, your mind might go first to the coasts and rising sea levels. But climate issues in the middle of the country are also urgent – and the solutions being forged offer lessons for all of us, urban and rural alike. Appalachia reminds us that no matter where we're from, our futures are linked—and we're better when we work together to solve shared challenges.That's a critical lesson we took away at this year's Vanguard conference in Kentucky, where we brought together 40 emerging leaders in urban Lexington and rural Berea to learn from the region's innovators and gain fresh perspectives. Today's episode features Kelsey Cloonan of Community Farm Alliance; Chris Woolery from the Mountain Association; Sturdivant from Appalshop; Baylen Campbell with Invest Appalachia; and Jeff Fugate, Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky, who works closely with communities on urban planning and development. Together, they unpack the ways communities here are addressing the impacts of climate change, while also honoring Appalachian values and strengths.This episode is part of the series we're bringing you from this year's Vanguard conference in Lexington, Kentucky, where our theme was exploring the dynamics of urban-rural interconnection.

In today's episode, we're bringing you highlights from our conversations at this year's Vanguard conference in Lexington, Kentucky, where our theme was exploring the dynamics of urban-rural interconnection – not urban-rural divisions.We will explore how communities are stronger when we stand in solidarity, and when we learn from each other's experiences.We'll hear from Mandy Higgins, Executive Director at the Lexington History Museum; Mark Lenn Johnson, president of Art Inc. Kentucky; as well as Jim Gray, the former two-term Mayor of Lexington and Kentucky's current Secretary of Transportation, who went from living in a small town to leading the growth of one of the state's largest cities. With a population of over 320,000, Lexington is a model for how urban and rural can coexist, collaborate and thrive. 

This week, we're revisiting an episode we released earlier this year, all about Lexington, Kentucky — a city where collaboration and creativity are transforming challenges into opportunities. In this episode, we highlighted how Lexington's leaders are finding ways to foster nonpartisanship, boost civic engagement, and narrow the racial wealth gap.We're bringing this episode back now because it offers a window into the themes we explored in even greater depth during our Vanguard conference, held in Lexington just last month. Over the next couple of weeks on this podcast, we'll be sharing special episodes that bring you along with Next City to the conference. 

Urban farms in Essex County, New Jersey are calling on local governments and the state to make long-term investments in combating food insecurity.

Florida's Zero Empty Spaces is a win-win where artists are connected with spaces in otherwise vacant spots. The result is bolstered careers and  activated unused space.

After Pennsylvania legalized speed cameras, they showed up on Philly's deadly Roosevelt Boulevard. The results are clear, according to a study of what happened next. Researchers found a drop in crashes and deaths.

As storms and fires keep coming, emergency loan funds from CDFIs are helping low-income communities get back on their feet.

New regulations for the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) will drop before November. After they're available, we ask, what do you need to know?

We're off this week for Labor Day, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week.

Today, we'll hear the story of Soul Fire Farm and one of its founders, Leah Penniman. A new documentary called "Farming While Black" shows how this farm in Upstate New York is part of a larger movement trying to return land to the stewardship of people of color and restore Afro-indigenous farming practices along the way.

Today, we'll speak with Joe Minicozzi, an urban designer and founder of Urban3, about the work he's been doing that proves these disparities in property assessments are subsidizing wealthier, whiter neighborhoods at the expense of historically redlined neighborhoods — and we'll talk about what can be done to change it.The New York Times : "How Lower-Income Americans Get Cheated on Property Taxes"

The Seaport neighborhood in Boston is nicknamed by activists as the “Inundation District,” and a new documentary of the same name shows where urban planning went wrong and what residents are doing now. In this episode, writer and director David Abel — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist — shares lessons learned from the Seaport expansion.

This is Lucas Grindley from Next City, a show about changemakers and their stories. We're off this week for Juneteenth, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week.

The documentary film “How to Power A City” looks across communities in the United States to uncover multiple approaches, big and small, for mitigating climate change. In this episode, writer and director Melanie LaRosa outlines what she found and why she chose to focus on solutions.

We're off this week for Memorial Day, but we'll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity. If you can't wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage. As always, we'd love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We'll see you next week. 

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. So let's revisit that initial episode — when we asked, what really happens when you give money to people experiencing homelessness?

Leaders from Lexington, Kentucky share lessons about what's working as they foster collaboration and nonpartisanship in a city that's solving problems like community engagement and closing the racial wealth gap.

We're going to hear about how looking at transit from the human perspective almost always serves the greatest number of people and how it's really us who should be making decisions about the future of transit.

America's biggest test of a “mobility wallet” is in South L.A. where residents were given cash each month to cover their transit needs.

A future with plentiful affordable housing won't come from an industry where less than 5% of the real estate developers are minorities. Here's what's being done to change.

We're taking a short break for a couple weeks. In the meantime, feel free to revisit past episodes and be sure to subscribe to our email newletters at www.nextcity.org/newsletter. Thank you for listening to our show. We will be back April 24th!

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

Too often cities are answering mental health problems with systems of punishment. One alternative is proving that being accessible means when people need help, they'll reach out earlier in their crisis, allowing for more options in problem-solving.