threesixtyCITY

NYC’s Economic Development Corporation and Company Ventures recently launched The City Fellowship to support BIPOC and women-led small businesses and startups that are building a more equitable and sustainable future for New Yorkers. The Fellowship is an example of an impact-driven public-private partnership that hopes to promote economic equity in the city. This week we’re joined by Company Venture’s Head of Impact Lindsay Siegel, along with newly announced fellow and growing name in the care landscape, Jaime-Jin Lewis, to talk about the expanding field of technology for social good.

The words we use to describe communities experiencing historical disinvestment can act as self fulfilling prophecies for marginalization. How can we change the language we use to enable people to thrive? This week, we’re joined by community developer and equity facilitator Lauren Hood to talk about the Black Thriving Index she's developing to do exactly that. We also explore the concept of AfroUrbanism, and why it's important to intentionally place culture at the forefront of community development.

Find out more about the Institute for AfroUrbanism: https://afrourbanism.com/

“Care” has become urbanists’ watchword of late, nearly two years after the pandemic exposed a crisis of care for children, seniors, and cities alike. More recently, the urban designer Justin Garrett Moore has called for a “Department of Care” to manage the public realm, while new models of care-based cohousing are among the exhibits on display at the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s new exhibit, “A Section of Now.” But what does it mean to design for care, and is this just the latest buzzword, destined to be hollowed out? For the season finale, we’re joined by Alexandra Lange, author of The Design of Childhood, to discuss what it means to care.

All too often, cities are perceived as the opposite of nature — or at least in need of more “natural” features such as parks and green buildings. But the relationship between cities and their hinterlands is more nuanced and complex — a more urban world is also a greener one, as land preserved from development acts as a cooling force and carbon sink for a warming world. This week, we’re joined by Cities4Forest’s Scott Francisco to talk about the urban-forest continuum, his experience at COP26, and his plan to rewild Brooklyn Bridge.

To learn more about the projects mentioned in the episode, follow @partnerforestprogram on Instagram or visit:

As the COP26 summit in Glasgow grinds toward the end of hopefully successful negotiations, a draft agreement released this week calls for an end to fossil fuels ahead of the schedule outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Achieving these goals will not only require the creation of a “global carbon market” as originally outlined in Paris, but also rapid and massive changes to the built environment. In the U.S., some of these changes will be financed by the passage of President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, but trillions of dollars in additional investment is needed — a sum beyond the scope of the public sector. This week, we’re joined live from Glasgow by Chante Harris, director of climate investment and partnerships at Secondmuse, to discuss how to make COP26’s commitments a reality.

Early in the pandemic, public officials around the world seized streets from cars to create urgently needed outdoor space for recreation. Cities such as Paris, Milan, and Madrid led the way toward what some hoped would be a “15-minute city” lived locally on foot or by bicycle. But actually implementing this aspiration proved complicated — after all, we can’t all live in the center of Paris. How are cities pursuing this vision grappling with issues of equity and financing? And what does the street of the future look like beyond plywood street furniture and hastily-painted bicycle lanes? We’re joined by Kay Cheng, Spin’s Head of Streets and Equity Team and a former planner in San Francisco and New York, to discuss the micromobility company’s investments in placemaking and how it’s partnering with cities to reimagine the public realm.

One of the perversities of the American housing market is that the cities and regions most vulnerable to climate change, whether fires or floods or heat waves, are also the most popular — a trend fueled by the pandemic-era desire for space. But that’s finally beginning to change. For example, recent surveys by the real estate brokerage Redfin indicate that 75% of potential home buyers will take climate disasters into consideration when purchasing their next home. Meanwhile, changes to the National Flood Insurance Program enacted earlier this month will cause some premiums to rise as much as 1,000%. Are Americans finally waking up to climate change? And if so, where will they move next? I’m joined by Daryl Fairweather, chief economist of Redfin, to discuss how her company is putting climate risk ratings front and center — and whether home buyers will finally start to act on it.

More than a decade after “smart cities” promised to transform cities, it’s clear their killer app is surveillance. For example, last summer the San Diego Police Department obtained footage of Black Lives Matter protestors from “smart streetlights” ostensibly designed for traffic control and air quality monitoring. Following shock and outrage, the Mayor of San Diego ordered the 3,000+ cameras turned off — but they stayed on, no longer collecting footage for the city or police, but for the cameras’ manufacturers. This is just one example of a whole raft of technologies — including cameras, sensors, and facial recognition — that threaten to destroy the anonymity of the public realm.

We’re joined by Rebecca Williams, author of a recent report on smart city surveillance for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs’ Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Project, on steps communities can take to stop harmful surveillance and reassert the public’s right to the city.

Gender bias plays out in city-making all around us. In transportation, women face a wide range of inequalities owing to the fact that spaces were not designed with them in mind. How can we build more inclusive and gender-sensitive mobility systems that meet the travel needs and patterns of women? In this special collaboration with Women Who Move Nations, a podcast by UITP Australia and New Zealand, host Michelle Batsas speaks with Laura Chace, co-founder of Mobility XX, about its pledge to increase the number of women in mobility by 10% over the next 10 years.

With plumes of smoke sweeping over much of the West late summer, glowing orange skies, and heightened smog warnings, we’ve all grown more aware of the precarious state of the air we breathe. Less noticeable are the invisible particles that taint air space, with more than 90% of all cities exceeding safe air limits according to WHO guidelines. As the world shifts away from carbon-heavy industries, how can we simultaneously ensure solutions capture the full range of air pollutants for the health and wellbeing of urban populations. We’re joined by WHO consultant and environmental health expert Jeffery Smith to discuss solutions and how the clean energy transition will not only help fight climate change but also save millions of lives.