Next City

Next City

Join Lucas Grindley, executive director at Next City, where we believe journalists have the power to amplify solutions and spread workable ideas. Each week Lucas will sit down with trailblazers to discuss urban issues that get overlooked. At the end of the day, it's all about focusing the world's attention on the good ideas that we hope will grow. Grab a seat from the bus, subway, light-rail, or whatever your transit-love may be and listen on the go as we spread solutions from one city to the Next City .

Episodes

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 26, 2025 • 45 secs
This is Lucas Grindley from Next City, a show about changemakers and their stories. 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....
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What Collective Ownership Looks Like in Philly

November 18, 2025 • 28 mins
As rapid development reshapes neighborhoods like Kensington, residents and business owners face displacement and loss of local control. The Kensington Corridor Trust and Women’s Community Revitalization Project offer models of community ownership—using neighborhood and land trusts to preserve affordability, reinvest profits locally, and align development with community priorities. This episode explores how these approaches center e...
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Revisiting: Emergent City - A Decade-Long Fight Against Displacement

November 5, 2025 • 35 mins
We're revisiting a favorite episode from the archive to celebrate Next City's Winter Film Festival, this year's series: "Power and Place."

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 c...
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Philadelphia’s Pyramid Club Reborn Through Art and Afrofuturism

October 29, 2025 • 32 mins
Join Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta and artist Shawn Theodore for PYRAMID CLUB: 1937—2035, a reimagining of the legendary North Philadelphia social club as a blueprint for today’s North Broad renaissance. Together, they’ll explore how Afrofuturist and arts-driven approaches can turn scarcity into abundance while centering Black joy and cultural heritage. 
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Designing for Childhood: How Cities Are Ending Playspace Inequity

October 22, 2025 • 30 mins
So much depends on your ZIP code, even children’s access to play. But an effort is growing to ensure the playground is where all kids can have fun, learn and heal.

“It's where they learn, it's where they build connection, it's where they really establish their identity as a human being in this world,” says Lysa Ratliff, CEO for KABOOM! “And yet, there's extreme disparities in our parks and our schools and our cities and who has acce...
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City-Building with Culture at the Core

October 1, 2025 • 29 mins
Culture is often treated as a niche area but is actually integral to the successful design and adoption of other areas of urban planning and policy. Hear how cities like Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Baltimore are embedding cultural approaches into planning, policy, and recovery efforts.
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How Your Nonprofit Can Use Research to Strengthen Impact

September 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Nonprofits often struggle to prove their impact, but the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) is showing how a rigorous research partnership can help grassroots programs scale and win support.

This sponsored episode explores examples of nonprofits and city governments collaborating with LEO researchers at the University of Notre Dame to identify what works, why it works, and how they used new evidence to make the case...
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A Federal Freeze Won’t Stop Green Progress

September 17, 2025 • 37 mins
Even as billions in federal clean energy funding sit trapped in legal limbo, community lenders are determined to keep the green transition alive.

This episode of Next City explores how to press forward with the clean-energy transition despite a federal freeze on the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

Next City’s senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello speaks with Neda Arabshahi, executive vice president of th...
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Alternative Models For Funding and Supporting Cultural Spaces and Workers

August 27, 2025 • 25 mins
Communities need spaces for art; you can't support art without supporting artists. We're talking with three leaders working on alternative models for sustainability.
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The Fight for Freedom of Mobility in Black America

August 20, 2025 • 38 mins
Charles T. Brown, author of "Arrested Mobility," discusses why mobility is not afforded in the same way to everyone – and the dire cost of this inequity.
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Heroic Oysters Are ‘Holding Back the Tide’

August 13, 2025 • 26 mins
New York was once the world’s oyster capital. The director of a new feature-length impressionist hybrid documentary, "Holding Back the Tide," traces the city’s many life cycles with the oyster as her main character. Emily Packer follows environmentalists restoring oysters to the harbor, while examining the oyster not only as entangled with nature, but also as a queer icon, with much to teach about our society’s continued survival. ...
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Razing Liberty Square: On Writing the Playbook to Fight Gentrification

August 6, 2025 • 34 mins
The documentary "Razing Liberty Square” shows what happens in Miami as sea levels rise and the rich move inland, encroaching on residents of the Liberty Square public housing project. The film tells the story of a historically Black community faced with a $300-million-dollar “revitalization” of their neighborhood. In this episode, hear from a resident and climate activist, Valencia Gunder, who says she’s fighting a new form of raci...
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'The Black Power Scorecard:' On Expanding Power and Lives

July 30, 2025 • 29 mins
Black power is more than symbolic. It’s a measurable reality tied to things like ownership, investment in neighborhoods, and—ultimately—life expectancy. 

In this episode with the authors of two new books—“The Black Power Scorecard” and “The Banks We Deserve”—Andre Perry and Oscar Perry Abello talk about systems that have historically failed communities of color and what it will take to build lasting institutions that truly serve the...
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Revisiting Lexington - "This ‘Big Town’ Has Solutions for Cities Everywhere"

July 23, 2025 • 29 mins
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 exp...
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Creating Common Ground: The Value of Public Parks

July 16, 2025 • 25 mins
The Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore® Index each year ranks the 100 largest U.S. cities on factors such as park access, investment, and equity. In this sponsored episode, we explore how cities have turned their ParkScore data into action—investing in green spaces to spark civic engagement and foster a genuine sense of belonging.
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How Community Development Is Responding To This Crossroads

July 9, 2025 • 32 mins
Community development in America is at a pivotal moment. Long-standing federal programs that fuel homeownership, support small businesses, and promote neighborhood revitalization—especially in communities of color—are now under threat.

But on today's sponsored episode, we’ll hear how the people working on the front lines of equitable development are adapting, organizing, and doubling down on their missions. 

Guests on this episode in...
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Not My Narrative – “The Bootstraps Narrative” (Pilot Episode)

June 25, 2025 • 39 mins
This week, we’re trying something new: instead of our usual Next City episode, we’re sharing the pilot for “Not My Narrative,” an experimental mini-series that not only debunks harmful myths holding back progress but also elevates the counter-narratives driving positive momentum.

In this debut episode of Not My Narrative, Host Lucas Grindley, Executive Director of Next City, takes listeners on an examination of one of America’s most...
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Unlocking Housing Access: Why Tenant Screening Protections Matter

June 11, 2025 • 39 mins
In the U.S., approximately 3.6 million households are threatened by eviction each year, and for many, the consequences last long after the eviction itself. Even if individuals avoid losing their homes, eviction records can prevent them from securing future housing. This happens because landlords use tools that screen the rental, credit, employment, income and criminal histories of tenants—often without context or accuracy.

In this s...
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The Evolution of the Queer Women’s Gathering Space?

June 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Back in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars across the United States. By 2022, that number had shrunk to 21. This year, a group of friends in Brooklyn joined a recent resurgence of such queer spaces—and set it up as a worker-owned coop, to boot.

Boyfriend Co-op is part cocktail bar, part coffee shop, part workspace. Designed to feel like “a queer living room,” it’s all about ethical, sustainable practices—from its coope...
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The Problem With Streets and Climate Disasters

May 21, 2025 • 21 mins
When fires swept through the wealthy L.A. enclave known as the Pacific Palisades, the images were chaotic: cars abandoned on Sunset Boulevard, people fleeing on foot. A bulldozer had to plow through the traffic just so firefighters could reach the flames.

Planners and researchers recognize the dangers of evacuating thousands at a moment’s notice and argue that our streets urgently need to be redesigned.

“In the event of a climate dis...
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