What can New York City learn from global cities to create safe, dignified, and stable homes for every New Yorker?
Global Ideas for Housing Every New Yorker is a collection of case studies of cities around the globe who have taken big swings to address their housing crises. In exchanges with global housing leaders, Fellows studied efforts to unleash supply, plan for neighborhood mix, adapt homes for climate resilience, build for demographic shifts, energize social housing, and embrace housing for all.
The findings from their work challenge the binary idea that we can either solve the problem with supply or by protecting tenants from rent hikes and displacement. The reality is that we must do both, while also addressing homes’ climate risks, the needs of a changing and aging population, and the need to create social cohesion along with housing development.
Explore the executive summary and strategize with us to reshape the future of our city.
Case Studies
Embracing Housing for All in Helsinki and Tokyo
Unleashing Housing Supply in Christchurch, Singapore, and Seoul
Building for Demographic Shifts in Singapore, Zürich, and London
Planning for Neighborhood Mix in Barcelona, Istanbul, and Mexico City
Adapting Homes to a Changing Climate in the Netherlands, Bangkok, and Detroit
Energizing Social Housing in Finland, France, and Kenya
Call to Action
New York City has made remarkable progress to address the housing crisis. City of Yes for Housing Opportunity will allow for a little more housing in every neighborhood. The Charter Reforms passed in the 2025 election will make it easier and faster to build affordable housing, especially in the neighborhoods that have produced the least amount of it. Efforts to protect tenants and hold bad landlords accountable demonstrate the new mayoral administration’s commitment to attacking the problem from all sides.
There is much more to be done. We’ll need our most creative, ambitious civic leaders, public servants, and private innovators to tackle this crisis from all sides. These case studies do not provide a simple fix or one silver bullet for New York City. They do offer examples of creative ideas, unlikely allies, and courageous solutions that can inspire us to be bolder in the decisions we make here. The work of building a more affordable, livable New York is urgent. It starts with the decisions we make now.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to members of the 2025 Big Swings Fellowship, who authored this report :
Aditi Nair, Aleena Farishta, Amy Collado, Ananth Sampathkumar, Anna Ishii, Avery Dement, Barbara Mikrut, Brian Backscheider, Carolyn Canahuate, Charlie Rudoy, Cinthia De La Rosa, Crystal Eksi, David Downs, Emily Levin, Emily Sperber, Eric Phillips, Francesca Birks, Gabo Halili, Graciela Watrous, Ijeoma Iheanacho, Inbal Himelblau-Denman, J.R. Reed, Joyce Kwon, Katie Schwamb, Keith Engel, Lynda Nguyen, Matthew Seybert, Melissa Quirk, Meredith McNair, Ross Tilchin, Shambhavi Manglik, Shreya Ghoshal, Stephanie Rudolph, Taylor Nelson, Terri Davis-Merchant, Travis Bostick, Wil Fisher
Special thanks to Janaki Chadha for her contribution to this research.
Special Thanks
We are deeply grateful to the following individuals and organizations for contributing their time and expertise:
Yasar Adanali, Xavier Matilla Ayala, Matthijs Bouw, Chase Cantrell, Adriana Chavez, Geoff Cooper, Choy Rui Zhi, Carter Craft, Dennis Culhane, Shams DaBaron, Michael “DJ Spynfo” Egan, Yonah Freemark, Siew Leng Fun, Patthiya Gitpot, Hiroshi Goto, Hayrettin Gunc, Beyza Gurdogan, Selva Gurdogan, Brendon Harre, Harvard Graduate School of Design ‘At Home and Abroad: Housing in Comparative Perspective’ students, Siya Hegde, Pilar Huidobro, Florian Idenburg, Meldis Jimenez, Juha Kahila, Geon Kim, Sung Sik Kim, Anita Konrad, Jina Lee, Magda Maaoui, Alejandro Martinez, Arnoud Molenaar, Pascal Müller, Gita Nandan, Jo Negrini, National Homelessness Law Center, Rebecca Ochong, Cesare Ottolini, Sadia Rahman, Ormmas Rathayaanunt, Alessandro Ricciardi, Franziska Rohner, Susanne Schindler, Nigel Slaughter, Will Spisak, Junko Tamura, Sze Tiong Tan, Arthit Tangtatsawad, Joe Westmacott, Adara Wicaksono, Gary JW Wong.
The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of Urban Design Forum’s Board of Directors or Global Circle.
Editor
Clara Parker
Editorial Support
Guillermo Gómez, Dan McPhee, Katherine Sacco, Hadley Stack
Report Design and Illustration
Partner & Partners
Supporters
Lead Sponsor
We thank Global Circle sponsors Akerman LLP, Apple Bank, Crescere Collaborative, Fogarty Finger, HKS, Jamie von Klemperer, KPF, Office for the Next Environment, Skylight, and Upside Collab.
Global Exchange is made possible with additional support from our Board of Directors, Circle Members, and company and individual members. Our programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.