The climate crisis is no longer a distant threat; it’s a daily reality for New Yorkers. Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and environmental challenges expose our city’s vulnerabilities, especially in underserved neighborhoods. How can we adapt our already-built city to meet this moment? In 2024, Urban Design Forum tackled this urgent question through the Rewire initiative, exploring ways to transform our buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure into engines for climate action.
Five Visions for Building Climate Positive Neighborhoods presents bold proposals from 48 civic leaders across five key areas: scaling energy retrofits with neighborhood-based support, supporting circular economies for industrial businesses, transforming peaker plants into biodiversity hubs, empowering libraries as climate education centers, and advancing transportation resilience through bus rapid transit. Together, these ideas offer a creative blueprint for the next chapter of our city’s climate response.
Explore the full publication – a collection of research, case studies, policy recommendations, and innovative pilot ideas – and strategize with us to reshape the future of our city.
Five Visions for Building Climate Positive Neighborhoods
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the Rewire Working Group members, who collaborated on the creation of the ideas and recommendations detailed in this platform:
Charlotte Barrows, Jane Bartman, Hannah Berkin-Harper, Aditya Bhagath, Tommaso Bitossi, Lisa Bolle, Andrew Buck, Ankita Chachra, Adriana Chavez, Gary Chung, Liam Cutri-French, Victoria Dearborn, William Farrell, Eleanor Gibson, Kirk Gordon, Caitlin Harris, Lloyd Helen, Thomas Heltzel, Christina Hernandez, Catherine Joseph, Anna Keleher, Kevin Kim, Andrew Leung, Earl Lin, Candelaria Mas Pohmajevic, Jonathan Molloy, Rebekah Morris, Crystal Ng, Jenny Osman, Nicole Payne, Danny Pearlstein, Saritha Ramakrishna, Keith Ryan, Zeineb Sellami, Matthew Seybert, Harsh Shah, Niharika Shekhawat, Ria Singh, Kristin Sposito, Lee Stark, John Surico, Kelley Tapia, Somto Uyanna, Elaine Wang, Michael Woods, Jess Wunsch, Sheena Zhang, Yi Zhang
Editor
Guillermo Gómez
Editorial Support
Bryan Belmont, Daniel McPhee, Katherine Sacco, Kalei Valentine
Report Design and Illustration
Partner & Partners
Photosims Design Team
Additional thanks to the team at Stantec for their generous support in designing photosims for each of the proposals: Astrid Mayak, Deirdre Nolan, Lance Mikhail Punay, and Wei Xiao.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to the Rewire Program Committee for their strategic advice and stalwart support during the creation of this initiative:
Michael Haggerty
Gloria Lau
Pallavi Mantha
Tom Scarangello
Byron Stigge
Georgeen Theodore
Thank you to the firms that hosted us during our discussion series: Bjarke Ingels Group, Field Operations, FXCollaborative, Gensler, HLW, Snøhetta, Stantec, and Trinity Wall Street. Additionally, we enormously thank Thornton Tomasetti for accommodating our working groups throughout the fellowship program.
Thanks to the following individuals who graciously lent their expertise as part of the Rewire series. The recommendations in this platform do not necessarily reflect their views or those of their organizations:
K.C. Alvey, John Bachenski, Chris Benedict, Journei Bimwala, Annie Carforo, Costa Constantinides, Myles Davis, Paul Garrin, Luba Guzei, Michael Haggerty, Jeff Hansen, Erin Heidelberger, Diana Hernandez, Nathan Hunter, Kate Fillen-Yeh, Ben Kleinbaum, Eunice Ko, Neg Lakew, Dina Levy, Amy Seek, Jeremy Shannon, Jeremy Siegel, Lily Shames, Micaela Skoknic, Anika Wistar-Jones, Gita Nandan, John Pavacic, Laura Popa, Trevor Reynolds, Daphany Rose Sanchez, Annie Savage, Youngjin Song, Mallory Taub, Zenobia Meckley, Alex Miller, Alejandro Vazquez, Jonce Walker, Sofía Zuberbühler-Yafar, Tiffany-Ann Taylor, Louise Yeung
Support
Rewire is made possible with lead support from Con Edison and Stantec and with the continued support of our Board of Directors, Director’s Circle, and Company Members, as well as our individual members through membership dues. Special thanks to Thornton Tomasetti for hosting our working group meetings.
Urban Design Forum 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.