Climate Action

To respond to the climate crisis, New York City must preserve M-zones and invest in manufacturing and industrial innovation.

By Carter Strickland Improved water quality paved the way for the redevelopment of New York City’s waterfront from manufacturing to residential and park uses. But combined sewer overflows remained a vexing problem—exacerbated by a century of development and increased rainfall during to climate change. Carter Strickland worked on the problem as Deputy Commissioner and then […]

The most daunting challenge facing our city today is not what to build, but what to restore.

Instituting a citywide stewardship strategy for resiliency infrastructure— a Conservancy 2.0—will help deliver resilient open space projects to the physically and economically vulnerable areas that need them the most.

Electric and driverless cars are on the way-it's time to rethink our gas stations as new civic space.

We no longer need Broadway as a street. We should transform it into a linear park—a Green Line running through midtown Manhattan.

Traditional green infrastructure hides the runoff it manages. Imagine if we celebrated our storm-water by growing the future of our streetscape!

Let’s expand the idea of the ‘street tree’ into a ‘street of trees’ to create a forest expressway.

The Brooklyn Strand should be a new gateway to the borough, connecting the waterfront with a series of parks, plazas, and greenways that will animate the thriving heart of Downtown Brooklyn!

Queens is New York City’s fastest growing borough, but it lacks the infrastructure it needs. We must support Queens’ expansion with smart, sustainable transportation.

42nd street is a microcosm of New York. Imagine it as a grand passage, with light rail gliding through the heart of the city!

We don’t just need new transit, we need a comprehensive strategy to achieve resilient community development and connectivity—the BQXL.

Disposing our waste is a wasteful process—it’s time we make it more efficient.

The growing volume of freight traffic in New York City has ramifications for residents’ health and the environment. It is time to adopt electric fleets.

In the fall of 2016, the Urban Design Forum invited its Fellows and experts to help us craft a vision for the future of mobility in New York City. Within these pages, you’ll find an inventory of imaginative thinking on what our city’s transportation landscape could be.