Economic Development

Time-based zoning encourages more efficient land use and balanced growth for dynamic 24-hour neighborhoods.

It is time cities consider a range of criteria - user equity, economic viability, and health – and light in nighttime design and planning initiatives.

City governments should advocate for nighttime cultural and commercial spaces by actively managing the urban night through regulation, design and infrastructure.

Cities must update codes and regulations to keep up with transformation in retail.

By designing mixed-use buildings within industrial zones, we can provide more space for emerging tech, vertical manufacturing, and creative sectors.

We can adapt defunct space in New York City’s industrial zones into new facilitates suitable for emerging 21st century industries.

By combining a new approach to vertical manufacturing and integrating valuable public space and amenities, multi-modal transit and streetscapes, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is positioned to become a new model of urban industrial campus.

Design commercial buildings that provide modular space for businesses to grow throughout the lifecycle of their development – from seed stage to maturity.

Cities should encourage development models that incentivize the creation of co-located facilities for manufacturing and office space as a way to decentralize working hubs.

We are pleased to publish our second class of Forefront Fellows' original design and policy proposals to empower emerging and historic immigrant neighborhoods in New York City.

In a moment of increased political complexity for immigrant communities in the United States, a certain type of response to protect and support immigrant communities better is also increasing: worker cooperatives.

Immigrant dispersion and suburbanization presents new challenges, as immigrants may be less likely to form critical masses for social support and political power, and small municipalities may be less capable to address immigrant needs.

In almost every locality, the arts are a means for new immigrants to express themselves in a way that is already familiar to them, in a new city that is far from home, and feel ownership, pride and a sense of agency.

Instead of asking what kind of future transportation technology will bring us, we should ask: what kind of city do we want?

Our historic subway stations are our most used public spaces in the city. We should partner with the private sector to give our stations the innovation and investment they need to thrive.