These urbanists are just like you

Your fellow subscribers do some pretty cool stuff

Once a year, I ask my paid subscribers to share their work with this audience of 5,000+ readers. Today is that day!

Below you’ll get a chance to read about some of the amazing things your fellow readers do and produce — it’s an impressive group of authors, architects, entrepreneurs, and even one former mayor.

Got something of your own you’d like to promote? Feel free to mention it in the comments. If you want to get a heads up about this next time, be sure to upgrade to paid!

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Hi! I'm Aziz. I use data visualization to explain what's happening in the American housing market over at www.home-economics.us. — Aziz Sunderji

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I'm Leah Rothstein. I co-wrote Just Action, with my father, Richard Rothstein, as a follow up to his 2017 book, The Color of Law. While The Color of Law explains how government policy created racial segregation, Just Action describes what we can do today to challenge and remedy that segregation. We focus on what we can do locally and what organized groups of residents are achieving around the country in redressing segregation. We also write the Substack, Just Action, to continue the conversation. See below to subscribe:

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I like to think of myself as a longtime advocate for greener, healthier cities, towns, and neighborhoods, primarily working with Placemakers LLC (placemakers.com), the Natural Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org), and Smart Growth America (smartgrowthamerica.org). There's much more about me and my work on my website, peoplehabitat.com. My latest essay was published earlier this year on Medium: A very personal take: I’m struggling with the word “urbanism,” and here’s why (https://medium.com/me/stats/post/2913b160c39b). — Kaid Benfield

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I’m co-founder of All One Thing: www.allonething.xyz building new community infrastructure. Imagine a coffee shop, cafe, classes for kids, coworking for parents, community events - all in one place. Launching in cities nationwide soon! — Courtney Klein

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I'm an architect and city planner, and Executive Director at Environmental Works Community Design Center in Seattle. Environmental Works was founded to provide professional architectural and planning service to those under-served by the profession. Throughout our history, we have assisted hundreds of organizations in achieving their facility-needs goals. About 80% of our work is designing affordable housing: senior housing, family housing, farmworker housing, supportive housing for folks exiting homelessness, tribal housing, shelters for people escaping domestic violence, and tiny home villages. We also have a specialization in designing community facilities like childcare, food banks, social service spaces, and spaces that serve immigrant and refugee communities. And finally, we have a landscape architecture team that designs that designs the landscapes around our buildings and also stand-alone landscape projects like parks, trails, greenways, and shoreline restorations. Come and say hello next time you're in Seattle. We operate out of the 1925 Fire Station 7 in Capitol Hill. — Jess Zimbabwe

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I have diverse experience spanning the non-profit, private and public sectors. I'm a passionate leader with proven success building initiatives to revitalize public spaces, build community, and connect people from diverse backgrounds around a shared progressive vision. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the current state culture under the influence of technology and an idea of 'convenience.' I am searching to find solutions to the challenges of disconnection and isolation within this context, grounded in IRL human contact. — Elizabeth Moselle

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I'm a journalist and author who is fascinated by urban history. In books such as A HISTORY OF FUTURE CITIES and THE ACCIDENT OF COLOR, I've delved into the back-stories of compelling international cities like Shanghai and Dubai and American ones like Charleston and New Orleans. In my next book, to be published this coming spring, I tell the story of one of the most remarkable urban cultures yet forged: Weimar Berlin. Through the eyes of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay, Jewish, celebrity sex therapist, LGBTQ+ rights activist, and race and gender theorist, we delve into Berlin's gender-bending cabaret world where new levels of tolerance were pioneered all under the threat of violent collapse. THE EINSTEIN OF SEX: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin is available for pre-order now and comes out from W.W. Norton on May 13, 2025 ( https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007241 ). — Daniel Brook

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I lead Clean & Green Philly, an organization dedicated to strategically transforming Philadelphia's urban landscape. We've developed cleanandgreenphilly.org, a free online tool that combines public data to identify high-priority vacant properties—that have a disproportionate impact on community well-being. Our mission is to reduce gun violence, improve quality of life, and foster environmental sustainability in the city's most underserved neighborhoods. By focusing on these areas, we aim to maximize the impact of community-led initiatives. Our approach empowers community groups, nonprofits, and city agencies to target these properties for interventions such as cleanups, community gardens, temporary activations, and affordable housing development, placing properties back into productive use. — Amanda Soskin

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I write

City of Yes

, a Substack exploring urbanism and civic culture, often looking to the past to understand the present, all with an eye to the future. My writing is in part informed by my experience advocating for better land use policy in Austin, where I’m on the board of a grassroots YIMBY organization and on the city zoning commission.

— Ryan Puzycki

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I lead a small consulting firm that partners with communities to create more effective, accountable, and sustainable local governments through a hands-on, community-driven approach. By working closely with local leaders and residents, we deliver tailored, practical solutions. Our core services and capabilities are:

• Strategic planning with a fiscal bent, aligning aspirations with resources to drive actionable plans;

• Strengthening governance, building consensus and fostering effective policies and practices; and

• Auditing for impact, transforming audits into strategic tools for good governance and organizational learning.

I also write a newsletter for local officials at https://mayorfunk.com/

— Mark Funkhouser

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I'm a former Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to multiple mayors, now running a communications consultancy that focuses specifically on the needs of local governments and their partners - philanthropies, developers, nonprofits, quasi-governmental bodies, etc. Our firm, Coeo Public Affairs, has unique competencies in media relations, digital content development, speechwriting and event production, crisis communications, and stakeholder engagement. Essentially, if you work for or with a city in any capacity and want to get in the news - or out of the news - we can help. Find us online at CoeoMeansConnection.com or reach out at Linkedin.com/in/kerrycoeo. — Kerry Hayes

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Josh McManus and Joel Steinhaus have unveiled M|B|P after several years of intensive design and stealth operations. M|B|P is an idea architecture practice that partners with founders, family offices, Fortune 500s and foundations to create transformative plans that take on the world’s biggest problems. — Josh McManus

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Gran Kriegel Associates, Architects and Planners, is a Brooklyn-based studio with an emphasis on publicly-funded architectural work for a variety of City, State, Federal and Not-for-Profit entities. Current projects include new and renovated schools, and affordable, supportive and transitional housing. One project we designed nearing completion is a new 650-seat Primary and Middle school in the Bronx, located a short walk from the Grand Concourse. The Concourse played a part in the design of an important feature in the school’s lobby. The Grand Concourse, for those unfamiliar, arcs its way through the Bronx as a sweeping, 180’ wide, 5.2-mile-long boulevard. Design of the road, modeled after the Champs-Elysees, began in 1890 and construction continued through 1910.The Concourse, (along with the extension of the subway) would serve as catalysts for the development of 100’s of apartment buildings lining it blocks, including notable examples Art Deco and Art Moderne. It’s a striking example of large-scale urban design in New York City. Because of the road’s importance in the development of the area, we chose to use it as learning opportunity to bring both the development of their neighborhood, and (hopefully) the concept that Urban Design expressed a vision of how we might organize and experience the world. The double-height lobby of the school has over 100 feet of glass railing surrounding the floor opening and continuing down the stair. The linear nature of this feature was a natural canvas for expression, and we adapted a map of the Grand Concourse and surrounding blocks to be printed on the glass. The footprint of the school was highlighted in orange, with the hope that an inquisitive student will make the “you are here” connection. The greet the students entering the school, a map overlay was designed for the reception desk as well, and is currently being installed. — David Kriegel

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