Episodes

  • City-Building with Culture at the Core

    City-Building with Culture at the Core
    Oct 1 2025
    Culture is often treated as a niche area but is actually integral to the successful design and adoption of other areas of urban planning and policy. Hear how cities like Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Baltimore are embedding cultural approaches into planning, policy, and recovery efforts.
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    29 mins
  • How Your Nonprofit Can Use Research to Strengthen Impact

    How Your Nonprofit Can Use Research to Strengthen Impact
    Sep 24 2025
    The Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) is partnering with nonprofits to uncover what works—and why. In this sponsored episode, we hear the stories of programs strengthened by evidence. Plus we meet the executive director of Corner to Corner in Nashville, Shana Berkeley, who is partnering with LEO to design research. Guest from the LEO team include researcher Patrick Turner and project development lead Fran Gallagher. To inquire about partnering, visit PartnerWithLEO.org.
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    35 mins
  • A Federal Freeze Won’t Stop Green Progress

    A Federal Freeze Won’t Stop Green Progress
    Sep 17 2025
    Networks of financial institutions are pushing ahead with the green evolution of energy despite federal dollars in flux, as $20 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is locked in a legal battle.
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    37 mins
  • Alternative Models For Funding and Supporting Cultural Spaces and Workers

    Alternative Models For Funding and Supporting Cultural Spaces and Workers
    Aug 28 2025
    Communities need spaces for art; you can't support art without supporting artists. We're talking with three leaders working on alternative models for sustainability.
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    25 mins
  • The Fight for Freedom of Mobility in Black America

    The Fight for Freedom of Mobility in Black America
    Aug 21 2025
    Charles T. Brown, author of "Arrested Mobility," discusses why mobility is not afforded in the same way to everyone – and the dire cost of this inequity.
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    38 mins
  • Heroic Oysters Are ‘Holding Back the Tide’

    Heroic Oysters Are ‘Holding Back the Tide’
    Aug 13 2025
    New York was once the world’s oyster capital. The director of a new feature-length impressionist hybrid documentary, "Holding Back the Tide," traces the city’s many life cycles with the oyster as her main character. Emily Packer follows environmentalists restoring oysters to the harbor, while examining the oyster not only as entangled with nature, but also as a queer icon, with much to teach about our society’s continued survival. Packer is interviewed by fellow New Yorker, Eliana Perozo, Next City's Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Anti-Displacement Strategies.
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    26 mins
  • Razing Liberty Square: On Writing the Playbook to Fight Gentrification

    Razing Liberty Square: On Writing the Playbook to Fight Gentrification
    Aug 6 2025
    The documentary "Razing Liberty Square” shows what happens in Miami as sea levels rise and the rich move inland, encroaching on residents of the Liberty Square public housing project. The film tells the story of a historically Black community faced with a $300-million-dollar “revitalization” of their neighborhood. In this episode, hear from a resident and climate activist, Valencia Gunder, who says she’s fighting a new form of racial injustice: climate gentrification.
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    35 mins
  • 'The Black Power Scorecard:' On Expanding Power and Lives

    'The Black Power Scorecard:' On Expanding Power and Lives
    Jul 30 2025
    Black power is more than symbolic. It’s a measurable reality tied to things like ownership, investment in neighborhoods, and—ultimately—life expectancy.

    In this episode with the authors of two new books—“The Black Power Scorecard” and “The Banks We Deserve”—Andre Perry and Oscar Perry Abello talk about systems that have historically failed communities of color and what it will take to build lasting institutions that truly serve them. The episode is based on a Next City webinar produced earlier this year, "Achieving Economic Justice and Power."

    Perry argues that Black communities already hold real power, except it’s often undervalued or ignored. His research reveals a strong link between life expectancy and factors like ownership of homes and businesses—which requires deliberate financial investment. As he puts it, “Nothing grows without investment.”

    Abello calls out the stark disparities in community banking. Of the roughly 4,000 community banks in the U.S., only about 120 serve communities of color, meaning most character-based lending remains inaccessible to Black and brown entrepreneurs.

    Listen to the episode to get examples of solutions and learn how to grow what’s working.
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    30 mins