With a new proactive approach to title clearance and estate planning, Philadelphia is working with lawyers and neighborhood groups to help families secure inherited homes and preserve generational wealth.

In Lexington, 36 randomly-selected residents took part in one of the country’s first civic assemblies to recommend changes to the city’s governing charter.

More than just a place to open bank accounts for communities that are underbanked, this new branch invites a community to help finance its collective future.

In 2024, nearly 2,000 apartments opened in former schools. Some see the conversions as a cure for neighborhood blight. Others fear gentrification.

Heirs’ property issues can block disaster survivors from accessing FEMA assistance. In eastern Kentucky, free legal clinics are helping families clear titles and protect inherited land.

A coalition of immigrant rights organizations is showing up to keep their communities safe.

Expanding access to home finance did not eliminate the structural barriers Detroiters faced as they tried to repair their homes, Nicholas L. Caverly writes in his new book. Nor did demolitions.

After two decades of neighborhood walks with residents, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani’s new book, “The Cities We Need,” shows the vital everyday labor between people and places that makes community possible.

The proliferation of bubble tea shops displacing Chinatown’s legacy businesses might not “look” like gentrification. That makes it even more insidious, some say.

A joyful, ebullient performance on ice provides a reason to look back at a landmark community investment program that no longer exists.

A Philadelphia mother’s fight to reunite with her children offers a grim window into the problems of the American cities’ child welfare systems – and how they can be improved.

Seville is experimenting with underground aqueduct networks to beat the heat, building upon an ancient Middle Eastern urban cooling system.

From West Oakland to Birmingham, historic commercial districts in Black neighborhoods are using cultural preservation to drive community investment.

A small town in northern New Mexico is punching above its weight with a local historic preservation project.

Flatbush residents want a collaborative memorial process. Instead, they say the city is moving ahead with little transparency and even less community input.

After decades of failed mega-projects, the Kingsbridge Armory is now the site of one of the country’s most ambitious experiments in community ownership and shared control.

Denver’s Tierra Colectiva is showing how residents can shape — and own — mixed-use projects at a scale once reserved for private developers.

Meaningful gift ideas for the people working to improve our cities.

Mark Griffiths shows how the infamous Checkpoint 300 embodies larger geographies of Israeli control — reshaping a once-vibrant commercial strip in the West Bank.

As federal support is cut and public conservation efforts fall short in reaching rural Black farmers, one Black-led organization is creating new lifelines to protect historic legacies.