Next City

A group is working to ensure that the closure of Hester Street in New York City doesn't mean the loss of its wisdom as a trusted facilitator of processes that authentically engaged the community in development projects.

Next City is on a brief hiatus for the summer. We'll be back at the end of July. Thank you for listening to Next City. Together we can spread good ideas from one city to the next city.

We are creating a podcast episode about these three episodes related to the Planners With A Purpose conference that Next City sponsored.

The Next City podcast debuted in November 2021 and has now recorded 150 episodes, with hundreds of interviews about solutions with changemakers. Host Lucas Grindley and Editorial Director Deonna Anderson look back on some of the biggest takeaways after more than 75 hours worth of journalism.

Sponsored podcast: From Chelsea to the Berkshires, these organizations do the frontline work of caring for their community when federal policy turns hostile. 

When ICE raids and hostile federal policies destabilize entire communities, frontline organizations in cities and rural counties alike are answering with door-knocking, theater, wellness programs, and the slow work of building power from within.

In this sponsored episode with The Culture & Community Power Fund, two Massachusetts organizations respond to the mounting pressures facing immigrant and refugee communities. 

The organizations they support are responding to the moment, said Erik Takeshita, Director of The Culture & Community Power Fund. "It was already really hard work, and now it's like you have to add another layer of creativity and ingenuity to really be able to reach out to people,” said Takeshita.

La Colaborativa in Chelsea turns organizing and door-knocking into power in so many ways, including policy wins, arts and wellness programming, and a full continuum of youth services. Norieliz DeJesus is the Director of Youth Programs for La Colaborativa, but she first came to the organization as a teen participant. Today, she knows many neighbors who also went through the program and work as nurses, police officers, and community leaders. She considers them part of“ the safety net that this community has created over the years.”

 “It makes it easier for the community to trust when they can see that the person in those seats of power are people who lived and experienced this community,” said DeJesus, who is a member of the city council.

Meanwhile on the other end of the state in Berkshire County, the team at Multicultural BRIDGE—including Gwendolyn VanSant, CEO and founding director, and Dr. Lina Polo, the physician who leads its public health programs—host culturally specific wellness days, support groups, food distribution, and coordinate the county's Community Health Improvement Plan all as ways of addressing isolation, healthcare gaps, and belonging in a predominantly white rural region. "If you treat the least healthy and the person with the least access, it's going to improve things unseen," said VanSant on the need for solidarity. 

This sponsored series is created in partnership with ⁠The Culture & Community Power Fund (C&CPF)⁠, a national funders’ collaborative advancing the role of culture in building identity, agency, and collective power. This series explores the cultural ecosystem—the traditions, stories, rituals, and spaces that sustain frontline communities—and what it takes to support and strengthen it. ⁠Read the complete series.⁠