Critic’s Notebook
New York Reimagined Subsidized Housing. What Happened?
Via Verde aspired to serve as a model of beautiful, sustainable subsidized housing. A decade later, our critic finds that a building can change minds, but maybe not systems.
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Headway
Exploring the world’s challenges through the lens of progress.
Highlights
CreditDaniel Arnold for The New York Times - Headway
Educators: How Are You Planning to Teach the 2024 Presidential Election?
The New York Times’s Headway team and Chalkbeat want to hear from you.
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CreditLeeAndra Cianci - Headway
High Schoolers: Are You Paying Attention to the Presidential Election?
The New York Times’s Headway team and Chalkbeat want to hear from you.
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CreditLeeAndra Cianci - Headway
Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin?
One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits.
By Lucy Tompkins and
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How One City Tried to Solve Gridlock for Us All
Bogotá led the world with innovation in inexpensive mass transit. Its experience shows what it takes to keep progress going.
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CreditFelipe Romero Beltran for The New York Times Could Better Buses Fix Your Commute?
A cheaper, faster and more equitable approach to transit could be a path to progress in the U.S.
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CreditEden Weingart 30 People Tell Us What Homelessness Is Really Like
Packing groceries, bathing in fountains, finding comfort in an orange blanket. Explore people's stories and their answers to common questions.
Interviews by Susan Shain and
CreditLauren Tamaki What’s a President to Do When a Nation’s Capital Is Sinking? Move It.
Jakarta, like many places, faces an unsustainable future. Indonesia’s president is responding by building a new capital city from scratch.
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CreditUlet Ifansasti for The New York Times How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own
The nation’s fourth-largest city hasn’t solved homelessness, but its remarkable progress can suggest a way forward.
By Michael Kimmelman, Lucy Tompkins and
CreditChristopher Lee for The New York Times headway
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Hindsight
More in Hindsight ›Dear People of 2021: What Can We Learn From Hindsight?
For the first series from the Headway initiative, we followed up on forecasts from decades past to ask what the passage of time has revealed.
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CreditMike Haddad Millions More People Got Access to Water. Can They Drink It?
The U.N. pledged to halve the proportion of the world without access to clean drinking water by 2015.
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CreditMike Haddad What Can One Life Tell Us About the Battle Against H.I.V.?
In 2001, U.N. estimates suggested 150 million people would be infected with H.I.V. by 2021. That preceded an ambitious global campaign to curb the virus. How well did it work?
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CreditMike Haddad Europe Met a Climate Target. But Is It Burning Less Carbon?
The European Union promised to reduce its emissions 20 percent by 2020. Did it happen?
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CreditMike Haddad Extreme Poverty Has Been Sharply Cut. What Has Changed?
The U.N. pledged to cut by half the proportion of people living in the worst conditions around the world.
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CreditMike Haddad
Housing
More in Housing ›Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin?
One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits.
By Lucy Tompkins and
Credit How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own
The nation’s fourth-largest city hasn’t solved homelessness, but its remarkable progress can suggest a way forward.
By Michael Kimmelman, Lucy Tompkins and
CreditChristopher Lee for The New York Times This Is Public Housing. Just Don’t Call It That.
Montgomery County, Md., like many places, has an affordable housing crisis. So it started acting like a benevolent real estate investor.
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CreditJustin J Wee for The New York Times The Long Emergency of Homelessness
If we understood the loss of housing as a collective challenge engulfing our communities, how would it guide our response?
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CreditElliot Ross for The New York Times 30 People Tell Us What Homelessness Is Really Like
Packing groceries, bathing in fountains, finding comfort in an orange blanket. Explore people's stories and their answers to common questions.
Interviews by Susan Shain and
CreditLauren Tamaki
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Progress, Revisited
More in Progress, Revisited ›How the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike Changed the Labor Movement
The 1968 action led to greater economic mobility for Black workers. Today, union activists are trying to capture some of that spirit.
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CreditErnest C. Withers, Sr., via Withers Family Trust Three Days That Changed the Thinking About Black Women’s Health
Forty years ago, Black women convened to discuss how race affected their health. They helped reimagine what medical care could look like.
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CreditPhoto Illustration by Alanna Fields; Photograph, via Spelman College Archives Sentenced to Life as Boys, They Made Their Case for Release
At age 17, Donnell Drinks was one of many young men in Philadelphia who went to prison for life without parole. Today, the city has resentenced more of those prisoners than any other jurisdiction.
By Issie Lapowsky and
CreditAbdul Kircher for The New York Times How Greenwood Grew a Thriving Black Economy
W.E.B. Du Bois saw the key to Black prosperity in places like Tulsa, where Black residents patronized Black stores. Even today it serves as a model.
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CreditGreenwood Cultural Center/Getty Images The Elusive Quest for Black Progress
Many measures of Black achievement in the U.S. have stalled or reversed. A series from Headway looks back at historical gains for their lessons today.
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CreditW.E.B Du Bois via The Library of Congress
Headway and The New York Times Magazine
More in Headway and The New York Times Magazine ›Remaking the River That Remade L.A.
Over the past century it has been channeled, subdued, blighted. Is it time for the Los Angeles River to serve the city in a new way?
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CreditAdali Schell for The New York Times After years of destructive weather that have disrupted Puerto Rico’s food supplies, new visions of local agriculture are taking root.
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CreditMaridelis Morales Rosado for The New York Times Architects Plan a City for the Future in Ukraine, While Bombs Still Fall
Irpin was one of the first Ukrainian cities to be destroyed and liberated. Now it’s becoming a laboratory for rebuilding.
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CreditMichal Siarek for The New York Times In an Age of Constant Disaster, What Does It Mean to Rebuild?
Each catastrophe is a test of what kind of society we’ve built. And each recovery offers a chance, however fleeting, to build another.
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CreditJamie Chung for The New York Times. Concept by Pablo Delcan. Prop stylist: JJ Chan. Can a National Museum Rebuild Its Collection Without Colonialism?
After a fire destroyed thousands of Indigenous artifacts, the curators of this Brazilian museum are adopting a radical new approach.
By Mariana Lenharo and
CreditLuisa Dörr for The New York Times
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Dear Headway
More in Dear Headway ›What We Learned From Bogotá’s Buses
Transformative projects don’t conform to election cycles. They’re not the work of any single person.
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CreditFelipe Romero Beltran for The New York Times Three Days That Changed the Thinking About Black Women’s Health
Four decades ago, 2,000 Black women converged on Spelman College for a conference on health.
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CreditPhoto Illustration by Alanna Fields; Photograph, via Spelman College Archives A Climate Change Success Story? Look at Hoboken
This flood-prone city on the Hudson River balances climate infrastructure with resident needs.
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CreditDaniel Arnold for The New York Times The Lessons of the Crime Wave That Didn’t Happen
Fears of violence in the 1980s and ’90s resulted in life sentences for minors that are now being reversed.
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CreditLan Truong Seeking a quick solution to longtime homelessness
Progress’s challenge: Our problems shape-shift in response to our solutions, which then become problems themselves.
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CreditEli Durst for The New York Times
La ciudad que intentó resolver el problema del tráfico para todos
La capital de Colombia se convirtió en referente mundial en innovación y tráfico masivo barato. Su experiencia muestra lo que se requiere para sostener el avance.
Por Michael Kimmelman
Critic’s notebookA Climate Change Success Story? Look at Hoboken.
This flood-prone city on the Hudson River has bundled water-absorbing infrastructure into benefits residents asked for, like parks and safer streets.
By Michael Kimmelman
HeadwayCan Plastic Recycling Ever Really Work?
Many plastics that carry the “chasing arrows” symbol, like soda cups and yogurt tubs, are rarely recycled. A new California law is raising the bar.
By Susan Shain
HeadwayHow Philadelphia Kept Thousands of Tenants From Being Evicted
A lockdown-era program that gets landlords talking to tenants has had notable success for both. Can it continue?
By Aidan Gardiner
The Times Birding Project Has Concluded. Here’s How to Keep Birding.
The project brought together readers, scientists and researchers who shared what they learned to help others.
By The New York Times
HeadwayRecyclable? Try Refillable. The Quest For a Greener Cleaner
As more consumers try to cut down on plastic waste, both start-ups and big brands like Clorox are hoping to usher in a new age of refillable cleaners.
By Susan Shain
headwayWhat Don’t You Know About Homelessness?
Most experiences of homelessness are hidden by design, but they reveal much about how communities work, or don’t.
By Matthew Thompson and Abdul Kircher
HeadwayHow Central Ohio Got People to Eat Their Leftovers
The average U.S. household wastes nearly a third of the food it buys. This community is nudging its residents to change their habits.
By Susan Shain
HeadwayWhat Are Your Stories of Rebuilding After Disaster? Tell Us.
Headway wants to learn more about the people affected by this issue and the stories we should tell.
By Matthew Thompson
HeadwayHow to Recycle a 14-Story Office Tower
Buildings are responsible for nearly 40 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. In Amsterdam, they are trying to create a blueprint to do something about it.
By Jessica Camille Aguirre
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