Podcast: How to Create Equitable Cities

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May 25, 2020

Listen to Kelly as she discusses her unique journey through various media and publishing outfits, eventually landing at Next City: an online publication that focuses on urban issues through the lens of equitability.

Photo by: Gigsy. Next City Vanguard Bryan C. Lee, Jr. (pictured) gives fellow Next City Vanguard alumni a tour of his Paper Monuments project in New Orleans.

On this episode I’m speaking with Kelly Regan, Editorial Director at Next City. Kelly has been working for two decades in magazines, books and digital publishing, overseeing content creation for outlets such as Google and the Frommer’s Travel Guides.

She’s a longtime freelance editor and writer, specializing in science, travel, educational publishing, and dream interpretation. She’s also the author of the book Field Guide to Dreams, which was published by Quirk Books.

In her current rule, she manages content development, hosts webinars, and commissions long-form journalism at Next City, a nonprofit news organization.

Photo by: Kriston Jae Bethef. Taken for a Next City feature on a nonprofit program that encourages incarcerated mothers of newborns to pump their breast milk while in jail. Kriston visited the home of a family member caring for one woman’s infant daughter, who reaps the benefits of the program.

Next City covers issues in urbanism through the lens of equity, to highlight ways that cities are dismantling institutional and legacy systems of oppression to create a level playing field that makes life better and more sustainable for all urban residents. Beats range from transportation to housing to tech, culture, climate change mitigation and equitable economic development.

Photo by: Sara Elliott. The winning team for Vanguard Sacramento’s Big Idea Challenge was Just City Collaborative; pictured from left are Stephanie Michel, Andy Kopietz, Trace Allen, Maya Chupkov and Rachel Shangraw (not pictured: Elizabeth Timme and Megan McGreal).

Next City’s premier event is the Vanguard conference, an annual gathering of rising urban innovators who work across disciplines to make change in cities. Each Vanguard cohort includes policymakers and politicians, architects and urban planners, artists and media makers, all of whom are selected through a competitive application process.

We’ll talk more about the Vanguard Program and the opportunity to submit your own host city application for 2021 later in the podcast.

A note to listeners: our interview with Kelly was conducted pre-Covid-19 and pre-Anti-Racism protests across the globe.

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