Culture
Issue
The Case Against Eric Adams & Co.
Considering the fix the mayor (and the city) are in, from many angles
Highlights from Recent Issues
Crime on the New York City Subway: How Rare Is it Really?
Aaron Chalfin , Alex Chohlas-Wood and Morgan Williams Jr.
What the numbers tell us and what to do about it — the first in a series
Underground: Safer Than the Surface?
Aaron Chalfin , Alex Chohlas-Wood and Morgan Williams Jr.
How trains and platforms compare to the street
Psychosis Under Fluorescent Lights
Freddie deBoer
What to do about people struggling with serious mental illness on trains and platforms
How New York City is Engaging the Mentally Ill Underground
Vital City
A conversation with Brian Stettin, the architect of the Adams administration’s plan to help those in psychiatric crisis on the subways
The Fear Factor
Wesley G. Skogan
In a crowded world of strangers, civility and orderliness are important values.
Subway Gun Scanners: The Wrong Tech in the Wrong Place
Barry Friedman , Max Isaacs and Katie Kinsey
The Adams administration’s idea is prohibitively expensive, and will do little if anything to improve public safety underground.
Journal Issues
Issue 1
Gun Violence
Vital City's first issue looks at the problem of gun violence and how it might be solved.
Issue 2
How We Live Together
What is “disorder”? And what should we do about it?
Issue 3
The Power of Place
The indelible mark of neighborhoods
Issue 4
Summertime!
How life changes when things get hot
Issue 5
Nuts and Bolts: Solving Gun Cases
What it takes to reduce firearm violence
Issue 6
On Drugs
How substance use shapes the city
Special Online Issue
Crime: What Happened in 2023, and What 2024 May Bring
Breaking down New York City’s — and America’s — trends in violence and victimization
Special Online Issue
How Many People Should New York City’s Jails Hold?
Everything about Rikers Island and what replaces it depends on the answer
Issue 7
Does Evidence Matter?
Research meets the real world
Special Online Issue
Congestion Pricing*
*The long-anticipated change to Manhattan’s streets now at the mercy of politics
Issue 8
Is the Urban Doom Loop for Real?
The death and life of great American cities (again)
Issue 9
The Subway
Building better transit
SPECIAL ONLINE ISSUE
Inside Rikers
Jails can be safer and more humane
SPECIAL ONLINE ISSUE
The Case Against Eric Adams & Co.
Considering the fix the mayor (and the city) are in, from many angles
More to Explore
Gun Violence in New York City: The Data
What to Do About Closing Rikers
In our first special report, public safety veterans Elizabeth Glazer and Michael Jacobson provide a detailed, data-grounded roadmap to close Rikers Island that would simultaneously:
Sunday in the Park with Everybody
We asked radio producer Ike Sriskandarajah and artist photographer Azikiwe Mohammed to capture some of the sights and sounds of Brooklyn’s most iconic greenspace, Prospect Park. What they produced is a sonic-photographic essay, a sensory experience of the people, places and natural beauty at the heart of Kings County.