#40: Honolulu Adds Rail, Chicago Upcycles for Families, and Pitssburg CLT Financing

Welcome to the 40th issue of Urbanism Now, our weekly newsletter curated with brief and insightful urban ideas from around the world to inspire action where you (c)are.

This newsletter is curated by Maria Paula Moreno Vivas and Ray Berger. Learn more on our About page.

Thank you for your interest and support. If you find this newsletter useful, please forward it to a friend!

Let’s get started:

• Chicago’s Digs with Dignity fills a crucial gap that social services can’t address by designing and furnishing homes with upcycled furniture for families transitioning out of homelessness, creating spaces that feel comfortable, functional and dignified.

• Honolulu’s new 5.2-mile Skyline rail segment, which includes a stop at the airport, saw 61,968 rides in its first four days of operation.

• Next City reveals how one Pittsburgh community land trust cracked the construction financing puzzle by slowly building relationships with a regional bank, proving that patient relationship-building can unlock millions in affordable housing development.

• A new academic article examines the legacy of South Korea’s urban commons movement in the 1970s. The study highlights the “working-in-commons” practices, such as mutual aid and shared childcare, used by poor women in a Seoul shantytown to foster community and survive precarity.

Videos, podcasts, books, and socials:

• Everyday life in Costa Rica reveals an alternative way of understanding space and time, where people navigate without a centralized address system, using landmarks and shared memory instead of street numbers, offering a poetic rethinking of how we relate to place.

• A new 5-part podcast series, “A Tiny Plot,” follows residents of an encampment in Oakland as they fight for their own plot of land to build a community and set their own rules. The series explores scarcity, community, and creating something new from the margins of a broken system.

Jobs:

• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is hiring a tenure-track professor for ‘city and climate’ to advance the design and adaptation of the built environment to the challenges of climate change. October 31. Submitted by Franziska.

• NYC Housing Preservation and Development is looking for a Director ($98,159 - $115,000) and Deputy Director ($87,743 - $100,904) for Fair Housing Policy & Investments to advance Where We Live 2025 commitments and Fair Housing Framework requirements. Apply by November 13.

• The College of Wooster is hiring a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor in urban studies with a focus on housing or transportation. Apply

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