Episodes

  • Not My Narrative – “The Bootstraps Narrative” (Pilot Episode)

    Not My Narrative – “The Bootstraps Narrative” (Pilot Episode)
    Jun 25 2025
    This week, we’re trying something new: instead of our usual Next City episode, we’re sharing the pilot for “Not My Narrative,” an experimental mini-series that not only debunks harmful myths holding back progress but also elevates the counter-narratives driving positive momentum.

    In this debut episode of Not My Narrative, Host Lucas Grindley, Executive Director of Next City, takes listeners on an examination of one of America’s most pernicious myths: the “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” mantra that claims anyone who works hard enough can escape poverty. We trace its origins from 19th-century satire to Reagan, Gingrich, and Clinton, and we’ll hear from practitioners who say the “bootstrap” story is quietly determining who merits public assistance, who deserves our sympathy, and who must simply fend for themselves.

    To unravel its origins and expose its consequences, Luis Ortega, founder of Storytellers for Change, draws on his background in education and community organizing to explain how the bootstraps narrative is woven into our schools, our public discourse, and even our own self-perception. He challenges us to see that when achievement is framed solely as personal grit, it erases entire ecosystems of support—families, neighbors, networks—that actually make success possible.

    Plus, we revisit two Next City interviews that show what “it takes a village” truly means, as communities care for one another. In Jackson, Mississippi, Aisha Nyandoro, co-founder of Magnolia Mother’s Trust, shares how her guaranteed-income pilot for Black mothers demonstrates that material support and dignity go hand in hand. And we revisit a conversation out of Portland, Oregon, where Lisa Larson, vice-chair of Dignity Village, recounts her journey from sleeping on the streets to helping govern a community for the unhoused.

    If you believe in the power of narrative change—and want more episodes that debunk harmful myths while elevating real-world solutions—please email us at info@nextcity.org and let’s think about ways to keep this work going.
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    39 mins
  • Happy Juneteenth!

    Happy Juneteenth!
    Jun 18 2025
    This is Lucas Grindley from Next City, a show about changemakers and their stories. We’re off this week in observance of Juneteenth, but we’ll be back next Wednesday with more inspiring and workable ideas that move our society toward justice and equity.

    If you can’t wait for the next story, head to NextCity.org for the latest coverage.

    As always, we’d love to hear any feedback from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at info@nextcity.org. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Goodpods or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We’ll see you next week.
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    1 min
  • Unlocking Housing Access: Why Tenant Screening Protections Matter

    Unlocking Housing Access: Why Tenant Screening Protections Matter
    Jun 11 2025
    In the U.S., approximately 3.6 million households are threatened by eviction each year, and for many, the consequences last long after the eviction itself. Even if individuals avoid losing their homes, eviction records can prevent them from securing future housing. This happens because landlords use tools that screen the rental, credit, employment, income and criminal histories of tenants—often without context or accuracy.

    In this sponsored episode produced in partnership with Results for America, we discuss a proven solution: tenant screening protections. We explore how these safeguards can protect renters by ensuring fair access to housing, and we learn how communities can implement these protections to help more people secure stable homes.

    Guests on this episode include Brittany Giroux Lane, Director of the Solutions Accelerator at Results for America, Marie Claire Tran-Leung, Evictions Initiative Project Director at the National Housing Law Project, and Rasheedah Phillips, Director of Housing at PolicyLink. They dive into the importance of tenant screening protections and how these initiatives can help create more equitable access to housing.
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    39 mins
  • The Evolution of the Queer Women’s Gathering Space?

    The Evolution of the Queer Women’s Gathering Space?
    Jun 4 2025
    Back in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars across the United States. By 2022, that number had shrunk to 21. This year, a group of friends in Brooklyn joined a recent resurgence of such queer spaces—and set it up as a worker-owned coop, to boot.

    Boyfriend Co-op is part cocktail bar, part coffee shop, part workspace. Designed to feel like “a queer living room,” it’s all about ethical, sustainable practices—from its cooperative ownership structure to local ingredients to thrifted furniture. And it’s an example of how coops can be used to solve the problem of disappearing space for queer women.

    In today's episode, we hear from Hena Mustafa, one of Boyfriend’s four co-founders, about their journey working with a co-op- focused lender to turn the concept into a fully mapped-out business.
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    33 mins
  • The Problem With Streets and Climate Disasters

    The Problem With Streets and Climate Disasters
    May 21 2025
    When fires swept through the wealthy L.A. enclave known as the Pacific Palisades, the images were chaotic: cars abandoned on Sunset Boulevard, people fleeing on foot. A bulldozer had to plow through the traffic just so firefighters could reach the flames.

    Planners and researchers recognize the dangers of evacuating thousands at a moment’s notice and argue that our streets urgently need to be redesigned.

    “In the event of a climate disaster, we can't always count on our cars to protect us,” notes Maylin Tu, Next City's L.A.-based Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Social Impact Design. “You kind of get a sense of safety and .. insularity in being in a car and feeling like you are not only mobile, but you're safe and you're protected. And this really kind of brought home that in a, in the case of some climate disasters, like your car is not going to save you.”

    Tu recently covered UCLA urban planning professor Adam Millard-Ball's recent research on street connectivity in Los Angeles. He and other transportation planning experts hope rebuilding is an opportunity to rethink how L.A.'s streets work.

    “If all the traffic that's coming out has to flow through one or two intersections, that's a recipe for chaos in a emergency situation,” says Adam Millard-Ball, a professor of urban planning at UCLA and director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. “This is not what the streets were built for.”
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    21 mins
  • One Way to Ensure ‘Altadena Is Not For Sale’

    One Way to Ensure ‘Altadena Is Not For Sale’
    May 14 2025
    When the Eaton Fire tore through the Altadena neighborhood in January, many homes were lost. But also at risk was history, culture and community in a neighborhood known for its uniquely high Black homeownership rate. In the aftermath, as displaced residents were overwhelmed, private investors have swooped in, offering to buy up scorched lots for eye-popping amounts of cash.

    It's Altadena versus disaster capitalists, and residents have just taken a big step forward by creating a land bank where vulnerable homeowners who need to sell their properties can keep ownership in the community's hands.

    “I'm seeing lots popping up for sale…how do we, you know, how do we keep this land off the market? How do we just buy it?” says Jasmin Shupper, founder of Greenline Housing Foundation, of the moment that sparked the local organization's grant-funded effort to compete with corporate buyers. “We just need community-minded, community-centered and community-located organizations to just buy it – and then work together with the community to determine what happens next.”

    Guests on this episode include Shupper, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president of the Los Angeles City Council, and Eliana Perozo, Next City's Equitable Cities Reporting Fellow for Anti-Displacement Strategies.
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    36 mins
  • This “Unapologetically Black” Monument Is Already Changing Los Angeles

    This “Unapologetically Black” Monument Is Already Changing Los Angeles
    May 7 2025
    In our fifth-ever episode of the Next City podcast, we spoke to Jason Foster of Destination Crenshaw, a monument to Black Los Angeles that had just broken ground. Four years later, that 1.3-mile monument to Black culture—set to be the largest Black public art project in America—has started transforming the city's Crenshaw corridor.

    Construction is nearly complete on Sankofa Park, the project's “crown jewel,” which will feature 40,000 square feet of green space and sculptural installations. The project launched last year with a mural by Los Angeles artist Anthony “Toons One” Martin, and, like every piece of the effort, it was an iterative process, Foster says.

    “It started off just doing a mural. We ended up doing awning and lighting and some dog stencils for the dog lover business on the other side,” Foster says. “It turned into what I believe is a better interpretation of what Destination Crenshaw is, which is a holistic kind of community change using art—as not only beautification, but also an advertisement for the community [and the businesses along the corridor] to be that destination. It was something that I could not have imagined before.”

    In this episode, we hear from Foster and L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who was pivotal to launching Destination Crenshaw.
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    33 mins
  • The Quiet Engine for Affordable Housing in Red and Blue States

    The Quiet Engine for Affordable Housing in Red and Blue States
    Apr 30 2025
    The CDFI Fund is a proven driver of affordable housing in every state—red and blue alike. But now, this vital source of financing is at risk of federal cuts. In this episode, we highlight a project in Nashville, Tennessee, made possible by BlueHub Capital, a community development financial institution based in Massachusetts.

    In today's episode, we speak to Oscar Perry Abello, the author of "The Banks We Deserve," and with Karen Kelleher, president of the BlueHub Loan Fund, which recently helped finance a project in Nashville that converted two abandoned motels into affordable studio apartments. It's just one example of how community development financial institutions (or CDFIs) step in all overt the country, in red states and blue states, where big banks usually won’t.

    It's also the sort of project that would be harder to finance if the Trump administration gets its wish to eliminate the CDFI Fund, the federal grant program that helps fund and support more than 1,400 CDFIs around the country. (Read our analysis of Trump's executive order on the CDFI Fund and what it means.)

    “The market is profit-driven and, to be honest, it's expensive to build housing,” says Kelleher, whose team makes about 30 loans a year to fund innovative projects like the adaptive reuse project in Tennessee. “The kinds of deals that we support…don't often pencil out without subsidy. That might be tax credits, it might be grants, it might be state funds, it might be local funds.”

    Making the math work can lead to transactions that are complex, risky – and unpalatable for many market-rate lenders. That's where CDFIs come in.“We and other mission-driven lenders and CDFIs really make it our business to understand those tools, those models,” Kelleher says. “We find ways to structure our financing so we can take risks and be at the table with the community or the developer who's trying to make something happen that the market won't make happen.”
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    33 mins