WHAT WE DO
The Shape of Cities to Come Institute (SCCI) invites organizers, activists, thinkers, cultural workers, writers, science nerds and artists from across New York City's grassroots communities and movements to work collectively as peers on shaping our cities through the STUDY. PLAY. ACT program.
SCCI peers will exchange experiences and knowledge, collectively unpack urban processes, build capacity through narrative organizing, workshop issues and nurture relationships with other committed folks. This journey will culminate in projects in communities across the city that grow on the peers’ existing work and practices. In cooperation with our partners, SCCI will offer a stipend and resources to participate in public programs, study sessions, retreats and collaborative initiatives.
PARTNERS
We are an autonomous institute working in partnership with:
The New School/Parsons MS in Design and Urban Ecologies
The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
FRIENDS
The New York Times’ Headway Initiative
Institute for Public Architecture (IPA)
Museum of the City of New York
Van Alen Institute
NYU Urban Democracy Lab
Incite at Columbia University
South Bronx Unite
The New School Parsons Housing Justice Lab
FUNDER
Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place Program
NEWS
EVENTS
New York 2044: Launch Event at WhiteBox
Saturday, June 22, 2024
2:00-5:00 pm EDT
WhiteBox Art Space
9 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009
Join MoreArt for the launch of New York 2044, a speculative social sculpture by Noah Fischer. This issue features reports from the imaginations of New York's committed citizens, including SCCI co-founders and peers.
The Shape of Cities to Come Institute is a New York City based co-learning and strategizing platform for urban activism that brings together experienced and powerful movement builders from many different worlds to shape equitable, compassionate and just cities.
Are you a New Yorker working in your community to envision a radically better future for all?
Land Acknowledgment
SCCI is situated on the homeland of the Lenape (Lenapehoking) and we need to engage with the history of genocide and forced removal that the peoples of the First Nations have experienced. The Lenape are a diasporic people (which includes five federally recognized tribes—The Delaware Nation, The Delaware Tribe of Indians, Stockbridge-Munsee Community, Munsee-Delaware Nation, and Moravian of the Thames First Nation; and the five state-recognized Delaware Bay tribes in New Jersey and Delaware) that continues to live here in close connection with their land. This is a living acknowledgment that recognizes that New York City has one of the largest urban Native American and Indigenous populations in the United States.