
PEERS
The Shape of Cities to Come Institute’s (SCCI) inaugural cohort convenes place-based community leaders, cultural workers, neighborhood actors, and urban activists from various areas of justice across the city—anti-gentrification and -displacement work, housing justice, abolition of the carceral state, migrant justice, queer and trans liberation, ecological care, and much more.
Together, our peers will foster solidarities that sustain and amplify ongoing work on the ground, and center the voices of New York City's working-class and BIPOC neighborhoods and communities.
Antoinette Martinez,
Genesis Aquino, and Rodrigo Camarena
TOPICS: Housing justice, Tenant rights, Immigrant rights
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Sunset Park
BOROUGH: Brooklyn
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
TOPICS: Housing justice, Tenant rights, Community land trusts
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Uptown
BOROUGH: Manhattan
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Avi Garelick
and Paloma Lara
Canal Street
Research Association
TOPICS: Cultural organizing, anti-gentrification, anti-displacement
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Chinatown,
Little Italy, Soho, TriBeCa
BOROUGH: Manhattan
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Cheryl
Rivera
TOPICS: Abolition, Black liberation, mutual aid
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Crown Heights
BOROUGH: Brooklyn
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Chinatown
Art Brigade
TOPICS: Cultural organizing, public art, anti-gentrification, anti-displacement
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Chinatown
BOROUGH: Manhattan
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Maansi
Shah
TOPICS: Tenant rights, Housing justice
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Jamaica, Flushing
BOROUGH: Queens
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Quito
Ziegler
TOPICS: Indigenous rights, Anti-displacement, Environmental justice
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Far Rockaway
BOROUGH: Queens, Citywide
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Rodrigo
Brandão
TOPICS: Queer liberation, Immigrant rights, Filmmaking
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Jackson Heights
BOROUGH: Queens
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Tania
Mattos
TOPICS: Abolition, Immigrant rights, Anti-gentrification, Environmental justice, Indigenous rights
NEIGHBORHOOD(S): Jackson Heights, Corona, Elmhurst
BOROUGH: Queens
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
EXTENDED PEERS / PROJECT ADVISORS
Arpan
Somani
ROLE: Extended Peer / Project Advisor
TOPICS: Digital equity, Accessible technology
NEIGHBORHOODS: N/A
BOROUGH: Brooklyn, Citywide
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24
Cynthia
Tobar
ROLE: Extended Peer / Project Advisor
TOPICS: Oral history, Archival work, Filmmaking, Anti-gentrification, Anti-displacement, Public art
NEIGHBORHOODS: Bushwick, University Heights, Flushing
BOROUGH: Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx
COHORT YEAR: 2023-24