Mamdani needs a comprehensive strategy to connect New Yorkers in the physical spaces where we interact.
On Saturday, the New York Knicks won the NBA Championship, and the people of New York City experienced a weekend of collective effervescence and joy. Great athletes created the extraordinary moment. But so did the city’s open, accessible and welcoming public spaces — the sidewalks, streets, parks and plazas that gave everyone a place to gather and celebrate in a communal environment. Now, New York City faces an urgent and important question: How can we make the joyful, affordable and communal city real and sustainable? What can urban policy do to help?
Nearly 20 years ago, New York City took a step in the right direction by reimagining sidewalks and streets. Janette Sadik-Khan and the city Department of Transportation she led released World Class Streets, the city's first comprehensive public realm strategy, arguing that streets were not simply conduits for vehicles but places for public life. (This was developed with Gehl Studio, where one of us works.) With startling speed and efficiency, New York City pedestrianized Times Square and parts of Broadway, created neighborhood plazas across the five boroughs and built its first lasting physically separated bike lane. The changes — while heavily contested, especially in the early days — validated the principle that streets belong to people, inspired a generation of planners to reimagine the city and sparked a wave of public space development that has transformed the urban environment.
In 2026, however, New York City faces challenges — from climate vulnerability to housing instability, from eroding civic trust to social inequality — that require more than street design. We propose something more ambitious: treating the entire public realm as essential “social infrastructure.”
What is social infrastructure? We define it as the physical places that shape our capacity to interact. Think, for instance, of sidewalks, schoolyards, swimming pools, parks, playgrounds, libraries, plazas and recreation centers. These are not mere amenities. Public gathering places, large and small, are critical parts of the city that support human health, social cohesion, mutual aid networks and democratic life. While it might not have been at the center of his campaign, social infrastructure is the key to accomplishing many of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s goals, from increasing civic engagement to improving affordability and making everyday life more meaningful and fun. Investing in it — by building great new gathering places, as well as fixing up old ones — is one of the most important things the current administration can do.
“Desire lines”
For the past two years, we led a team of social scientists from New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge and designers from Gehl in a major study of social infrastructure across three distinctive places: Flatbush, the Lower East Side and Poughkeepsie. While New York City benefits from a longstanding network of libraries, parks, recreation centers, streets and community organizations, uneven investment, fragmented management and decades of underfunding have limited its potential. Some neighborhoods, like the Lower East Side, enjoy a dense and connected network of spaces, while others, like Flatbush, face gaps in access, quality, comfort and connectivity. While there is a need to build more spaces, we found real opportunities to strengthen existing networks by building safe and convenient connections between sites, improving indoor facilities to make them more comfortable, expanding programming and adapting popular sites for an age of climate extremes.
New Yorkers are already creating social infrastructure where they can. What is often missing is the supporting infrastructure that makes these spaces comfortable, safe and usable. Consider, for instance, how much the City could do to create cooler public gathering places for residents in ecologically exposed areas. In our research, we found that on a typical summer Saturday, along a 1.3-mile stretch of Flatbush Ave, more than 200 people per hour lingered throughout the day, despite no formal seating, limited shade and heavy traffic. One in five people had improvised their own seating, carrying plastic chairs to sidewalks and propping stools in tree beds. On this popular commercial corridor, there is ample room for misting systems, trees and artificial canopies, and places for people to gather and sit.
These quotidian actions are what urban designers refer to as “desire lines.” They tell us what people want — a rest during a long commute, or a breath of fresh air outside their apartment, or a social setting that is neither work nor home. These needs will continue to exist no matter how much people use social media and AI. Indeed, for many, isolating technological tools have only underscored the importance of being around other people in the flesh.
Demand for social infrastructure is not limited to streets. The Center for an Urban Future documented what happens when recreation programming, staffing and facilities are allowed to erode: Neighborhoods lose some of their most accessible places for gathering, learning and play. Our research found that a lack of quality indoor spaces leads young people to stay at home or engage in unsafe activity.
Why social infrastructure now
Our current research builds on Eric’s longstanding work on social infrastructure, explained in books like “Heat Wave,” “Palaces for the People” and “2020.” For two decades, Eric’s research has demonstrated that the physical places shaping our shared life — parks, libraries, community centers, streets — influence whether societies are resilient or fragile. When those systems are strong, people form bonds of trust and social support. When they deteriorate, communities become brittle and crises hit harder. The 1995 Chicago heat wave, which killed hundreds of isolated people, was not simply a weather event. It was a social infrastructure failure.
New York is facing its own slow-moving version of that emergency. Social disconnection and loneliness are now public health problems. Nationwide, trust in institutions is declining. Housing is unaffordable for a growing share of the population. Climate shocks are intensifying — with extreme precipitation events causing catastrophic flooding and record-breaking heat forecast for this summer … and every summer for the rest of our lives.
Addressing these problems requires allocating more financial resources and coordinated, cross-departmental planning to build new and maintain and upgrade the social infrastructure that exists, from social housing to soccer fields and branch libraries. Social infrastructure makes it easier to build stronger social bonds. When it’s accessible to everyone and programmed to make a variety of people feel that they belong, it can even bridge social divisions.
Part of our research involved a 23-question survey administered to visitors of 21 social infrastructure sites to understand the types and depth of social connections formed at each site. Across the 1,100 people surveyed, more than 80% reported feeling a sense of belonging in these spaces, more than 70% said people there were willing to help one another and more than 60% said spending time there made them feel less isolated. More than 50% reported cross-racial or cross-ethnic interactions at social infrastructure sites and more than 35% reported cross-class interactions.
The patterns vary across neighborhoods. Flatbush residents report exceptionally high levels of familiarity: 84% reported recognizing at least a few other people at social infrastructure sites, the highest rate of any study area. Yet fewer than half reported gathering with people they knew or participating in activities with others, suggesting a neighborhood rich in casual connection but lacking places that support deeper social life. In a segregated city, these patterns stand out, suggesting building blocks for the kind of everyday cultural life that helps democracy work.
What implementation looks like
New York does not need to invent a social infrastructure agenda from scratch. Many of its agencies, from parks and cultural affairs to transportation and health, are already focused on creating places for people to gather and connect. A recent initiative by the Urban Design Forum, the Public Space Partners Survey, found that approximately 8,000 organizations exist across New York City to care for public spaces. The City has many of the ingredients. What it lacks is a strategy that treats social connection as a public outcome worthy of investment. Many of Mamdani’s most active volunteers found that the connections that the campaign fostered were an antidote to the loneliness pandemic. Now that he’s in office, this could be a more permanent outlet to foster the opportunities to be social that younger generations are looking for.
A practical governing framework for social infrastructure would have six core priorities.
First, supercharge the library. Libraries may be the city's most powerful and underutilized social infrastructure asset. In our study, they stood out for the diversity of users by age, their ability to make people feel safe and their capacity to promote interactions among people with different backgrounds. Yet many branches continue to operate with limited staffing, aging facilities and insufficient programming. New York City’s branch libraries are amazing resources for everyone who spends time here. But they could be so much more!
A social infrastructure agenda would treat libraries less as service providers and more as civic hubs. That means expanded hours, upgraded facilities, outdoor gathering space, more programmed events, and strategic co-location with housing, recreation and community services. Libraries are already trusted places where residents go for mutual aid during crises. Equipping them with backup power generators, wireless mesh networks and more reliable HVAC systems will give everyone, in every neighborhood, a better chance to get through hard times. New York has already begun moving in this direction through projects that pair new affordable housing development with opportunities to co-locate with and/or renovate existing libraries — and the City Council has a new push to do this even more. The opportunity now is to make that model standard practice rather than the exception.
Second, reinvest in recreation and play. Findings from our research as well as The Center for an Urban Future's “Putting the Rec Back in NYC Parks” reveal a city searching for places to gather. Recreation centers, pools, playgrounds, athletic facilities and parks help meet that demand before it spills onto streets that were never designed to carry the entire burden of civic life. As an example, at Tompkins Square Skatepark, we found not only recreation but informal support networks, where participants shared job leads, helped one another through addiction and offered temporary support during periods of housing instability.
Putting the Rec Back in NYC Parks documented the consequences of decades of uneven investment in recreation infrastructure. A social infrastructure framework suggests that recreation should be viewed not as a discretionary amenity but as essential civic infrastructure. The success of a recreation center can be measured by participation rates as well as by its contribution to neighborhood connection, belonging and public life via self-reporting through surveys.
Third, make public spaces comfortable in a changing climate. Climate resilience and social resilience are increasingly the same project. Shade, tree canopy, seating, cooling, public bathrooms, water access and weather protection should be treated as core infrastructure rather than optional amenities. Public spaces cannot function as gathering places if they are uncomfortable or unsafe for large portions of the year.
While this is of concern to all of New York, this is particularly relevant for New York neighborhoods facing extreme heat and limited open space, such as those identified by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Heat Vulnerability Index (HVI). The HVI shows neighborhoods whose residents are more at risk for dying during and immediately following extreme heat due to a range of social and environmental factors that contribute to neighborhood heat risk, such as surface temperature, green space, access to home air conditioning and the percentage of residents who are low-income or identify as Black. Investments in trees, shade structures, cooling corridors, green infrastructure and public amenities simultaneously advance climate adaptation and social connection and equity. The same bench, tree, or fountain can serve both goals at once.
Fourth, transform streets into social connectors. This is where the legacy of “World Class Streets” remains most relevant. Nearly 20 years ago, New York demonstrated that streets could be more than traffic corridors. Now, we can formally recognize that streets are also social infrastructure. Open Streets, plazas, sidewalks, protected bike lanes and neighborhood commercial corridors can improve mobility as well as opportunities for lingering, interaction and community life.
The Flatbush findings show that New Yorkers are already using streets this way. Policy needs to catch up with reality. That means permanent Open Streets, expanded seating, safer crossings, flexible curb space, public bathrooms and investments in corridors where residents have few alternatives for gathering.
Fifth, invest in stewardship and community capacity. A library, park or plaza is only as effective as the institutions that animate and maintain it. The Design Trust's Untapped finds that the challenge is not simply building more spaces. It is identifying where opportunities to allow people to steward them exist.
This requires a different approach to public investment. In addition to capital construction, the City, with public-private partnerships, should contribute more to the operational needs of stewardship organizations (streamlined permitting, funding for salaries, insurance, overhead) who activate public space every day. Social infrastructure succeeds when communities have the resources to steward it.
Sixth, assess neighborhood needs and fill gaps. New York brings systematic rigor to planning transportation, schools and utilities, yet applies no equivalent discipline to social connection. A social infrastructure agenda would change that — beginning by mapping neighborhoods through a different lens: Where are the physical places — the libraries, rec centers and gathering places — that bring people together? What are the social outcomes we want to measure — children playing, seniors being active and connecting, New Yorkers connecting across differences? Which neighborhoods have strong networks, and which are operating with critical gaps?
That mapping would feed into a citywide strategy, a successor to “World Class Streets,” that places social infrastructure gaps alongside housing insecurity, heat vulnerability and access inequities. This could serve as a governing framework driving capital budgets and agency coordination.
It could also link housing policy directly to social infrastructure investments. Mayor Mamdani's Block by Block housing strategy rightly frames affordability as inseparable from neighborhood quality. Large rezonings should carry social infrastructure requirements alongside housing production goals. The success of a housing strategy should be measured not only by units produced, but by the social life those neighborhoods can sustain. This mapping approach could be folded into the “micro plans” outlined in Block by Block.
The governance challenge
The primary challenge is not recognizing the importance of social infrastructure. New York already contains thousands of organizations, public agencies, libraries, parks, cultural institutions, community groups and public space stewards working toward the same goals. The challenge is governance: organizing these actors around shared outcomes, stable funding and long-term stewardship. Public realm responsibilities remain fragmented across agencies with competing mandates and capital cycles.
Our research suggests that New York's problem is less a shortage of committed actors than a shortage of coordination. Social infrastructure responsibilities are spread across parks, libraries, transportation, housing, schools, nonprofits, conservancies, community organizations and business improvement districts. The result is a system that relies on extraordinary effort from individual organizations but lacks a governing framework capable of sustaining the network as a whole.
Former Mayor Adams named the city’s first-ever public realm officer, recognizing the cross-sectoral leadership needed for this major task and city asset, but structurally the position lacked authority and was eliminated in the current administration. Maintenance and programming funding has been reduced for years. For example, research by the Center for an Urban Future found that since 1964 there has been a 66% decline in the NYC Parks’ recreation division workforce. And communities — especially low-income communities that have watched public investment accelerate displacement — may see public realm improvements as harbingers of gentrification if it is not clear how existing community needs are being addressed. The question is not whether cities should invest in social infrastructure. The question is how they do so in ways that allow existing residents to remain and benefit from the value those investments create.
These concerns should be incorporated into a social infrastructure agenda to ensure sites are treated as community assets, or essential public goods. Just as housing policy increasingly recognizes that production and preservation must go hand in hand, social infrastructure investments should be paired with preservation strategies that help existing residents remain in place and share in the benefits of neighborhood improvement. Community governance and genuine stewardship partnerships with local organizations are not add-ons. They are the difference between infrastructure that serves a neighborhood and infrastructure that might seem created for newer residents and not longstanding New Yorkers.
Investments in parks, libraries, public spaces and cultural facilities should be accompanied by investments in housing preservation, tenant protections, community ownership and small-business stability, increasingly cited as tools in national anti-displacement conversations. New York is already experimenting with this approach. Mayor Mamdani's housing agenda pairs new housing production with tenant protections, preservation of existing affordable housing, stronger enforcement against negligent landlords and mechanisms intended to help residents remain in place as neighborhoods change.
Protecting neighborhood identity requires more than preventing residential displacement. As groups like Municipal Art Society (MAS) and Public Works Partners have documented, it also means sustaining the organizations, businesses, cultural institutions and social networks that give neighborhoods their character and provide the social infrastructure residents rely on.
The ideas advanced in the Center for an Urban Future's “Real Estate for Parks” report point toward a broader principle: Growth should help fund the public realm that makes growth successful. The same research also outlines best practice from outside of New York and recommendations for investment funds. Development contributions tied not only to open space but to broader neighborhood social infrastructure needs. The goal is to make social infrastructure a predictable part of city-building rather than an afterthought. New York should treat anti-displacement as a core component of social infrastructure governance. Every major social infrastructure investment should be accompanied by a neighborhood preservation strategy that identifies residents, businesses and community institutions at risk and aligns housing, economic development and community stewardship tools accordingly.
The next step
The question is no longer whether social infrastructure matters. The evidence — from New York to London to Cape Town to Brazil — is overwhelming. New Yorkers demonstrate its value every day in the ways they use public space, often despite its limitations. New York does not lack cultural organizations or civic ambition. What it lacks is a governing framework that treats these assets as a connected system and social connection as a public outcome. The challenge is not convincing the City to care. It is giving the City the institutional capacity to deliver, coordinate and sustain the social infrastructure it already knows it needs with the same seriousness it brings to housing, transportation and utilities.
The goal is not simply to create more desirable neighborhoods. It is to ensure that the people who make neighborhoods desirable can continue to live, work, gather and belong there. Nearly 20 years after World Class Streets, and a few days after a celebration that inspired everyone, New York is ready for the next step: building a city where belonging is not improvised against the odds but designed in from the start.
This essay builds on a collaborative research report developed by a core team across IPK and Gehl: Eric, Julia and Eamon O’Connor, Candice Ji, Precious Ndukuba and Michael Koncewicz, Matthew Wolfe and Nan Feng. See the full report, Social Infrastructure is Essential Infrastructure.
