Introducing The City Builders Collective
Here for everything you need to start building better cities.
For those who don’t know my story, I stumbled into urbanism through an elective course in college about the American city.
Though I’d just recently switched my major to political science, I spent so many credit hours on urban geography electives that I wound up an accidental geography major, and an accidental urbanist with that.
Naturally it was a bit of a bumpy ride after graduation. What do you do with a geography degree when you don’t want to teach, aren’t a GIS wiz, and didn’t exactly stack your resume with relevant internship experience (since your new interests developed on the fly)?
Well, you figure it out and try to fall forward whenever possible. But I don’t think it should have to be so hard.
That’s why I built The City Builders Collective.
The City Builders Collective is what I wish I had as an undergrad and new college graduate: a free resource designed to help you begin shaping the future of cities, be it vocationally or even just as a volunteer side project.
Because I believe many aspiring city builders are just like me - you didn’t study architecture, real estate, or urban planning in college. You’re communications professionals, sales people, or software engineers that went down a rabbit hole and got inspired. But now you’re stuck on what to do next.
In its current infancy, you’ll find the website has a pair of key resources:
Learn Urbanism OS: a Notion database filled with all the biggest books, websites, podcasts, YouTube channels, and Twitter accounts shaping the conversation
A curated job board of opportunity across different “city building” industries (real estate, urban planning, transit, micro mobility, climate tech, etc.), primarily geared towards those either seeking entry-level opportunities or looking to jump into the “city building ecosystem” mid-career.
This summer, we’ll also be launching The City Builders podcast: a series of conversations with leaders in different city-shaping professions that will give you insight into the various careers paths they’ve taken, advice for beginners, as well as the landscape of different industries influencing the built environment.
The reason I’ve called this project The City Builders Collective is because I’m far from the expert. Your resources will be the individuals and organizations found in the Learn Urbanism database, the companies hiring for the positions on the job board, the guests on the podcast, and in time, the new friends you make at events and gatherings.
Growing the city building community is a collective effort. I’m simply your chief curator.
To check out these resources, you can go to thecitybuilders.co, or follow this effort on Twitter and LinkedIn, and feel free to shoot me a DM on either platform is there are other resources you’d like to see!
I also wandered into this space from a polisci degree working on economic development and realising the neighborhood is the amplifier of so many important trends - positive and negative. My work still isn't planning, but looks at health, economic opportunity and sustainability using the city as a lens. I think it's great you're building a movement around starting this conversation younger.
Hello Michael, I'm heartened to see you efforts on this front. I'm a recovering planner, turned developer, who's also looking to teach others how to become neighborhood builders. Let's connect some time. Are you going to CNU in Charlotte next week?