News

Amid budget cuts, city leaders are confronting how to get by with less. They have a chance to build an optimistic foil to the DOGE playbook. 

Can government demand help revive the U.S.'s flailing modular construction industry?

This November, New Yorkers have a rare chance to reshape the rules that have let NIMBYs stall housing production for decades.

Cara Eckholm appeared on "After Hours with Jamie Rubin," a Vital City podcast, to discuss the limitations and potential of modular construction.

With Brookings, HR&A, and Gensler, Cara Eckholm co-published a guide to office-to-residential conversion incentives for cities.

Cara Eckholm penned an essay for Vital City about how the Pilot Pitchfest—a key initiative emerging from Pilot:New York City—aims to elevate urban policy entrepreneurs within city agencies, and match them with technical resources from civil society.

Cara Eckholm opened an exhibit at the 2025 Venice Biennale: “An Electric Future: What 21st Green Industrialists Can Learn From the Chicago World’s Fair,” in the main exhibit hall of the Arsenale.

Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation aimed at expanding access to artificial intelligence tools across New York State. The initiative supports workforce development, offers support to small businesses, and expands the State's Empire AI consortium.

Govern for America and Cara Eckholm published the AI x Talent Report at the 2025 NASCIO Mid-Year Conference. The report outlines case studies, recommendations, and frameworks for how State IT departments can responsibly harness AI to strengthen public sector capacity.

Cara Eckholm is leading the research for Govern for America’s AI x Talent project. The project will catalogue how States are staffing up their IT departments to support the roll out of responsible and productive uses of AI across core state government functions.

Cara Eckholm interviewed Commissioner Hope Knight and Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh about the status of Micron's $100 billion investment in a new megafab in Clay, New York.

Cara Eckholm’s work to deliver resilient, more affordable preschools at domestic Navy bases received bipartisan support at a congressional hearing on innovative construction techniques.

Cara Eckholm, Brookings, Gensler, and HR&A, published case studies on the office to residential conversion landscape of six U.S. cities.

Cara Eckholm—in partnership with Steven Paynter of Gensler—was selected to participate in the 2025 Venice Biennale, with her exhibit “An Electric Future: What 21st Green Industrialists Can Learn From the Chicago World’s Fair.” Their exhibit is in the main exhibit hall in the Arsenale.

Cara Eckholm wrote a guest essay about how federal and state governments can utilize challenge-based procurement to increase competition, lower prices, and even promote the invention of new technology.

NYSERDA held a showcase in which applicants to the Insurance Innovation Prize gave quick, five minute pitches on the companies they are building.

Cara Eckholm was named to City & State’s “Women 100” list, in recognition of her economic development work across the City and State of New York.

Cara Eckholm spoke to U.N. Habitat about how cities can transform themselves into hubs of urban innovation.

The New York City Procurement Policy Board (PPB) voted to amended Rule 3-11 to enable "Challenge-Based Procurement," a key recommendation from Pilot: New York City.

Cornell Tech launched the launched the Urban Innovation Fellows program, a new program to place mid career fellows from the tech industry into City agencies. The program was a hallmark initiative of the Pilot:New York City report.

NYSERDA launched the The Insurance Innovation Prize, a new $5M, government-backed prize to support teams working on insurance products and policies that fill gaps in the (re)insurance market for the energy transition.

The City Council passed "City of Yes for Economic Opportunity," its first comprehensive commercial rezoning since 1961.

At the Smart City Expo, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer described how New York City is trying out a new approach to government procurement, whereby the city seeks solutions to its problems instead of prescribing them.

Cara Eckholm penned an essay for the Financial Times, detailing the history of innovation insurance products, and explaining why many insurers have been slow to offer coverage for the very types of ambitious clean energy projects that will keep us away from the climate cliff.

Cara Eckholm penned an essay for the New York Times arguing in favor of the Mayor’s City-of-Yes for Economic Opportunity package, which reformed New York’s City’s zoning code to support more mixed-used business activity.

Cara Eckholm and Daria Siegel published Pilot:New York City, a comprehensive plan to make New York City the global hub of Urban Innovation.

Cara Eckholm penned an essay for Bloomberg's City Lab about how U.S. cities are failing to provide adequate infrastructure for female cyclists.

Cara Eckholm penned an essay in the New York Times about how New York's suburbs were blocking the Governor's plans to build more housing.