Overview
The Thriving Communities Coalition includes grassroots organizing, advocacy, policy and technical assistance groups who work across various issue areas and neighborhoods. We believe that the status quo approach to planning and land use in New York City does not work for most New Yorkers, and that without meaningful changes, the processes we have now will only continue to exacerbate inequality, segregation, and displacement. We are working together to win meaningful reforms to create a City where everyone has a chance to thrive.
The Coalition
Thriving Communities Coalition is a citywide alliance of community, faith, housing, land use, and environmental organizations united by one mission: to end land use injustice in New York City. We believe the city’s housing crisis—and its deep links to environmental racism, gentrification, unemployment, school segregation, NYCHA neglect, and more—cannot be solved without transforming who has the power to shape our neighborhoods.
Our campaign, #OurNeighborhoodOurPlan, is about putting that power where it belongs: in the hands of everyday New Yorkers. We’re organizing to ensure communities—not developers or City Hall—have the final say in how neighborhoods grow. Through community-crafted plans that become part of a binding, citywide comprehensive plan, we aim to hold future mayors and developers accountable to the people before a single building goes up.
Because when communities plan their neighborhoods, they build a more just, thriving, and livable city—for all of us.
Why Comprehensive Planning
What is Comprehensive Planning—and Why Does it Matter for Justice in NYC?
Comprehensive planning is about one thing: making sure our city plans for the future—with all of us in it.
Right now, New York City has no long-term plan for how land gets used. Developers build what’s profitable. The Mayor proposes rezonings neighborhood by neighborhood. And working-class Black, Brown, and immigrant communities are left fighting for the basics—affordable housing, school seats, green space, jobs, cleaner air—after deals are already made.
Comprehensive planning changes that. It creates a fair, citywide process where communities set priorities together, and the city is required to listen. Every ten years, the city sets goals—for housing, parks, climate justice, racial equity, and more. Then each neighborhood develops a community plan to meet its fair share. Together, these plans form a legally binding roadmap that future mayors, developers, and agencies must follow.
This is how we get from crisis to coordination.
From displacement to stability.
From fighting to fixing.
From top-down to people-powered.
For housing justice. For climate justice. For racial justice.
We need a plan. A real one. A fair one. A people’s one. That’s what comprehensive planning is.
Take Action
Developers and politicians have shaped our neighborhoods for too long—without us. It’s time for communities to take the lead. Stay tuned for how you can get involved!
Coalition Members
Ascendant Neighborhood Development
Asian Americans For Equality
Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD)
Chhaya CDC
Citizens Action of New York
Cypress Hills LDC
Fair Housing Justice Center
Fifth Avenue Committee
Good Old Lower East Side
Los Sures
Municipal Art Society of New York
North Brooklyn Neighbors
New York Appleseed
Our Bronx
Pratt Center for Community Development
Queens Community House
Regional Plan Association
Riders Alliance
Transportation Alternatives
WE ACT