18-month program · Launching 2026
Autonomous Vehicles and Urban Policy
Autonomous vehicles are arriving in American cities faster than the public conversation about them is maturing. This program exists to close that gap — with localized evidence, fast and honest analysis, and a serious argument about what a good version of this future would actually look like.
Three pillars, running together for eighteen months. Everything published free, everything with its methods attached.
The three pillars
State and local AV policy research and demographic briefs
As autonomous vehicles arrive in more American cities, residents and stakeholders have real questions about safety, accessibility, and community impact — and most of the available answers are written either for engineers or for investors.
We produce localized, evidence-backed briefs on regional mobility challenges, the policy questions a specific city or state is actually facing, and the genuine constraints of the technology alongside its benefits. A second series looks at how AVs affect particular groups:
- Parents and caregivers managing trips they can’t make alone
- Small business owners dependent on curb access and delivery
- People with disabilities, whose stake in this is larger than anyone’s and whose input is routinely collected last
- Seniors facing the gap between losing a license and losing independence
Timely analysis of policy developments and trending stories
White papers take months to write and hours to read. Misconceptions take minutes to spread. By the time a rigorous document lands, the narrative it was meant to correct has already hardened.
So we publish on the clock the debate actually runs on. When a bill drops, an agency moves, or a crash becomes a national story, we put out clear analysis within days — demystifying the technology, correcting claims in both directions, and saying plainly when the honest answer is that nobody knows yet.
This is the bulk of what we publish, and it arrives by newsletter at least twice a month.
The Autonomous & Livable Cities Initiative
Autonomous vehicles are a generational opportunity to advance what the urbanist movement has wanted for decades: less land buried under parking, neighborhoods built for walking and biking, transit that connects, and streets that stop killing people.
None of that happens automatically. It happens if policy makes it happen, and it fails if policy doesn’t. The Initiative is a platform for every stakeholder in that argument — through narrative-driven content and stakeholder salons that put people who disagree in the same room.
What we publish, and how often
How we work
Everything is free and nothing is gated. We don’t trade an email address for a PDF.
Every substantive piece carries its methods — what we assumed, where the numbers came from, and which weaknesses a skeptical reader should attack first. Where the evidence is thin, we say so rather than rounding toward confidence.
Every funder is disclosed publicly, with amounts and dates. No funder reviews a draft before publication, and no funder has ever been given the right to.