New City Critics is a fellowship program to empower new, fearless, and diverse voices to challenge the ways we understand, design, and develop our cities. The fellowship supports the development of critics from underrepresented backgrounds through guest lectures and workshops, research guidance, networking, and production of new critical projects in Urban Omnibus and other leading publications. The Fellows voice new perspectives on overlooked topics of critical import and expand the public’s understanding of the value of design and planning, in order to activate new, civically engaged audiences for urban criticism. New City Critics was founded in honor of Michael Sorkin (1948–2020): a fierce critic, brilliant urbanist, and significant mentor.

Guillermo Gómez is the director of programs at Urban Design Forum, where he oversees the planning and teams responsible for the Next New York, Public Works, and New City Critics programs. Since 2018, he has led numerous community building initiatives at the Forum, including Good Form, Streets Ahead, Shape Shift, Work Force, Power After the Pandemic, and Care for Hudson Square. Gómez holds a master’s of arts in theories of urban practice from Parsons School of Design.

Mariana Mogilevich is editor in chief of Urban Omnibus, a publication of The Architectural League of New York, where she has edited the special series The Location of Justice and Cleaning Up? and has commissioned and edited hundreds of editorial features from artists, designers, scholars, and writers. Her book, The Invention of Public Space: Designing for Inclusion in Lindsay’s New York (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) received a 2021 John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. She has taught at New York University, Princeton University, Pratt Institute, and Cornell University. Mogilevich received a bachelor’s in literature from Yale University and a doctorate in the history of architecture and urbanism from Harvard University.

Ming Lin serves as program coordinator for New City Critics. She is an artist, writer, and researcher. She stewards an archive of fast fashion garments called Shanzhai Lyric and in 2020 cofounded the Canal Street Research Association with which she has presented at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, Citygroup, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Planning, and MoMA PS1, among others. Writing appears in outlets such as The New Inquiry, ArtReview Asia, Spike Art Quarterly, Frieze, Pin-Up and Curbed.

Selection panel for the 2025–26 New City Critics:

Garnette Cadogan is the Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in urbanism at the School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sukjong Hong is the editor of Curbed and was managing editor and web editor at The Architect’s Newspaper and a reporter-researcher at the New Republic.

Sam Maldonado is a senior reporter for THE CITY, where she covers climate, resiliency, housing and development.

Anjulie Rao is a Chicago-based journalist and critic covering the built environment.

Sabina Sethi Unni is an urban planner, community organizer, public artist, and an inaugural New City Critics fellow.

Urban Design Forum connects and inspires New Yorkers to design, build and care for a better city. Founded in 1978, Urban Design Forum is a member-powered organization of 1,000+ civic leaders committed to a more just future for New York. Urban Design Forum believes the built environment—our neighborhoods, buildings, public spaces and infrastructure—shapes our city’s health, culture and economy. It brings together New Yorkers of diverse backgrounds and experiences to learn, debate, and design a vibrant city for all. Urban Design Forum envisions a city where every New Yorker can thrive in a healthy neighborhood, with a stable home, dignified workplace, safe commute, lively public spaces and dynamic arts and culture—and believes everyone has a role to play in creating that city.

Founded in 1881, The Architectural League of New York supports critically transformative work in the allied fields that shape the built environment. As a vital, independent forum, the League stimulates thinking, debate, and action on today’s converging crises of racism, inequity, and climate change, in service of a more livable and just world.