Looking Back, Looking Ahead, and Wrapping Up 2025
2,619 words in this newsletter - about 11 minutes and 2 seconds to read.
Guest Editors: Story Bellows and Karina Ricks
As the year winds down, it feels like the right moment to pause, exhale, and take stock before turning our attention to what comes next. In this final edition of the Cityfi Newsletter in 2025, we’re doing exactly that.
We open with a reflection looking back on a year marked by disruption, adaptation, and a stubborn strain of optimism across cities and communities. From shifting policy landscapes to new models of collaboration, we try to capture how much has changed and what ultimately held steady. Then, we turn our gaze forward, unpacking the signals we’re seeing for the year ahead: from the evolving role of cities and partnerships to the real, on-the-ground implications of AI, autonomy, and place-based innovation.
We close out the year with our Cityfi Unwrapped – 2025 Edition, a curated look back at some of the articles, interviews, and projects that resonated most with readers this year. Consider it a greatest-hits album for city nerds—no algorithm needed!
As we wrap up, we want to thank you for reading, sharing, and engaging with us throughout the year. Our offices will be closed from December 25 through January 4, and we’ll be back (recharged and caffeinated) in 2026. Until then, we wish you a joyful Holiday season and a very Happy New Year! We can’t wait to jump into 2026 with our amazing clients, new partners, and longtime friends as we continue pushing forward work that makes a difference.
Whew, Deep Breaths. What a Year!
By Karina Ricks
2025 was a year of change and opportunity. A flurry of policy and programmatic shifts at the federal executive level triggered corresponding worry and uncertainty across states, regions, and cities. Yet, as the year draws to a close, that uncertainty has given rise to new determination and (dare I say) confidence.
Faced with radical disruption and rapid change, cities and states were compelled to self-reflect - reexamining, and for many reconfirming, their values and priorities. Many emerged with a clearer understanding of what their communities want and need, and how agencies and enterprises can partner and align to continue to deliver outcomes and ambitions. While the language and framing of policy and projects may have shifted, the underlying perspectives have not. State and local leaders may not use the same words of “renewable energy” or “decarbonization” or “equity and diversity” but the foundational commitments to clean air and clean water, the liberty of mobility, and lifting up and serving all members of their community remain.
Funding pressures, investor caution, tariffs, and cancelled contracts strained balance sheets, while artificial intelligence and autonomy surged into the spotlight. These demanded agility and partnership for public, private, and civic organizations to navigate. Despite the challenges and disrupters, there is an aura of stubborn optimism and opportunity. Companies and communities are finding new ways to work together building new structures for collaboration, finance, and continued innovation and integration.
In an uncertain year, Cityfi provided critical strategic advice and trusted counsel. We helped clients plan proactively, refocus on measurable performance, navigate the complex and dynamic policy environment, and leverage disruption as an opportunity for repositioning and renewal. We have facilitated new partnerships and brought together new coalitions and conversations to help navigate this uncertainty, strengthen resilience, build confidence, and deliver impact that provides a strong foundation as we move into the year ahead.
So … What Comes Next?
I am not going to pretend to have a crystal ball, and you would all call my bluff if I did. But after another year working at the intersection of cities, companies, and communities, a few signals are coming through clearly.
Cities will continue to be forced to be creative, and that has implications well beyond city hall. With fewer predictable dollars flowing directly from Washington, local governments are sharpening their focus on priorities, partnerships, and outcomes. This puts cities back in the driver’s seat, but it also raises the bar for private and nonprofit partners. The work ahead is not about selling products or chasing pilots. It is about aligning with real civic needs, understanding local constraints, and showing up as a long-term partner rather than a short-term solution.
At the same time, nearly everything is becoming more automated, data-enabled, or AI-assisted. Autonomy is not a binary. It is a spectrum. The opportunity and the risk for both cities and companies is the same. Technology will continue to move faster than policy, procurement, and public trust. The organizations that succeed will be the ones that stay grounded in outcomes, not novelty. At Cityfi, our focus remains on driving positive societal outcomes, including economic growth and innovation, but not at the expense of equity, resilience, sustainability, safety, or great streets. Those tradeoffs are no longer theoretical. They show up in contracts, governance models, and community expectations every day.
Access and place remain central to this work. No matter how digital systems become, people experience cities physically and locally. Streets, libraries, transit, curb space, and public buildings are where public and private interests intersect most visibly. For cities, that means designing infrastructure and policy that works for a wider range of users. For companies, it means understanding that success is tied not just to performance metrics, but to how well solutions fit into lived environments and local values.
Partnerships are more important than ever, and not just in name. Cities cannot deliver alone, and companies cannot scale alone. The next generation of public-private collaboration will require clearer roles, better alignment of incentives, shared accountability, and a willingness to learn in public. We are seeing growing demand for intermediaries, conveners, and translators who can help both sides move faster without breaking trust.
And yes, AI is already reshaping how cities plan, how companies build, and how decisions get made. It is accelerating analysis and opening new possibilities for engagement, but it is also raising new questions about governance, transparency, and equity. It will not make humans irrelevant next year. That is a joke. But it will reward organizations that are intentional about how they use it and honest about its limits.
Looking forward, the work feels more complex and more consequential at the same time. Cities are under real pressure. Companies are navigating uncertain markets and shifting expectations. The opportunity lies in working together more deliberately, with a shared understanding of outcomes and constraints. At Cityfi, our role is to help bridge that gap, translating ambition into action and helping public and private partners build solutions that last.
Cityfi Unwrapped - 2025 Edition
By Ryan Parzick
As has become tradition, we close out the year by putting our own spin on the cultural phenomenon known as Spotify Wrapped by highlighting the most-read stories from the Cityfi Newsletter. Reread the interviews with leaders across our network, deep dives and point-of-view pieces on the issues shaping cities, and showcases of our amazing clients and the work we have partnered with them on.
Sadly (or maybe reassuringly), we can’t include everything our team published this year. If you want more, head over to the Cityfi Newsletter Archives to explore what we’ve been writing about over the past year or, better yet, YEARS.
And with that, grab a warm beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and take a look back at Cityfi’s 2025. We hope you enjoy!
Voices From the Frontlines (Interviews We Have Conducted With Change Makers and Innovators)
January - Lessons from Latin America in Transportation Part 2: Designing Transportation Systems with Gender in Mind - Mujeres en Movimiento - Senior Associates Carolina de Urquijo and Karla Peralta interviewed two leading voices from Latin America who share hard-won lessons on advancing gender equity in transportation. Read their thoughts on topics such as making transit safer and opening doors for women in the mobility workforce.
March - Challenges and Opportunities: Urban Innovation - Partner Story Bellows takes a conversation with then-NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake and explores how technology, equitable mobility, and public-private partnerships can turn New York’s biggest challenges into an opportunity to reimagine how a world-class city actually works for everyone.
October - Taking the Invisible and Making It Trusted: Cityfi Interviews Jacqueline Lu of Helpful Places - Ryan Parzick sat down with Jacqueline Lu, founder and CEO of Helpful Places, to discuss how she transformed from public servant to “accidental technologist” and is now making the invisible digital layer of cities visible and trustworthy through the open-source DTPR standard.
Cityfi’s Deep Thoughts (In-Depth Articles About Topics We Know a Thing or Two About)
January - Small Vehicles, Big Impact: Harmonizing Policy to Unlock Light Urban Mobility - Former Senior Associate Sarah Saltz explored how light urban vehicles could reshape short trips and last-mile delivery and why fixing today’s regulatory patchwork is the key to unlocking their climate, equity, and mobility potential
April - Congestion Pricing: Now is the Time to Act - With New York’s congestion pricing already cutting traffic, speeding commutes, and generating real transit revenue, Principal Marla Westervelt unpacks why the policy’s moment has arrived and what other U.S. cities must get right to make it work.
May - Data Specifications as a Policy Tool: How to Align Private Vendors with Public Values - From scooter chaos to citywide collaboration, Principal Marla Westervelt explores how early data-sharing lessons at Bird reveal why embracing transparency and standards isn’t just compliance, it’s a strategic advantage for urban tech companies today.
Thinking Out Loud (Thought Pieces from the Cityfi Team)
May - The Cost of Knowing Too Much - Partner Story Bellows delves into the hidden costs of data in public services showing why smarter, climate-conscious, and privacy-respecting data strategies can deliver better outcomes without overburdening communities or the planet.
May - Future-Proofing Policy: Building Community Data Infrastructure - Senior Associate Monique Ho highlights why community-centered data isn’t just about information, it’s about equity, trust, and shared power. She shows how cities can build inclusive data systems that inform policies that truly serve everyone. This is a great article to read before checking out our October interview with Jacqueline Lu!
June - Congestion Pricing Is Climate Policy—If We Can Deliver It - Principal Marla Westervelt makes the case that cutting transportation emissions requires more than electrification, it calls for bold policies like congestion pricing paired with civic infrastructure and partnership to give city leaders the political support to make transformative change stick.
July - Leading with “Yes” - Partner Karina Ricks explains why shifting from a default “no” to a thoughtful “yes” in government can unlock innovation. Read about how courage, curiosity, and collaboration pave the way for more agile, equitable, and effective public service.
July - Permission is the Product - Principal Marla Westervelt shares a firsthand startup lesson: scaling in cities isn’t just about product-market fit—it’s about earning public legitimacy, showing why “permission” should be treated as critical infrastructure from day one.
August - It’s Not (Just) Culture: Diagnosing What’s Really Broken - As Senior Principal Camron Bridgford shares, unlocking better performance in public agencies starts not with blaming “culture,” but by uncovering the hidden clarity gaps in structure, roles, and processes that truly drive staff engagement and results.
October - AI Proactive Policy vs Benign Neglect - Ryan Parzick explores how cities can harness AI responsibly by balancing innovation, ethics, and transparency to build public trust rather than letting technology quietly shape operations from the outside in.
The Cityfi Playbook (What We Do at Cityfi)
March - Behind the Scenes: How Cityfi Helps Organizations Thrive - Senior Associate Karla Peralta breaks down how Cityfi helps organizations move from growing pains to real progress using tailored assessments, practical change management, and clear priorities to turn complexity into momentum.
April - Municipal Budget Resilience: A New Era of Uncertainty - Senior Principal Camron Bridgford draws on lessons from Cityfi’s COVID-era budget resilience cohort by showing why those insights matter again and how cities can rethink priorities, revenue, and partnerships to navigate today’s renewed fiscal uncertainty.
August - Communicating Change: Bringing People Along and Building Buy-In - True innovation in cities isn’t just about new technologies, it’s about people, politics, and persistence, argues Partner Story Bellows. She illustrates this point using examples of Cityfi projects such as the Connected Elk Grove initiative and our work on congestion pricing and collaborative cohorts.
August - Making Space to Think Big: Why Teams Need Time to Imagine - Senior Associate Carolina de Urquijo explains how unlocking creativity in teams can be as simple as intentionally designing “sandboxes” where ideas can be explored, tested, and refined to tackle complex challenges and spark innovation.
September - Breaking the Mold, the Cityfi Way - Senior Associate Carolina de Urquijo notes how planning for the future is only useful if it leads to action. In this article, she illustrates a Cityfi differentiator by showing how a people-centered, flexible approach turns bold visions into strategies that actually get implemented.
September - Convening for Change: The Power of Bringing People In - Partner Story Bellows explains one of Cityfi’s core beliefs: how intentionally convening diverse voices—residents, regulators, and industry—creates trusted, durable solutions that truly reflect community priorities.
November - Balancing Priorities in Tension: How LUVs Help Cities Close the Gaps - Building on two earlier Cityfi blog posts (January and June), Principal Marla Westervelt and Partner Karina Ricks argue how Local Use Vehicles (LUVs) can help cities bridge transit gaps, cut emissions, and improve street safety—if only regulations and frameworks catch up.
From Strategy to Streets (Cityfi Projects Highlighted)
February - Cityfi Sampler - From Seattle to the Baltics, this review offers a rapid-fire tour of how Cityfi turns big urban ambitions into real-world results spanning climate strategy, organizational reform, micromobility, innovation districts, and cross-border collaboration.
April - ITSA Reverse Pitch to Improve Getting to the Pitch - From reverse pitches to real-world pilots, Senior Associates Carolina de Urquijo and Chrissy Anecito show how Cityfi is helping 2026 World Cup host cities harness innovation and collective buying power to move millions safely while leaving a lasting mobility legacy.
May - Bringing It All Together: The Importance of Data Frameworks - Ryan Parzick shows how Cityfi helped turn a complex, multi-stakeholder curb management pilot into a replicable model using a shared data framework to align partners, boost EV adoption, and reduce urban congestion and emissions.
June - Collaborating on Climate Solutions: How Public-Private Partnerships are Powering Zero Emission Innovation at the Curb - Senior Associate Chrissy Anecito showcases how Cityfi is helping cities turn curbs into smart, zero-emission spaces using cross-sector collaboration and data-driven pilots to reduce congestion, cut emissions, and create scalable solutions for the future of urban freight.
June - Partnerships Powering Community Prosperity and Innovation in South Park - Senior Associate Monique Ho highlights how Cityfi is helping turn decades of community advocacy in Seattle’s South Park into an equitable, climate-conscious vision where resident-led planning, policy analysis, and economic assessment come together to shape a safer, greener, and more connected neighborhood.
August - How Clear Vision, Processes, and Tools Drive Special Event Mobility Success - When cities host massive events, success isn’t about luck; it’s about aligning partners, clarifying roles, and using tools and processes to turn chaos into safe, predictable, and seamless operations writes Senior Associate Monique Ho.
November - Financing Clean Air Zone Measures in Global South Cities - Senior Associate Karla Peralta quickly introduces how Cityfi and C40 are helping cities bridge the gap between ambitious clean-air policies and financial realities, creating practical funding pathways for low-emission solutions.
November - Designing Public Spaces That Serve Everyone - Partner Story Bellows explains how libraries are redefining what it means to be truly public by balancing access, safety, and community needs in an increasingly complex world.
The Cityfi Cluster #9
By Ryan Parzick
As the year ends, so does the Cityfi Cluster. This is your last chance to play the puzzle which takes themes of the work we do at Cityfi combined with timely categories and jumbles them into seemingly random words. We’d love to give recognition to players in the next full newsletter, so please submit your answer before January 30th and we will give you a shout out for your efforts! If you haven’t played before, it’s not too late to get listed. See below for instructions. It’s been a pleasure creating these puzzles each month for you all!
This is our own version of the New York Times Connections game. The rules are simple, but hopefully, solving the game is not! The challenge: group the 16 words into 4 groups of 4. Each group has a unifying theme. You get one shot, so make it count. Share your solution by emailing us with your 4 groups (you must provide the unifying theme) and the 4 words contained in each theme. An example of a unifying theme could be “Types of Animals” containing the words: “dog,” “cat,” “rabbit,” “deer.”
Last month’s solutions are:
Synonyms for “Thankful”: Grateful, Appreciative, Glad, Indebted
Words that can be followed by “Balance”: Work-Life, Credit Card, Power, Principal
Things that can have Tension: Cables, Muscles, Negotiations, Thrillers
Events in November: Elections, Fall Harvest, Thanksgiving, Veterans’ Day
Where in the World is Cityfi?
Check out where Cityfi will be in the upcoming weeks. We may be speaking at conferences, leading workshops, hosting events, and/or actively engaging in collaborative learning within the community. We would love to see you.
Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting - Washington, DC - January 11th - 15th
The TRB Annual Meeting attracts thousands of transportation professionals from around the world, including the Cityfiers Story Bellows, Karina Ricks, and Camron Bridgford. The program covers all transportation modes, with sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. Let us know you will be there!
Smart Growth America 25th Anniversary Reception - Washington, DC - January 12th
Cityfi is a proud sponsor of Smart Growth America’s 25th Anniversary Reception. A number of Cityfi team members and friends of Cityfi will be attending the reception celebrating a quarter century of promoting and building healthy, prosperous, and resilient communities. If you are attending, our team would love to see you.
Chicago City Builders Book Club - Chicago, IL - January 22nd
If you live in Chicago and consider yourself an urbanist, designer, policy pro, and just someone who likes to read and talk about Chicago, check out the Cityfi sponsored Chicago City Builders Book Club! For the next three meetups, they will be discussing William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. The book will be split into 3 parts, so come join for Part I and come back for Parts II and III to complete the conversation. Each session will stand on its own, but together they will provide a deeper understanding of how Chicago became the metropolis that shaped a region. Principal Marla Westervelt normally co-hosts this book club, bringing together professional city builders to discuss Chicago-centric books that explore local urban and political issues. Check out their LinkedIn page for updates.
Knight Media Forum 2026 - Miami, FL - February 10th - 13th
Join Senior Principal Camron Bridgford in Miami as she attends the annual gathering of practitioners on the frontlines of local journalism, civic engagement, research, academia and the arts. The focus is on advancing local solutions with national relevance and national solutions with local applications. The forum will spotlight local leaders driving change in their communities and host forward-looking, solutions-oriented conversations on some of today’s most urgent challenges and opportunities. Connect with Camron and let her know you want to meet up!b, bringing together professional city builders to discuss Chicago-centric books that explore local urban and political issues. Check out their LinkedIn page for updates.
What We’re Reading
Articles handpicked by the Cityfi team we have found interesting:
Resiliency: A California District Bets on the Transformative Power of Trees
Transit: His Job Is to Make the Subway Accessible. His Own Life Fuels His Work
Reimagined Streets: Denver Activists Hijack Road Signs To Decry The Dangers of Automobility
Civic Innovation: The Mayor’s Playbook: Bologna’s Matteo Lepore (Shared Brain Approach)
All Things Cityfi
Your guide to our services, portfolio of client engagements, team, and…well, all things Cityfi.