The Urbanist published 594 articles in 2018. On average, 34,600 users visited our blog each month in 2018. Both were new records. So thanks to our readers for giving us your time and engaging in this citymaking conversation with us!
Stronger output was built in part on new contributors. We had a new member join our all-volunteer publication staff: Natalie Bicknell, who is settling in nicely as our senior reporter. We’re also getting volunteer copy editors plugged in, which will lighten the load on our senior editors Stephen Fesler and Ryan Packer (and yours truly).
The goal is to bring you ever-improving content that advances urbanist advocacy. At year’s end we detailed our 10 most popular articles of 2018. We’re starting to learn what our readers like. Transit maps and slick renders help, but we’re also so glad that so many folks are willing to get into the weeds with us and go deep with on issues whether it’s how to transform Aurora Avenue for people-centered mobility (and rapid transit) or how to avoid the many pitfalls of adaptive signals.
Admittedly it’s a lot of work to keep a daily publication running. Sometimes stories are late coming in, sources fail to respond, or the website crashes out of the blue and we’re forced to scramble. For the most part, problems get solved quickly thanks to our amazing volunteer staff, and we’re proud of what our organization has accomplished as we celebrate our fifth anniversary.
Still, to anticipate The Urbanist humming along another five years down the road, it’s hard not to imagine needing paid staff in place in order to keep improving the quality of our journalism and advocacy–and avoid drop off when volunteers move on or reach their burn out point.
That’s what this winter subscriber drive is all about. We want to thank the many readers who donated, and I’ll make one last pitch to those who are still on the fence. Please give to invest in a brighter urbanist future.
2019 Subscriber Drive
Doug Trumm is publisher of The Urbanist. An Urbanist writer since 2015, he dreams of pedestrianizing streets, blanketing the city in bus lanes, and unleashing a mass timber building spree to end the affordable housing shortage and avert our coming climate catastrophe. He graduated from the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington in 2019. He lives in East Fremont and loves to explore the city on his bike.