For our spring subscriber drive this year, The Urbanist is launching a redesigned website featuring a long-requested reader perk: ad-free reading for members.
Ad-free reading was the most requested change in The Urbanistās 2025 Annual Readership Survey, and while it took us some time to deliver, the day has finally come!
While we updated our website primarily to improve the reading experience for everybody, members with a qualifying donation will now be able to read free of pop-up ads. Crafting a wholly new version of the site on a new platform was a ton of work.
Naturally, this is a moment when we ask our readers to support The Urbanist and help us expand our content and publishing team.
Those who give are helping us put out more stories. The Urbanist last expanded its staff at the beginning of 2025. Our goal is to grow again by 2027. We know there is plenty of urbanism news, particularly on the Eastside and South King County, that we donāt have the capacity to report on. Often, when we donāt report on these issues, no one does.
Advertising helps support our newsroom, but member support allows us to rely less on ads and invest more in reporting. Support The Urbanist, help us expand our publishing team, and claim your new membership perks while youāre at it.
Whatās new with the website, member perks
This new iteration of The Urbanist site runs faster and allows us to give membership perks. Weāre also now offering a dark mode, which can be toggled in the navbar.
Donors can now sign in to the website to manage their subscription on the donation page and in the account page in the navbar. Signing in is also how you get your perksāso if you want to read ad-free, make sure to sign in.
While more perks are on the way for those who donate at the supporter tier, we wanted to roll this out sooner rather than later to improve your reading experience. Readers will even be able to weigh in on what perks they would like next on this year's annual readership survey, which we will put out in the coming weeks.
If you are not currently a donor to The Urbanist, go to our donation page and sign up for the Member tier of donations to get ad-free reading. If you already donate at or above that tier, simply sign in using the email address associated with your donation. Signing in will send a code and link to your email inbox. Use either to log in.
As with all major transitions, some hiccups are to be expected. If you are a current donor and are having issues signing in, send an email to membership@theurbanist.org.
If you notice a bug or something that isnāt working correctly with the site, email Diego@theurbanist.org.
If you canāt give $10/month but still want to support our work, there is a box to give custom amounts on the donate page. While we are excited to offer membership perks, at our core, we are still relying on support from readers who value our journalism.
We also accept tax-deductible donations through The Urbanist Fund, as well as corporate matching.
What isnāt changing with The Urbanist
We are still writing independent, nonprofit journalism, and we are committed to keeping our reporting accessible to the public. We are not paywalling or blocking access to our articles, archive, or future work.
Membership perks reflect our commitment to giving back to our readers and improving their reading experience. We rely on you to support our work so we can continue to grow and expand our team. Advertising accounted for 25% of our 2025 budget and is a constantly fluctuating revenue source. Donations and monthly memberships give us a more consistent and reliable base from which to plan, grow, and work.
We hope you enjoy the new site and take advantage of the memberships perks we can offer. Thank you for supporting, reading, attending events, and being a part of The Urbanist community.
