As We Rise: Community Voice & Power for the Future

Cassondra Warney
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The As We Rise podcast explores flood resilience by combining a private public fund and citizen assembly, focusing on reducing flooding within the Gowanus watershed in Brooklyn. Learn more and follow the season at cassondrawarney.com

Episodes

  1. Jun 1

    Turns Out, NYC Has Some Pretty Great Civic Tools

    Taking inspiration from Danh Vō's She Was More Like a Beauty Queen from a Movie Screen, an artwork that uses fragments of history to puncture the myth of American democracy as perfect and unquestionable, this episode sits with our American democracy reality while also celebrating the civic tools New York City has been quietly building and should be leaning into right now.  In this episode we learn and celebrate the sustained civic work of the last decade: participatory budgeting, the creation of the Civic Engagement Commission, and meaningful efforts to bring everyday New Yorkers into public decision-making from one of the primary architects, Brad Lander, current congressional candidate for District 10, along with hearing directly from those now implementing this work across the boroughs at the NYC Civic Engagement Commission, Benjamin Solotaire. We'll also get their advice on the watershed-focused assembly. Resources and Links Danh Vō, She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene, 2009. Statens Museum for Kunst Brad Lander for Congress NYC Civic Engagement Commission  The book both Brad and Benjamin reference: Hélène Landemore, Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule (2026):  Learn more and follow the season at cassondrawarney.com

  2. May 21

    Billion-Dollar Projects vs. Thousand-Dollar Solutions

    What if the solution to NYC's flooding crisis is sitting in your building's backyard? The As We Rise Podcast explores building flood resilience across NYC watersheds through coordinated, block-by-block private property investments. In this second episode, host Cassondra Warney asks what it will take to get nimble in the face of a city that is only getting wetter. Turns out, NYC is now subtropical. Just as Otto Frello's painting The Rain captures the weight of something that cannot be stopped, this conversation explores how some of that water can be redirected. Guests Tyler Taba of Waterfront Alliance and Sam Robinson of Field Form make the case that block-scale, neighborhood solutions are essential to how the city responds to flooding. Resources and Links Otto Frello, The Rain. Courtesy of Varde Museums, Denmark:  Waterfront Alliance  Field Form Learn more and follow the season at cassondrawarney.com

  3. May 14

    Old Ideas for a New Climate Reality

    What does a 14th-century Italian fresco have to say about flooding in Brooklyn? More than you might think. The As We Rise Podcast explores building flood resilience across NYC watersheds through coordinated, block-by-block private property investments. In this first episode, host Cassondra Warney traces her path from an Arizona state legislature internship to the streets of Brooklyn, and asks a question that has followed her entire career: what does good government actually look like? Using medieval art that captured the Allegory of Good and Bad Government, she makes the case that the best ideas about civic life, resilience, and how communities organize themselves have never belonged to any one country or era. The solutions to NYC's flooding crisis may be older, and stranger, than we expect. Resources and Links Artwork: Allegory of Good and Bad Government, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 1338–1339. Fresco, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. Learn more and follow the season at cassondrawarney.com

  4. Season 1, Episode 1 Trailer

    Trailer for As We Rise: Community Voice & Power for the Future

    Listen to the trailer for the As We Rise podcast that explores building flood resilience across NYC watersheds through coordinated, block-by-block private property investments.

Trailer

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The As We Rise podcast explores flood resilience by combining a private public fund and citizen assembly, focusing on reducing flooding within the Gowanus watershed in Brooklyn. Learn more and follow the season at cassondrawarney.com

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