Episodes nine and ten in the ongoing series chronicling the dramatic story of one of the greatest cities on the planet – explores the eventful history of New York across the tumultuous first two decades of the 21st century, starting in the aftermath of 9/11, as the city rebuilt and re-conceived itself on a breathtaking scale, and rose to become the supreme exemplar of a global “superstar city” in an era one scholar has called the “new urban age.”

As these transformations occurred, the city would grapple with the challenges facing cities everywhere – including issues of infrastructure, governance, immigration, social justice and equity – at the same time confronting an unprecedented series of world-historic crises – political, financial, climatic and now epidemiological – each different, each existential, each global in reach, each calling on every ounce of the extraordinary resilience and creativity and individual and collective commitment the city can muster – and each, in their way, calling into question the future of cities.

Produced by the same team that created the original NEW YORK series, The Future of Cities presents a sweeping and dramatic portrait of New York since September 11th – a city which, by the dawn of the 21st century, had emerged with stunning swiftness from decades of urban decline, to assert its place at the very center of a new and now globalized urban culture.