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The holiday season is here, and so is our annual guide to the best gifts for urbanists, city planners and community advocates. Whether you’re shopping for someone pushing for safer streets, expanding access to housing, advancing racial and economic justice, or strengthening neighborhood-led development, we’ve curated thoughtful picks that support their work – and their imagination.
As always, our list highlights small, worker-owned, BIPOC-owned and mission-driven makers whose products reflect the values of equitable, just and resilient cities. No affiliate links. No paid placements. Just gifts that reflect the creativity, care and commitment of our journalism.
Looking for more ideas? Explore our 2024, 2023 and 2022 gift guides, where you’ll find dozens of additional suggestions.
Gifts for foodies
$100-$160: Run by a father-son duo in Nunavut, Canada, Inu-vations Inc is a small business that hand-crafts modern Uluit knives based on their Inuit heritage. These crescent-shaped knives have traditionally been used by Inuit women for skinning hides, sewing and harvesting meat.
$3.99+: Earlier this year, our Kentucky-based reporting fellow reported on Black Soil, a nonprofit organization supporting Black agribusinesses around the state and connecting them with urban families. One of many small businesses they support is Beeing2gether, LLC, which raises and breeds honey bees in inner-city Louisville. Order their honeycomb bits, their seasonal-change wellness kit, their honey ginseng tea and more. Read more about efforts to support Kentucky’s Black farmers.
$40+: Food company Blue Stripes makes chocolate bars, granola, gummy candy and other snacks out of the oft-discarded pulp and husks of the cacao fruit, as detailed by our friends at Grist. Their gift boxes feature an assortment of their offerings.
$75: In June, Destin Sandlin, the engineer behind science education channel Smarter Every Day, challenged himself to make a product that was manufactured entirely in the United States. The result was The Smarter Scrubber Grill Brush, a buy-it-for-life barbecue grill brush designed without wire bristles – any health care professional has horror stories about patients that accidentally ate or inhaled one of these metal spikes.
Handmade gifts rooted in place
$350-650: For a deeply personal, heirloom-quality gift, Meek Oak’s Samantha Montella creates soft yet striking custom woven portraits of homes – a memorable gift for a new homeowner or a partner marking a major community development milestone. Explore her work (and mesmerizing process videos) on Instagram.
$14-54: You’ve seen the typical map-themed coasters and decor items, but these ones by All Mapped Out have a twist. Each map is sourced and repurposed from a vintage atlas, handpicked by geography doctorate-holder Candice Luebbering. Luebbering is among the vendors that was able to transition to a full-time business through local markets hosted by a Washington, D.C. museum, as Next City has explored through a series on women in small-scale manufacturing.
Functional, sustainable goods
$193: Rewilder is a women-founded upcycling company, creating zero-waste fashion from salvaged industrial textiles. Take this limited edition water-resistant backpack (fit for a 15-inch laptop) — one of just two items available at the moment — which was made of auto airbags and seatbelts, salvaged from factory scraps and end rolls that would have gone to the landfill otherwise.
$73+: Eighth Generation, a Seattle-based company owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe, sells wool and cotton blankets designed entirely by Indigenous artists. Check out the warm brown-patterned Connections wool blanket, designed by McKenna Sweet Dorman and Jaime Martin, or the more affordable Calling Mountains cotton throw designed by Josh Swift.
$8: In Good Company is a D.C.-based, women-owned small business creating colorful nail polishes in small bottles you can actually use up. Each mini-bottle contains about eight manicures worth of each vegan polish. The business also runs a recycling program, allowing customers to return used bottles to be reused.
$5-23: Rather than purchasing new clothes, help your giftee extend the life of their favorite items through no-sew patches. No-sew patches aren’t revolutionary by any means, but NoSo Patches can help your outdoorsy friend repair their ripped nylon jackets, sleeping bags and tents. Or explore more custom options on Etsy.
“The Banks We Deserve”
$27: Order a signed copy of Next City senior economic justice correspondent Oscar Perry Abello’s debut book, “The Banks We Deserve: Reclaiming Community Banking for a Just Economy,” built on a decade of reportage on solutions for inclusive finance and community economic development. (Next City members get 30% off all Island Press titles, including Oscar’s book, by using the promo code NEXTCITY.) Read an excerpt on community banking’s crucial role in addressing urgent social challenges.
More books for adults:
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“One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” a National Book Award-winning memoir by Palestinian writer Omar El Akkad.
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“Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores,” by Atlanta-based Black bookstore owner Katie Mitchell. Read an excerpt and watch our author talk.
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“Not Quite Home,” a novel set in the midst of Portland, Oregon’s housing and homelessness crisis and written by nonprofit CEO and former local elected official Temple Lentz.
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Belt Publishing’s 50 Maps series — which includes tiles examining Detroit, Buffalo, the Great Lakes, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh — would be a valuable addition to the urban cartography enthusiast in your life.
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“Engineering in Plain Sight,” by Practical Engineering channel founder Grady Hillhouse offers an illustrated field guide to the built environment.
Books for youth:
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“Meet Me on Love Street,” a charming young adult romance novel by Toronto-based author Farah Heron, follows a teen saving her neighborhood from gentrification…and finding love along the way.
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“Your Money and the World,” by sustainable finance specialist Cecile Biccari, bills itself as a comic book-style introduction to sustainable finance for curious kids.
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“The Cities of the Future,” the award-winning book by Parisian designer Didier Cornille, shows how 10 cities around the world are driving change through innovative urban design.
Games and activities
$50+: The worker-owned publisher TESA Collective has been producing board games and card games that uplift the cooperative model for the past 13 years. Titles include “Community Garden: The Board Game,” “STRIKE! The Game of Worker Rebeliion,” and “Co-opoly: The Game of Co-operatives.”
$48: Born out of the pandemic, “Heard It All Before: A Game of Hip-Hop Samples” allows players to race to name music originals and samples based on a snippet of a song.
Bike accessories
$88+: Helmets aren’t the solution to the cyclist safety crisis. But they can be an important, albeit inconvenient, part of a cyclist’s safety toolkit. For bikeshare users, or those who would prefer to wear a helmet but find it inconvenient or impossible to store while at their destination, a foldable bike helmet might be the solution. A handful of companies produce well-rated options, including Closca, Overade and Fend.
$120: Beeline’s Velo 2 is a simple, compact navigation device designed to allow cyclists to access turn-by-turn directions and monitor their speed without having to use their phones.
