Los Angeles has long been shaped as a creative frontier, formed by migration, ambition, and reinvention. As it confronts intensifying wildfires, housing pressures, and cultural transformation, LA offers powerful insight into how communities adapt, build resilience, and create belonging in a city defined by the pursuit of prosperity. 

This Future Fridays session brings together artists, organizers, and civic voices who are shaping the region’s evolving identity. Through lived experience and conversations, participants will explore how place and identity evolve together to influence opportunity, culture, and community. 

About Future Fridays 

Future Fridays is the National Building Museum’s signature online series as part of the Future Cities initiative, hosted by James Darius Ball, director of Future Cities. Each one-hour session highlights the people, stories, and decisions that shape cities and everyday life in communities across the country. 

In its second year, the series emphasizes personal narratives and community perspectives, showing how residents, planners, designers, and civic leaders influence neighborhoods, public spaces, and city life. Participants can share their own perspectives, ask questions, and gain insight into how local choices reflect broader trends shaping American cities. 

Future Cities programming extends beyond Future Fridays, with a four-year slate of exhibitions, events, lectures, publications, digital activations, and community-based engagements designed to reach audiences from all walks of life and encourage participation in shaping the places where they live, work, and play.