Progress starts with a better question.
FastFWD is an independent journal about civic technology, urban innovation, and the practical systems that make a city work.
For the people doing the work
A city is a network of everyday promises: water comes from the tap, a bus arrives, a request reaches someone who can help. Technology matters when it helps keep those promises.
We publish field guides, explainers, and close readings of real projects for public-service teams, researchers, entrepreneurs, and curious citizens. Our focus is the connection between an interesting idea and a useful, dependable service.
Practical, with perspective
We ask what problem is being solved, who benefits, what the evidence supports, and what it takes to keep a solution working. Costs, maintenance, accessibility, privacy, and institutional capacity belong in the same conversation as technical possibilities.
Our five connected themes are civic technology, urban innovation, sustainability, digital infrastructure, and innovation stories. Examples come from the United States and beyond. We distinguish a project’s ambitions from its measured results, and a transferable lesson from a universal prescription.
A name with a history
The fast-fwd.org domain previously hosted FastFWD, a Philadelphia civic-innovation accelerator established through a partnership involving the City of Philadelphia, GoodCompany, and the Wharton Social Impact Initiative.
This journal is a new, independent publication. It does not represent, operate, or claim organizational continuity with the original accelerator or its partners. Our documented retrospective explains that earlier initiative and the questions it raised.
Built for a longer shelf life
We favor a useful explanation over a daily publishing schedule. Publication dates tell you when a piece first appeared; an update date means the substance has changed. We do not refresh dates to make an unchanged article look new.
Read our editorial standards for how we handle sources, limitations, and corrections. Browse the journal, or follow new publications through our RSS feed.
Contact the publication
Send questions, suggested sources, and corrections by email. For a correction, include the article address, the passage in question, and a source we can check.