News Next Door

Chinese
English
Photon
Plain Language + ElevenLabs
Plain Language + ElevenLabs

Inspiration

New York City never stops talking! In fact, it is one of the most linguistically diverse places on earth, with 23% of its population made up of immigrants. But while the city speaks hundreds of languages, much of the information that shapes its neighborhoods speaks just one: English.

Every day, there are government decisions, local news events, and neighborhood developments that directly affect immigrant communities. A rezoning in Long Island City, a bus priority corridor in Jackson Heights, or a playground redesign in Greenpoint all go through a community board, a public review period, and a vote. Yet much of this information is written in complex English rather than plain language, making it difficult for immigrant voters to understand what is happening in their own communities.

What it does

For a neighbor who reads Mandarin or Spanish more comfortably than English, or someone who is 72 and does not want to squint at 13 pixel gray text, finding out what is happening in their own neighborhood can be surprisingly difficult.

News Next Door is a platform that works more like a neighborhood newspaper: big text, short sentences, one idea per line, and information in the language you actually think in.

Users can:

Translate local news and government updates into their preferred language
Simplify complicated information into clear, easy to understand language
Listen to articles through text to speech
Follow issues and neighborhoods and receive personalized updates, similar to a newsletter.
Talk to an agent in their iMessages to subscribe to news, summarize, and translate.

Whether your block is in Astoria, Ridgewood, Williamsburg, or Chelsea, the goal is the same: make local information easier to understand, easier to access, and harder to miss.

How we built it

Zone News: Pulls live zoning applications from NYC Planning’s Zoning Application Portal and maps them to official Community District boundaries.
City News: Pulls New York Times city and regional news across all five boroughs and turns each story into a short, 30 second read.
Plain Language AI: Uses Grok via xAI to summarize new articles, simplify complex language, translate content, and answer questions through iMessage.
Text to Speech: Uses ElevenLabs to turn articles into audio for users who prefer listening.
iMessage: Uses Photon/Spectrum to send personalized updates, translations, and answers directly through iMessage.
Web App: Built with React 19, Vite 8, Leaflet, and CSS
Backend: Built with Node, with SQLite for persistent storage and local audio files.
Authentication: Uses Better Auth for email and password authentication.

Challenges we ran into

Working with messy civic data: NYC zoning and community district data came from different sources and formats, so we had to figure out how to reliably connect applications to the correct neighborhoods.
Building iMessage integration: Getting messages, translations, and updates to work smoothly through iMessage required working around a less conventional messaging setup.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Designed for the people who are often left out, with multilingual support, accessible formatting, and personalized neighborhood updates at the core of the experience.
Connected the web to iMessage, allowing users to receive updates and ask questions without having to navigate another website.
Made complex information more accessible by turning dense government and news content into short, plain language summaries and audio.

What's next for News Next Door

Expand coverage: Integrate more local news sources and civic data to cover more neighborhoods and community issues across NYC.
Add more languages: Support more languages to make local news accessible to even more immigrant communities.