The Festival of Ideas for the New City was a major collaboration between dozens of New York cultural and community organizations working together to effect change. Spearheaded by the New Museum, the Festival brought together artists, architects, urban planners, and creative thinkers to address overarching issues of transformation and change. The purpose of the Festival was to demonstrate the power of the creative community and to test possibilities and imagine the future of the city. The Festival reflected a collaboration between arts, education, and community organizations that sought to address urban futures that would have a city-wide impact and global implications.

Running from May 4-8, 2011, through four days of lectures, panels, workshops, an innovative StreetFest, over one hundred performances, exhibitions and events, the event was attended by over 70,000 visitors. The themes of this festival included: the Heterogeneous City, the Sustainable City, the Reconfigured City, and the Networked City. Each theme was reflected with a lecture and panel discussion about the topic.

The Festival of Ideas for the New City was the inaugural event of what would become an ongoing collaborative civic and creative platform, IdeasCity.