Focused on civic issues related to housing, education, criminal justice, the environment, economic and government policy, City Limits publishes in-depth news and analysis daily.

The publication would expand to become an investigative monthly magazine that covered other major policy issues over the next three decades, establishing the Center for an Urban Future in 1996 as a research institution dedicated to exploring policy solutions that were featured in City Limits' reportage.

In 2009, City Limits was acquired by the Community Service Society of New York and re-launched as a single-issue bi-monthly magazine and weekly news website.

[4] Since 2009, City Limits received several journalism awards for its investigations, including two Sigma Delta Chi Awards for the September 2010 report, "Risky Play: Was New York City's Shift to Artificial Grass a $300 Million Mistake", and the May 2011 investigation, "Behind Bars: Male Guards, Female Inmates and Sexual Abuse in New York State Prisons".

[5] City Limits has been recognized for its reporting by the Park Center for Independent Media, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Journalism Center on Children & Families, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists' Association, the National Education Writers' Association, the National Council on Crime & Delinquency, and the New York Community Media Alliance.