Authors

Public Safety & Justice

Cities' efforts to get tough on crime can make it harder for low-income residents to find good jobs and housing.

Health & Human Services

Decades of local zoning regulations and land-use policies have kept racial segregation firmly rooted in place.

Education

Segregated schools aren’t just the products of segregated neighborhoods. In many cases, predominantly white schools are driving the racial divide.

Public Safety & Justice

The black-white divide is still a major problem. Government policies are partially to blame.

Urban

The U.S. Conference of Mayors gathered in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to discuss its agenda and tout its members' ability to work across party lines -- even on immigration.

Health & Human Services

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Bill de Blasio initiated ambitious plans this week to cover drastically more residents, including undocumented immigrants who are not currently eligible for subsidized insurance.

Management & Labor

Goodbye, elevator music!

Urban

In less than four years, St. Petersburg, Fla., has reduced the number of vacant homes by more than 75 percent.

Public Safety & Justice

Washington, D.C., is the latest school district to adopt the technology in an effort to improve emergency response times.

Public Safety & Justice

While state lawmakers have been locked in a stalemate on the issue, the city has implemented new rules and programs that have helped it achieve the lowest incarceration rate of any big U.S. city.

Health & Human Services

Lawyers in Philadelphia think so. They want the city, which is suffering from an eviction crisis, to spend more on helping people fight landlords in court.

Finance

A new study points to evidence that luring a large corporation isn’t the best way to spur job growth.

Education

Small schools and high poverty schools are putting their students at the biggest disadvantage, according to a new report.

Politics & Elections

But the voter-approved measure still faces several major hurdles.

Politics & Elections

The constitutional amendment, allowing religious monuments in government buildings, will almost surely wind up in court.

Politics & Elections

Florida voters opted to automatically restore voting rights to former felons, affecting some 1.4 million residents. In Louisiana, voters instituted a five-year waiting period for felons to seek political office.

Urban

It was supported by many city and county officials but opposed by Gavin Newsom, the newly elected Democratic governor.

Education

Voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have made the position appointed.

Education

Just ask New Haven, the home of Yale.

Politics & Elections

If Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti intervenes in the labor dispute, political observers say practically every potential outcome could hurt his future.

Education

In school districts across the country, being held accountable for grades and graduation rates has motivated educators to tamper with results. Some places are starting to crack down on this temptation.

Politics & Elections

What do offshore drilling and vaping have to do with each other? Nothing, except that they appear together on one ballot question in Florida, which appears to be ground zero this year for legal battles over ballot language.

Infrastructure & Environment

Several cities and transit agencies have been working with the TSA to test the security devices.

Management & Labor

The online retail giant's new relationship with public schools and agencies raises concerns that the company is cornering the marketplace and costing taxpayers more money.

Urban

Location-based apps like Yelp and Foursquare might be exacerbating housing problems in transitional neighborhoods.

Finance

They have created fiscal stress for states and municipalities, and exacerbated inequality. A new report offers a simple solution to alleviate those issues.

Management & Labor

Charlotte, N.C., is using the sporting event as an opportunity to close the investment gaps between businesses owned by white women and people of color.

Workforce

The Supreme Court's decision could weaken unions' collective bargaining power, which has historically benefited women of color more than most.

Urban

Cat Goughnour is pushing several cities to give community members more say in urban design.

Urban

A lawsuit alleges that Washington, D.C., illegally wooed "creative-class" millennials at the expense of longtime residents. Others argue, "this is not a conspiracy. This is capitalism.”

Education

Some promising signs suggest the city may be turning around its troubled school system. It offers lessons for other struggling districts.

Politics & Elections

The push to form new governments is heating up in places from Georgia to California.

Management & Labor

There's a growing movement to eliminate the so-called tip credit for bartenders and servers. Washington, D.C., could be next to outlaw the practice.

Politics & Elections

San Francisco just elected its first black female mayor at a time when the number of big-city black mayors has been on the decline. Their leadership style has changed, too.

Health & Human Services

Libraries across the country are training their staff to administer the drug that can reverse an overdose.

Urban

The annual National League of Cities report reveals a shift in the way mayors talk, especially about infrastructure.

Education

Austin Beutner, the new leader of Los Angeles schools, is the latest big-city superintendent with no education experience. Some say that -- and his ties to charter schools -- are cause for concern.

Urban

Land use experts question whether vacant property taxes are the right way to spur development.

Urban

Roanoke, Va., is betting big on beer.

Infrastructure & Environment

Despite an urban real estate boom, the home-values gap for traditionally African-American neighborhoods is actually getting worse.

Urban

Fayetteville, N.C., earned the top honors in the annual Equipt to Innovate report, a joint study from Governing and the nonprofit Living Cities.

Politics & Elections

The justices will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a case over the state's legislative and congressional maps, which have been accused of discriminating against black and Latino voters.

Public Safety & Justice

The Supreme Court required prosecutors to do this decades ago, but they don't always follow the rules. New York is the latest state to strengthen them.

Urban

Under the Trump administration, and most Republican White Houses, enforcement of the 1968 anti-discrimination law has weakened. Housing advocates say the constantly changing federal approach has held back progress.

Public Safety & Justice

Predictive technologies promise to let police fight crime before it happens. But do they work?

Management & Labor

Baltimore's 911 system and a range of city services in Atlanta were hijacked in the past week.

Urban

A new study is the latest to show that landlords often discriminate against minorities and people who use rental vouchers.

Management & Labor

New York City is betting that it can learn important lessons from the way the private sector runs. The bet is starting to pay off.

Public Safety & Justice

A new report ranks states' economic reliance on firearms, taking into account jobs, sales and political contributions.

Politics & Elections

The president doesn't want the federal government to help fund public radio and TV stations anymore. Such cuts could exacerbate the already sharp decline in coverage of state capitols and city halls.

Public Safety & Justice

As an African-American Democrat, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas isn't like a lot of other anti-drug advocates.

Education

Of the cities studied, only in New Orleans did white students travel farther than their black peers.

Management & Labor

Florida is closest to ending the clock-changing practice, but other states have flirted with the idea.

Public Safety & Justice

The NRA has "in essence become a terrorist organization," said Gov. Dannel Malloy, who is considering cutting it out of the state's gun permitting process. It's not the only state, however, that directs funds toward the group.

Finance

Republicans eliminated some of the tax benefits for owning a home. But experts aren't sure how much that will matter.

Public Safety & Justice

Atlanta, Chicago and Minneapolis have won funding to better identify and help victims.

Management & Labor

Emails, voicemails, texts, Facebook and Twitter have made it easier for residents to reach out to governments -- and harder for governments to respond.

Infrastructure & Environment

More than 40 city leaders have joined a new exchange to share disaster relief expertise with their local counterparts on the island.

Education

New studies suggest that school vouchers have minimal impact on college enrollment and even less of an effect on college graduation rates.

Education

Barely one in 10 students scored proficient on recent state reading exams.

Public Safety & Justice

The Roca program has helped keep hundreds of youths out of jail in Massachusetts. Now officials want to transplant that success to one of the toughest crime cities in the nation.

Education

The president's budget calls for a $1.1 billion investment in school choice.

Education

Everyone agrees the state's education system isn't working. But no one can agree on how to fix it.

Public Safety & Justice

Homicide rates are at an all-time high in the city, and its police department has been mired in turmoil. The state is stepping in.

Urban

The number of children packed into overcrowded homes remains high and comes at a tremendous social cost.

Education

Thanks to a generation of underfunding, many big-city school districts now face deteriorating buildings and billions of dollars in maintenance needs.

Finance

Housing experts predict that the tax overhaul will spur home values and property tax revenues to drop, forcing cities to find new ways to raise money -- or to cut spending.

Urban

As rents and demand for renting increase, millions of Americans are being evicted -- sometimes with only a few days' notice.

Politics & Elections

The recount on Thursday confirmed Keisha Lance Bottoms' lead, likely keeping the city's decades-long tradition of black mayors alive. But shifting demographics will change how people lead it.

Public Safety & Justice

The city is eliminating short-term jail sentences for low-level misdemeanors. Other cities will undoubtedly be watching the impact.

Urban

After four years in office, the New York mayor has a mixed reputation among liberals. But he seemingly has a chance to change that.

Urban

What started as a fringe movement has gained steam in recent years.

Public Safety & Justice

Nevada's recent politics suggest just how difficult it can be for states to enact gun control measures -- even when a majority of citizens favor them.

Public Safety & Justice

The Trump administration's latest reversal of Obama policing strategies instead puts an emphasis on tough-on-crime policies. But the shift will undermine efforts to rebuild relations between communities and police, say many law enforcement officials and experts.

Health & Human Services

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, it hit one of the country's biggest gateways for refugees -- a population that has already had to rebuild their lives and will now struggle to do it again.

Health & Human Services

A coastal North Carolina city ranks first in the nation in opioid abuse. Now it wants to become an innovation hub for battling the crisis.

Urban

Houston is the nation's fourth largest city. While all urban areas present unique evacuation challenges, some are bigger than others.

Public Safety & Justice

New York City is taking an innovative approach that relies on street-level "violence interrupters" to curb crimes involving weapons. Chicago's been doing it for years.

Public Safety & Justice

Are they prepared?