Jeff Brown is labeling himself as the anti-politician ahead of the May 16 primary for Philadelphia’s mayoral race. If elected, he will be the first person in a century to become mayor without having worked in government.
To meet his goal of 500,000 new homes in the next decade, the New York City mayor has proposed new approaches to address the housing crisis, including creating incentives, single-room occupancies and more.
While improvements could take a decade to complete and cost more than $200 million, officials are hopeful that the city’s downtown transit system can improve its broken and run-down stations to boost ridership.
Ridership levels on the system’s Gold and Red lines were only 30 and 56 percent of pre-pandemic levels, respectively. Meanwhile, 22 people have died on Metro buses and trains since January and serious crime increased 24 percent last year.
To combat the problem, “sign rangers” are trained by the county attorney’s office to spot and remove illegal signage. State lawmakers are considering increasing penalties against sign bandits to as much as $5,000.
An initiative in Orange County, Calif., is taking an innovative approach to reducing social determinants of poor health. Screenings are vital, but social and environmental factors set the stage for the problems they detect.
Natural gas and electricity consumption by buildings are the city’s greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and yet there aren’t any city-mandated climate standards that buildings must meet.
A 2021 investigation revealed Chicago’s deeply flawed inspection system for identifying and responding to safety issues in residential buildings. Since the report was published, 53 more people have died in residential fires.
Missouri's Legislature has a plan to take over the police force in St. Louis. It's just one example of states taking direct control of public safety in their largest cities.
The vote will determine whether Madison, Ala., should transition from a mayor-council format to a council-manager format, which is unusual for the state. If approved, the city will have until 2025 to make the transition.
Though the Auditor of State hasn’t identified any government in Ohio that is improperly spending its pandemic funds, debates have sparked about whether the funds can be appropriately used on things like a new jail or improved baseball stadium.
Pandemic assistance to families at risk of food insecurity has ended. As a “hunger cliff” looms, programs in public libraries can fill gaps.
Before 2020, they seldom voted against certifying results. But in 2022, conservative officials in North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Mexico refused to do so.
Urban areas grew in 36 states. The New York-Jersey City-Newark urban area is the nation’s most populous with 19.4 million residents followed by the 12.2 million in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area.
Nearly a dozen counties in Oregon have voted to leave Salem behind and join Idaho. Local secession movements have sprung up in multiple states due to the urban-rural political divide.
The California county is examining millions of documents to remove discriminatory language to adhere to a 2021 state law. So far only 19 property deeds have been modified. They came primarily from the 1940s and ‘50s.
