Housing and Urban Issues
Stresses on urban communities continue to affect housing, food security, child services, homelessness, business development and crime. Coverage includes stories about new solutions to how cities are run, how they develop as urban centers and about the people who live there.
The plug was pulled five years ago on a Google plan to build a digitally connected neighborhood in Toronto. The innovative opportunities it suggested — and the privacy questions it raised — have not gone away.
A bill would allow local governments to devote up to a quarter of their homeless funds to residential programs that practice sobriety.
They help a lot of individuals and their communities. The proposed cuts would just shift the burden to emergency rooms, shelters and already overwhelmed local systems.
Rent increases will be limited to 10 percent per year, with an exemption for newly built units for a dozen years.
The “No Buddy Left Behind” program employs veterans to find and then help house homeless veterans.
The city’s total homeless population is declining, but the number of homeless children has reached record highs. The number of homeless schoolchildren has doubled in the last five years.
Matt Privratsky was appointed to serve as an interim city council member in St. Paul after the previous member resigned. He’ll cast some consequential votes.
A pair of bills that would encourage construction are moving through the state Senate despite the opposition of key committee chairs.
Despite a shift in the definition of the term “smart city” in recent years, the effort to make cities smarter continues, and it has evolved to include new technologies — and even tech-agnostic approaches.
States that are adding more housing and approving more permits are seeing their birth rates go up.
To address the housing crisis, we need to pick up the pace of development without sacrificing commitments to low-income residents and environmental protections.
Over the years, Los Angeles voters have approved billions in homeless funding — and created layer upon layer of independent institutions.
The post-pandemic pattern of rural growth continues, following years of decline. Two-thirds of the nation's rural growth is taking place in the South.
An environmental law has been a powerful tool for people seeking to block construction. Lawmakers may be poised to change it.
A hundred days into the job, Daniel Lurie has been aggressive about stepping up services and addressing downtown woes. He’s won over some critics but the city faces major challenges including a billion-dollar budget shortfall.
As momentum builds in Washington to refresh the program, attention needs to be paid to key leverage points. Along with public officials, philanthropy, investors and coalitions have important roles to play.
Rather than limiting curfews to downtown, police could give teens a half-hour to disperse from any part of the city at any time.
The New Hampshire legislature is considering dozens of policies aimed at making housing more affordable, a priority for first-year Gov. Kelly Ayotte. Some policies are gaining bipartisan support, but debates over local control still rage.
Atlanta is achieving notable success with its data-driven efforts to build and preserve housing, which the city sees as key to revitalizing distressed neighborhoods and confronting social challenges.
Philadelphia, San Francisco and Berkeley, Calif., have also banned algorithms that can lead to price-gouging, with similar proposals brewing in other major cities.
The administration is shifting resources away from Housing First, the long-established approach of getting individuals into supportive housing as the first priority.
San Antonio created a housing strategy that’s made it more affordable than most other large cities.
Residents of mobile-home parks have seen costs rise as investors buy up properties. Lawmakers in several states are looking to add more guardrails.
In a switch from its previous approach, the chamber has passed a series of bills that will reduce barriers to construction and limit localities’ ability to set limits.
HUD has warned local housing authorities that a $5 billion fund for emergency rental assistance is nearly out of cash, putting 60,000 households at risk of eviction.
A historian makes that argument in a new book. But maybe we just don’t want — or need — to move as much as we used to.
Mayor Matt Mahan said too many people are dying on the streets. His proposal would push people into services after they refuse shelter three times in 18 months.
An upsurge of corporate purchases of single-family homes has sparked legislation in at least half a dozen states this year. Legislators hope to preserve homeownership as a path to building wealth for middle-class families and limit the number of properties owned by large corporations.
The House and Senate are pursuing separate approaches that would offer greater relief either to homeowners or commercial properties.
A YIMBY group documents how the policies have had “limited or no impact.” But accessory dwelling units have been a success story: In one year alone, more than 28,000 of them got permits.
Sioux Falls is building a website to help connect residents with income-restricted housing. It hopes the tool will get people into housing faster and lower the vacancy rate among subsidized units.
