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 circumstances have to be right, and real urban change agents know not to promise the impossible.
Outdated assessment systems are opaque and structurally biased, leading to “data rot.” Local governments should invest in tools that make it easier for taxpayers to understand how their property is valued.
Whether they come from abroad or elsewhere in the U.S., they are reshaping communities in profound ways. That’s not likely to change.
Sixty-five people from a long-standing encampment have been placed in stable housing, and outreach efforts are expanding under a structured rapid-rehousing strategy.
State officials say federal agents violated Minnesota law, blocked investigators and left a crime scene unsecured, deepening a rift with the Trump administration.
How people feel about where they live is an overlooked factor in engaging them in civic life. There are ways to boost those feelings.
Public officials can make the greatest difference when they focus on their communities’ housing, transportation and utility costs.
It’s important to give renters a stronger voice. And we need to make big bets on new ways to build.
A century of increasingly restrictive zoning has priced out lower-cost housing, and new limits on how homes are used risk deepening the affordability crisis.
Atlanta’s decision to reinvest in it and bring a full-scale program back on the air should be a national model. It’s especially needed in today’s radically reshaped media environment.
Homeowners' associations do plenty of beneficial things. But sometimes they go too far, testing the tension between individual and community rights and leading to states’ efforts to restrict their powers.
Rather than acting as substitute police, guard medics could help save lives by backing up strained local emergency responders. It’s not unprecedented.
An onerous 1970 law remains an open invitation for lawsuits. And reforms should make it easier to build the kind of housing most Californians want.
As cities come back from the pandemic, a few elite performers are leading the way.
The state is issuing leases for unbuilt homes to shrink the Hawaiian Home Lands backlog.
As the city weighs renewing its multimillion-dollar ShotSpotter contract, officials acknowledge they can’t verify sensor locations, raising oversight and transparency concerns.
A proposed new city in California demonstrates the benefits of packing more people and businesses into a small geographic area. Removing daunting roadblocks can open up vital experiments in city-building.
The Trump administration is shifting billions in federal aid away from permanent housing and toward treatment, enforcement and work requirements.
Federal policy changes stand to make it harder for local governments to cope with housing instability and homelessness. There are some things they can do to brace for what’s coming.
The shelters offer a stable alternative for unhoused families, which officials say reduces trauma for children and costs less than traditional foster placement.
The city joins Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Minneapolis in banning tools accused of driving coordinated rent increases nationwide.
Mayor Andre Dickens says the rapid-housing effort transforms underused watershed land into stability for vulnerable residents.
In one form or another over decades, this urban improvement program and its predecessors have found bipartisan support. But their record is mixed at best.
Legal experts warn the ordinance is likely to face a challenge from the Trump administration.
The bill's defeat came with promises from Democrats and Republicans alike to reintroduce a similar bill in the 2027 regular legislative session.
HUD’s shift from permanent housing to short-term programs could force formerly homeless residents back onto the streets and strain local budgets.
A Georgia family’s scramble to remain in a better-funded school system shows how costly leases and substandard housing undermine student stability.
Sunset Mesa residents are pushing for fireproof construction with noncombustible materials to shield entire blocks and attract affordable insurance.
The city's yearslong struggle to open sites for homeless people living in vehicles will likely continue after the federal government dismissed the idea as “reprehensible” and “dystopian.”
A Kentucky teachers union is calling on Fayette County Public Schools to follow Cincinnati’s lead with designated “Safe Sleep Lots” as housing insecurity among students persists.
A Sacramento developer is using a $1.5 million 3D printer to build fire-resistant, low-waste homes that could reshape how California tackles its housing shortage.
