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.
A survey shows that more than half of manufactured homeowners on rented land have no lease.
The state’s Community Affairs Committee approved a bill that would allow people to file lawsuits if they believe they have “lost history” or the ability to teach about the past because of a monument’s removal or damage.
Mayor Elaine O’Neal, City Manager Wanda Page, City Attorney Kimberly Rehberg and Police Chief Patrice Andrews share how they came to lead the North Carolina city.
The state's lawmakers adopted a broad-based package of housing reforms in a fast-moving legislative session. But a provision that bans local rent control has angered tenant advocates.
Many of the agricultural workers in Pajaro, Calif., are not fluent in English or Spanish and so relied on interpreters to get proper assistance and services after a levee broke, flooding the farm town and sparking evacuations.
A radical planning idea that is well-known in Spain is taking root in Africa and South America.
Between the 1999-2000 and 2015-2016 school years, the number of school librarians decreased 19 percent and, in some states, many schools don’t employ librarians, either full or part time.
A complex web of factors impacts the health of these important water sources.
New research points to the policy and market conditions that help spread these small rental units which can be added to existing properties and ease housing shortages.
Although Black women and girls make up just 13 percent of the female U.S. population, they account for 35 percent of all missing women in 2020. “Ebony Alerts” would help ensure resources to California’s Black women and girls.
City and county governments in Colorado are not allowed to banish the psychedelics industry from inside their borders, even if their residents don’t want it. They may, however, regulate the time, place and manner of its existence.
Decades of underinvestment in streetcar, bus and train service coupled with an increase in public funding and planning priorities to make roads fast, smooth and far-reaching, help explain today's transit situation.
The 2016 ruling prohibits government-funded travel to states with anti-LGBTQ laws. State Sen. Toni Atkins argues the ban hasn’t worked as intended and instead recommends an acceptance campaign in red states.
A report found that the country’s five largest cities experienced net increases in the amount of residents ages 18 to 24 and decreases for all other generations in 2021; Philadelphia gained a net 6,200 young residents.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning is preparing a series of recommendations to address the transit fiscal cliff and governance challenges. State lawmakers told them to "be bold."
The project will focus mostly on digitizing items from the colonial and Revolutionary era, though documents from other time periods will be stored as well. The state’s Historical Society has amassed 3 million documents since 1838.
They have to maintain finances as they try to avoid damaging service cuts and, at the same time, push for new bus and train lines. That will require new ideas, because the old ways aren’t going to work.
Nearly 10 percent of the state can’t participate in elections because they have been convicted of a felony. Restoring the right to vote to those who have completed their time is complicated and frustrating, advocates say.
Climate change and other factors put growing pressure on critical watersheds.
But practitioners must remember there's a high bar and rigor required to making human-centric design work correctly. Simply saying a product was created using the practice won’t cut it.
The new $20 million bridge is similar to the Florida International University pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018 and killed six people. Officials are confident that critical design changes will prevent another catastrophe.
Construction on the $1.5 billion, 25.3-mile stretch of dedicated bus lanes could begin late next year or early 2025 if approved. Yet residents are concerned that a planned overpass will undermine the local community.
Kansas City tenants have formed a power base and are seeking equal footing with the forces that have traditionally defined how the city is governed.
People ages 15 to 24 account for more than half of people who are affected by sexually transmitted diseases in California and about 20 percent of California high schools’ students were sexually active in 2019.
The Army Corps of Engineers has proposed building 12 separate storm surge gates across the mouths of canals and waterways of the city's harbor. But environmentalist Tracy Brown questions the soundness of the plan.
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.
Some center cities are coming back from the pandemic, with residential populations increasing even as many continue to work from home. While restaurants and retail are still suffering, it seems fair to speculate that something meaningful is happening.
The legislation that awaits Gov. Beshear’s signature would increase the starting pay of security workers at juvenile detention centers, with the hopes of retaining staff, and require better mental health services for the youths.
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.
The Housing Choice Voucher program helps 2.3 million households pay rent. Biden has called for small increases to the program, while GOP leaders are eyeing cuts that will hit some states especially hard.
