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 landmark environmental bill, CEQA, has been credited with preventing irreversible damage to natural habitats. But it’s also provided an avenue for resistant neighbors to block new housing in urban areas.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg and other city council members have lauded the maps for their independence and transparency. The new districts will go into effect for the May 2023 city elections.
The street vendors who sell food to downtown customers are a boon to urban life. Cities ought to have more of them.
The U.S. is losing 36 million trees every year. Several organizations have stepped up with creative solutions to save the wood, reduce carbon emissions and create jobs.
Local governments are eyeing spaceports as a way to boost economic development within their regions. But environmentalists are concerned about the ports' impacts on sensitive habitats, public safety and drinking water.
Curtailing parking minimums represents a sweeping shift in American attitudes, swapping a glorified car culture for climate-friendly and affordable housing options.
The New Orleans City Council voted unanimously on June 9 to hold two of Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s top aides in contempt for missing a deadline to turn over documents relating to the failed “smart city” broadband deal.
After some delay, four electric scooter companies may soon receive authorization to deploy their vehicles. The rollout will mark the beginning of the city’s full-fledged scooter program, which was announced in April.
A study found that Democratic-voting counties had an overall 15 percent lower death rate than Republican counties in 2019, a mortality gap that’s widened by six times since 2001. Experts fear the pandemic has only expanded the divide.
As electric-powered bicycles continue to gain popularity, not everyone agrees on whether e-bikes should have the same access to trails and parks as non-motorized bicycles. Many worry that e-bikes will cause extra damage to nature trails.
Single-room occupancy units have largely disappeared from American cities. But a Philadelphia councilmember has introduced legislation to legalize one of the most affordable forms of housing for low-income people.
The regulation is a result of the environmental justice law that Gov. Phil Murphy signed in 2021 to protect low-income, Black and brown communities from further pollution.
MARTA spent more than half of its sales tax proceeds on bus service and other operations, a rate that critics fear will imperil future plans for 29 miles of light rail, 13 miles of bus rapid transit and other improvements.
A report found water and sewer bills for the state’s poorest residents have skyrocketed since the mid-1980s, rising twice as fast as wages for low-income workers and faster than any other basic need except health care.
There’s increasing evidence that low-density zoning codes can restrict the nation’s housing supply, but it’s not easy to see how this plays out in every community. A national atlas of zoning codes could help change that.
The federal government has allotted millions of dollars to bridge the digital divide in Indigenous communities through infrastructure development and offsetting Internet costs to increase accessibility.
Mayfield was devastated last December when a tornado ripped through Western Kentucky. New homes are starting to spring up, though, and the city's got big plans for reshaping itself.
Watchers of micromobility are seeing closer partnerships and collaborations between scooter and bike-share operators and other providers of mobility services such as public transit and ride-hailing.
More than 13,000 people relocated to the Texas city between 2020 and 2021, the most for cities with populations of 50,000 or more. San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the country with around 1.5 million residents.
The effort caught national attention, but the real story is the rest of the package of land use reforms that the city council passed to open up the housing market. However, opposition to further reform is growing.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered municipalities to review and reform their police procedures. Today, Syracuse police have made positive steps, but officials say they still have a long way to go.
The amount the state receives will rely on how many people have poor or no Internet access. But time is short to accurately collect the information. The planning grant deadline is Aug. 15.
The famous road in Austria’s capital is a masterpiece of monumental design. But it’s no model for American planners to emulate.
Urban residents know about the housing-related problems that hurt their city, from overcrowding to redlining. What if they had a visual display of where things are worst?
Due to rezoning, hurricanes and supply and demand struggles, the historic Black neighborhood in the heart of Bay St. Louis is being left out of booming growth happening just blocks away.
Voting rights and immigrant advocates in Georgia argue that many immigrant communities are unable to fully access election materials due to a lack of non-English ballots and a limited number of available languages.
City centers have had a rough couple of years. But there is a way forward if they have the fortitude to take it.
Installing broadband in the region is extremely difficult and expensive because of low population density and a rugged topography. But millions in federal funding has some officials hopeful that more residents will get connected.
Four cities in the region have proposed using millions of pandemic relief funds for surveillance cameras to aid law enforcement and increase public safety. But there are concerns about the privacy risks.
The New Orleans City Council voted to hire an outside investigator for its inquiry into Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s “smart city” plan to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Cantrell called the investigation a “spectacle.”
Levies for public transit can win at the polls when taxpayers perceive that a project benefits them. These days, properly designed bus rapid transit systems seem to have better chances than expensive light rail.
