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.
An unlucky generation is coming into its own — getting married, having kids and buying homes. The nation’s fastest-growing Sun Belt metros, with their strong job markets and affordability, stand to reap the rewards.
The industry overhaul hopes to make city-regulated taxis viable competitors to ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. But some worry about the ordinance’s potential data-sharing and wage depression risks.
Police officials claim the seizures and forfeitures are used to take down drug and criminal networks, but critics say the laws disproportionately impact poor people and make it too easy for property to be taken without evidence.
Whatcom County, Wash., officials are rethinking their urban future as population increases and climate change strains public infrastructure and prevents development into rural areas.
The federal Emergency Broadband Benefit was supposed to help connect the unconnected. A new study shows that the program didn't achieve this goal, but local areas can help increase program participation.
Though the sterilization law was overturned in 1979, it wasn’t until 2014 that prison sterilizations were banned. Now the state is paying reparations to victims in amounts between $10,000 and $25,000.
The communications system will connect police and medical responders directly with teachers, students and other people involved in mass casualty events to reduce confusion and response times.
There are successful models for leveraging natural systems to improve water quality and supplies, enhance biodiversity and blunt the ravages of wildfires. There’s even something we can learn from beavers.
‘Quiet Title’ laws across the Midwest can disproportionately affect homeowners who don’t speak English, like Natalia Esteban who emigrated from Mexico over 20 years ago.
The agency is moving to incorporate mitigation into recovery efforts, with a particular focus on the needs of underserved communities and resilience in the face of climate change.
The funding would help provide housing, shelter and transitional services to victims of domestic violence and help replenish funds that were depleted due to steep increases in demand during the pandemic.
You can build all the subways you want, but they won’t produce city life without attention to what’s around them.
A coalition of community-based organizations will select 330 families to receive a guaranteed basic income of $500 a month for a year. Applicants must be a member of an undocumented or mixed immigration status family.
They include $64 million to increase police numbers, reduce juvenile crime and revive a gun-tracking task force. The Connecticut governor also wants police to be able to check gun permits for those who openly carry firearms.
His legacy has mostly slipped through the cracks, but his ideas provided a blueprint for re-creating the city as a center of modern social life, laying the groundwork for today’s New Urbanist movement.
A bill would connect the state’s emergency response system to the national suicide prevention hotline system and provide several other response services for mental health emergencies.
The COVID-era Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program has capacity to train more than 17,000 unemployed veterans, yet less than 700 have graduated from the program and it is set to expire in December.
A Washington state bill that would create an office to address homeless encampments around state-owned rights of way passed its first committee vote last Wednesday. There are 871 homeless camps documented in Seattle.
The small city of Hamtramck used to be a Polish American enclave. In the 21st century, it has morphed into something that couldn’t be further from its past.
TuSimple has run seven semi-truck trips between Tucson and Phoenix without a driver since December and this spring it will expand those deliveries by partnering with Union Pacific to autonomously transport actual freight.
Despite arriving first in affluent areas, Los Angeles County’s communities of color soon had the highest rate of COVID-19 cases. Only about 52 percent of Black and Latino residents are vaccinated.
The number of cash transactions on the Maine Turnpike has dropped significantly since the introduction of E-ZPasses and high-speed electric toll lanes. Officials plan to end cash collection in the coming years.
Preliminary data suggests that accidental drug overdose deaths decreased from 2020 to 2021, but it is unclear if the drop is due to the city’s response programs. In many ways COVID-19 has made help more accessible.
Deindustrialized regions, smaller towns and rural areas don’t have the resources prosperous metros have to go after the new federal money. We need to focus on closing ever-widening opportunity gaps.
With 44 percent of state residents living in a child-care desert, there aren’t enough options. Child care for two children uses 27 percent of a family’s income. The Tri-Share program aims to reduce those obstacles.
After a payment issue nearly shut off power to the Buckfield Fire Station, legislators are considering a ban on disconnecting utilities for public safety buildings without a 60-day warning first.
The bill will provide the Department of Finance and Administration $50,000 for state agencies to assess if they need language access plans so those with limited English skills can access their services.
Nashville is growing remarkably fast — and encountering serious growing pains. The next steps the city takes could mean the difference between transformation or having the infrastructure of an overgrown small town.
Omicron has hit MARTA, the region’s transit system, hard as drivers get sick or have to quarantine, which can sometimes cause last-minute trip cancellations. Passengers are suffering from the reduced service.
The California governor last year poured $12 billion into homeless housing and services and wants to invest another $1.5 billion next year. But advocates want long-term investments instead of one-time grants.
