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 new report estimates that 674,433 Coloradans lack access to Internet service that can provide speeds of at least 25 mbps. The new numbers are 4.2 and 3.7 times greater than those provided by the federal and state governments, respectively.
Left turns are dangerous and slow down traffic. One solution? Get rid of them. New research shows that limiting left turns at busy intersections would improve safety and reduce frustrating backups.
Consultants have found that the public library branches in the less affluent, southern parts of the city are smaller, receive less circulations and have lower numbers of overall visits. A new library funding plan may address the discrepancy.
Municipal utility districts seem to work in the Lone Star State. They have increased the housing supply, using lighter regulations, resulting in downward pressure on costs. Now, they may be catching on elsewhere.
Any new federal infrastructure program should provide states and localities with the flexibility to tap the private-sector innovation and expertise that can produce new revenues, meaningful savings and operational efficiencies.
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors has unanimously supported an idea to create a program that allows students and low-income people to ride Metro’s trains and buses for free.
The two hundred miles of high-speed railway rely upon dense urban growth around transit stations to achieve long-term success. But as California and San Diego birth rates and population decline, some worry it’s too costly a risk.
Lawmakers have proposed $209 million of the multibillion-dollar bill for pollution and traffic initiatives in the Denver area that focus on marginalized groups impacted by the building of the highways decades ago.
The pandemic caused Orange County, Calif., to move its public town halls online to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. Even as those restrictions begin to lift, it’s unlikely that the online town halls will stop.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will have a budget deficit of $1.5 billion by 2024 if ridership does not return to pre-pandemic levels. But many regular users have said they won’t be riding the subway post-pandemic.
A new state board in New Hampshire offers a speedy, non-judicial way to challenge onerous local land-use decisions. It’s a way to prevent a hot housing market from overheating.
The pandemic has broken commuter rail’s business model, which relies on boutique services for white collar workers. Fixing it means more trains, better platforms, high-tech fare systems and fewer workers. Can it be done?
The Massachusetts city will shift some response protocols away from the police to a clinically trained civilian response team that will not carry firearms. The city will spend more than $400,000 on the new department.
The new bureau will work to tackle hate crimes, white supremacy and biased policing across the state and will work closely between the community and law enforcement. It will also consider reparations for Black Californians.
To avoid rebuilding billions of dollars worth of rail infrastructure, transit officials are looking to replace diesel locomotives with battery-powered ones. NJ Transit and LIRR are both testing electric alternatives.
High-rise buildings made out of timber have long been judged flimsy and fire-prone. That isn’t true anymore. But their construction depends on how amenable government regulators are to wooden towers.
It leaves families living in squalid conditions, trapped in segregated neighborhoods. Rather than spending billions on socialized shelter, we need to put money in their pockets to give them choices.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s new Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program will provide $1 billion to improve Internet access for tribal governments, colleges and organizations.
The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has limited the languages available for written driver’s license tests to seven options, removing some of the state’s most-widely spoken languages.
President Biden seeks to broaden the definition of a crucial piece of government. It’s part of a debate that's been going on more than two centuries.
It’s clear that adding lanes to urban expressways or building new ones doesn’t reduce congestion. Sometimes it makes things worse. So why do we keep doing it?
Smart policies can ensure that low- and moderate-income households can find suitable housing in good neighborhoods where transportation costs are low. The research is clear: upzoning works.
Six counties around the California capital are developing plans for a regional trail system that would provide safe spaces for walking and biking, especially for under-resourced and low-income neighborhoods.
Twenty years ago, hundreds of Black neighborhoods in major cities were in good shape financially. Even before the pandemic, however, a majority had slipped into poverty.
Tens of thousands of people die on our streets and highways every year. There are proven evidence-based strategies that could make our roads safe for everyone.
A new state law requires publicly traded companies to diversify their leadership boards but Latinos are being left out, occupying only 2.3 percent of boardroom seats despite being 40 percent of the state’s population.
New research calls into question the efficacy of America’s largest affordable housing program. Among working-class families, one in four renter households paid over half their income in rent in 2017.
Several Congressional lawmakers are lobbying to secure funding for a high-speed train that would travel from Boston to New York City in 100 minutes or less, as well as other rail improvements.
Mayor London Breed announced that the city will aim to be carbon neutral by 2045 and the municipal electric program CleanPowerSF will provide carbon-free electricity by 2025, both are five years earlier than previously outlined.
Many of them are more interested in pandering to hungry corporations than they are in making investments in their citizens.
