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 bill would allow local governments to devote up to a quarter of their homeless funds to residential programs that practice sobriety.
Gov. Janet Mills says the money would be spent on rural parts of the state where COVID-19 restrictions and low Internet connectivity have hurt education and the economy. Lawmakers say $30 million is good but not enough.
The City Council approved the creation of two new councils to develop a community that is able to support and encourage new businesses. Both advisory committees will begin accepting applications in March.
A new report by the Transportation Research Board points toward more seamless and coordinated connections among all forms of shared mobility, such as buses, bikes, trains, scooters and more.
A few of them have worked out well. Most of them have been failures. But the idea of building new ones has never died, and there are signs of still another incarnation.
San Fernando, Calif., will establish 14 superchargers in a city-owned parking structure near the downtown area to hopefully encourage visitors to stop into the small, largely Latino town and revitalize the area.
Slab City, a do-it-yourself, free-wheeling community, has been functioning to some degree for decades. Without any infrastructure or civic institutions, such as police or fire services, it exists by defying normalcy.
Just 18.5 percent of Iowans have access to affordable Internet and the average download speed is the second worst in the nation. But Gov. Reynolds hopes to get Iowans connected over the next three years.
Two state lawmakers proposed a bill that would require all public meetings to have Internet participation options even after in-person meetings return. The bill also suggests requiring translators to increase access.
Every neighborhood should be free of litter, debris and property- and housing-code violations. There's plenty that government can do, including helping residents understand their own role.
Recent trials show the new smartphone app, PedNav, is about 95 percent effective in communicating with traffic control systems and audio directions, and can aid the visually impaired to cross the street.
Black, Latino and Native American communities have been impacted the most by COVID-19, and yet they have the lowest rate of vaccinations in Los Angeles County. Officials are increasing efforts to fix the racial disparities.
When a development causes a problem, we should be dealing with the problem where it exists – not cordoning off whole areas of the city. Let’s scrap the old Euclidean codes and update with market urbanism zoning.
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Speakers at the recent Micromobility World conference debated the future of smart city tech and whether it’s actually been improving urban mobility, or simply facilitating a growth of the surveillance state.
Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood is rich and mostly white, but the same jump in violent crime that many cities are seeing has alarmed its residents. Some of them think secession is the answer.
Millions of Americans are living on properties that are at-risk for climate change-related disasters. The solution to the problem is far more complicated than just telling residents to move.
While the state is working to improve broadband connectivity across the state, many in rural areas of the state find themselves paying more for slower Internet speeds and without any options.
Telecommuting is here to stay, and those workers are a built-in market for revitalizing your downtown — if you give them the right kind of place to go.
Gov. Ned Lamont announced a bill that would connect all residents with high-speed Internet next year by streamlining the permit process Internet providers need to ensure service.
Two scholars of cities explain why dense, urban areas will survive – and thrive – long after the pandemic ends, and even if they don't get a bailout.
Garfield County, Okla., has made a free transit service available for those who need rides to the coronavirus vaccine clinic. But only three residents have utilized the service since it began two weeks ago.
The current bus terminal will be replaced with a commuter hub that will hold 40 percent more passengers and charging stations for an all-electric bus fleet. The project could cost up to $10 billion and will be completed by 2030.
Public transit authorities will split the federal funds, which will be used to maintain service line operations as well as avoid worker layoffs. Ridership has dropped significantly since the pandemic started.
The attacks on the U.S. Capitol building early this month are an important reminder of why great Americans, from Thomas Jefferson to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, see architecture as a crucial component of our system of government.
Council members authorized the city manager to move ahead with a “transformational” transit and mobility plan. But concerns have been raised that the project will strain a community that’s already been ravaged by COVID-19.
Four researchers will focus on the future of food, energy and water in a new project that could help rural communities capitalize on wind energy opportunities.
Roadside America has been open since 1953, delighting visitors with its model of a Pennsylvania town frozen in time and full of little cars and trains. But the popular roadside attraction couldn’t survive the pandemic.
It can take decades for slowly changing circumstances to alter the understanding of a region's strengths or weaknesses. That can have an impact on everything from revitalization to political discourse.
A Bay Area startup aims to revolutionize housing with faster-built, cheaper and greener homes using 3-D printing technology. But the company has a long way to go before it can meet the state’s needs.
Pinellas County will use the multi-million-dollar grant to implement more connected-vehicle and traffic-light synchronization technology in an effort to continue improving its roadways’ safety and efficiency.
