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.
The state hopes to get bidders for its contact tracing program that would use Bluetooth signals from mobile devices to track the spread of COVID-19. Part of the program would use Google and Apple’s contact tracing tech.
We think we know it when we see it, but no one's come up with a perfect way to describe it in our complex metro landscape. A look at population data is a helpful place to begin.
Retrofitting ordinary curb space from free parking into “complete streets” will be a good move financially and aesthetically for all sorts of stakeholders. Incremental, bottoms-up approaches work the best.
Gov. Ned Lamont announced last week that the state would begin embracing a COVID-19 contact tracing smartphone app. But the app’s success is dependent on whether or not residents use it.
The massive transit proposal only lost by 1,000 votes out of nearly 400,000 cast, but election officials aren’t inclined to ask for a recount. Many think that the pandemic and an overwhelmed electorate contributed to the failure.
Butler County Job and Family Services have expanded their online services to allow clients to access Medicaid, food and cash assistance remotely. Officials hope that the services are now more accessible.
The winners in this year’s Digital Cities survey have long been following well-laid plans for modernizing infrastructure, cybersecurity and citizen services, meaning they were prepared to stand up to the pandemic.
Most of the state has seen large Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the wake of the death of George Floyd and other Black people, but for some rural towns being a BLM ally means death threats and harassment.
An external audit found that Black residents are more likely to be arrested and have force used against them. The report stops short of connecting the behavior to racial discrimination, but it suggests it as a possibility.
San Francisco will begin moving over 500 homeless people out of hotel rooms that were provided as temporary shelter during COVID-19. Advocates are concerned that many will end up back on the streets.
The pavement along the edge of the street is an asset with untapped value for better managing transportation needs. This prime urban land shouldn't just be for free car storage.
A recent study examined projects to reduce car use and increase walking and biking on neighborhood streets in five cities, offering a look into how transportation data can be used to craft similar future projects.
After COVID-19 caused ridership to plummet, the city has revealed plans for reopening the Metropolitan Transit that include sneeze barriers, better air circulation, regular sanitization and reduced rider capacity.
More structures are at risk than ever before, and there's a lot that could be done to protect them and improve community resilience. The benefits far outweigh the costs.
While the average Internet speed is around 100 megabits per second, some of the state’s Black Belt communities have only 0.16 mbs. As the pandemic forces life online for work and school, the poor neighborhoods get left behind.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced $12.7 million in grants to bring high speed Internet to underserved communities across the state. Approximately 1.2 million households do not have a permanent broadband connection at home.
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Dayton and Yellow Springs are among several cities that are using some of their CARES Act funding to expand broadband access. Dayton plans to spend $1.4 million in certain neighborhoods lacking high-speed connectivity.
It may depend on what millennials really want. But none of the ideas aimed at that generation would make more than a dent in America's acute housing shortage.
Black Americans are disproportionately affected by the disease and the lack of testing. Black doctors have mobilized efforts to make testing more accessible for those without insurance or who are skeptical of new diseases.
Even before the pandemic wiped out ridership, the systems were struggling to attract riders. Cities should be open to questioning the fundamentals of how they operate and fund their systems.
With many city commission meetings now online, residents can attend meetings without the hassles of commuting, traffic or uncomfortable chairs. Some cities are even seeing higher levels of participation in the online meetings.
Gov. Kelly announced that the state will use nearly $50 million in COVID-19 aid grants to establish Internet for 76,735 households. An additional $85 million will improve statewide Internet over the next decade.
The death of a Google sister company's ambitious plan to develop an empty piece of the Canadian city's waterfront has lessons for what other cities should do when a big corporation comes calling.
Efforts to merge municipalities make a lot of sense, particularly in this virus-plagued, cash-poor moment. But they usually don't succeed. Three struggling Illinois towns are about to try it anyway.
Making public transit free might seem a crazy idea, but it has benefits that can outweigh the costs. It's widespread in Europe, and more American transit agencies should give it a serious look.
It can maintain distinctive urban character, but excessive mandates also can impede the dynamic evolution that cities need. There are market-driven policy reforms to reduce its negative impacts.
The Federal Communications Commission is ready to auction $20 billion for rural broadband development starting in October, but many lawmakers are nervous that they don’t have accurate enough data to do it correctly.
In addition to occasionally poor connectivity, the state Legislature has held fewer meetings than normal, which has reduced lawmaking. Some legislators hope the COVID challenges encourage more time efficiency.
In a recent Meeting of the Minds panel discussion, transportation experts weighed in on how the future of urban mobility innovation will be tied to a wide range of data sources and thorough analysis.
