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.
Cities are banning landlords from setting rental prices based on algorithms and non-public data, which tenants complain have led to drastic spikes.
The mayor declared a city emergency on homelessness, granting herself certain powers to address the crisis. Now, some members of the City Council want to reassert their authority and end the emergency declaration.
The largest affordability gaps are in California, Hawaii, Idaho, Massachusetts and Montana, where middle-income households can afford fewer than 12 percent of houses on the market. By contrast, they could afford about half the houses for sale in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia.
In Los Angeles, as in other parts of the state, the city and county are failing to cooperate in effective ways.
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.
We should bring housing, drug treatment and research together under one roof to meet affected people where they are.
The cities contend that new laws and an executive order meant to encourage housing development take away local control.
Most of the people who show up are there to say no to any kind of denser development. Is it worth trying to get broader public participation?
The Montana Legislature passed housing policies that have eluded other jurisdictions, including increasing height limits, reducing parking requirements and permitting single-stair apartment buildings.
A bill would allow local governments to devote up to a quarter of their homeless funds to residential programs that practice sobriety.
They help a lot of individuals and their communities. The proposed cuts would just shift the burden to emergency rooms, shelters and already overwhelmed local systems.
Rent increases will be limited to 10 percent per year, with an exemption for newly built units for a dozen years.
The “No Buddy Left Behind” program employs veterans to find and then help house homeless veterans.
The city’s total homeless population is declining, but the number of homeless children has reached record highs. The number of homeless schoolchildren has doubled in the last five years.
Matt Privratsky was appointed to serve as an interim city council member in St. Paul after the previous member resigned. He’ll cast some consequential votes.
A pair of bills that would encourage construction are moving through the state Senate despite the opposition of key committee chairs.
Despite a shift in the definition of the term “smart city” in recent years, the effort to make cities smarter continues, and it has evolved to include new technologies — and even tech-agnostic approaches.
States that are adding more housing and approving more permits are seeing their birth rates go up.
To address the housing crisis, we need to pick up the pace of development without sacrificing commitments to low-income residents and environmental protections.
Over the years, Los Angeles voters have approved billions in homeless funding — and created layer upon layer of independent institutions.
The post-pandemic pattern of rural growth continues, following years of decline. Two-thirds of the nation's rural growth is taking place in the South.
An environmental law has been a powerful tool for people seeking to block construction. Lawmakers may be poised to change it.
A hundred days into the job, Daniel Lurie has been aggressive about stepping up services and addressing downtown woes. He’s won over some critics but the city faces major challenges including a billion-dollar budget shortfall.
As momentum builds in Washington to refresh the program, attention needs to be paid to key leverage points. Along with public officials, philanthropy, investors and coalitions have important roles to play.
Rather than limiting curfews to downtown, police could give teens a half-hour to disperse from any part of the city at any time.
The New Hampshire legislature is considering dozens of policies aimed at making housing more affordable, a priority for first-year Gov. Kelly Ayotte. Some policies are gaining bipartisan support, but debates over local control still rage.
Atlanta is achieving notable success with its data-driven efforts to build and preserve housing, which the city sees as key to revitalizing distressed neighborhoods and confronting social challenges.
Philadelphia, San Francisco and Berkeley, Calif., have also banned algorithms that can lead to price-gouging, with similar proposals brewing in other major cities.
The administration is shifting resources away from Housing First, the long-established approach of getting individuals into supportive housing as the first priority.
San Antonio created a housing strategy that’s made it more affordable than most other large cities.
Residents of mobile-home parks have seen costs rise as investors buy up properties. Lawmakers in several states are looking to add more guardrails.
