In The Elusive Dream of the 15-Minute City, author Alan Ehrenhalt explores the concept of the 15-minute city, and if it can actually work in America. Describing his hometown as an endless stretch of, “factory-town main streets,” he once dismissed this way of life as “tedious,” something he now looks back on with sentimental longing. …
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Cities around the country are facing a dilemma — build defenses against sea level rise with taxpayer money, or refuse to build defenses and watch big-name companies go somewhere else. This is what’s happening in Silicon Valley, where two of the world’s biggest tech companies — Facebook and Google — are expanding their campuses in …
In early June, the Army announced that it had fully implemented its Tenant Bill of Rights for 36 of 44 Army installations that utilize privatized housing. Mark Esper, the former Secretary of Defense, signed the original bill in 2020, calling it, “a promise we should have made back in the late ‘90s when the Army …
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Google Maps has added a new feature that lets you avoid crowded public transportation spaces. Spanning 100 countries and over 10,000 public transit systems, the new feature allows you to see exactly how busy your subway or bus might be. Based on user feedback and location trends, the app is able to make near-accurate transit …
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According to a new report by Climate Central — an independent research group that conducts scientific research on climate change — New Orleans, Newark, and New York City have a pretty significant heat problem. These cities, along with places such as San Francisco and Houston, have something called “urban heat islands” — metropolitan areas that …
Read more “New Orleans, Newark and New York City have the Country’s Most Intense Urban Heat Islands”
In early July, a local Baltimorean named Laurel Mendez was going about her day until she stumbled upon a 7-inch crack in the sidewalk — an unnecessary barrier that she couldn’t overlook. “Between the broken sidewalks and the big gaps in the sidewalks that haven’t been repaired, I could barely get from the bus stop …
Read more “Disability Advocates Are Suing Baltimore Over Sidewalk Conditions”
Just before Juneteenth, in a very extraordinary moment for the Nation, the White House recognized “exclusionary zoning” and its effect on racial discrimination in the housing market for the first time. In the White House blog (yes they have a blog), authors Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein, Helen Knudsen, and Jeffery Zhang wrote about Juneteenth — …
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Historically, questions about transit equity have been pretty difficult to answer. That’s because the opportunity gaps that exist across race, income, and other characteristics were beyond the computational capabilities of transit agencies. But advances in how agencies report service information have finally made it possible to quantify these access-to-opportunity metrics. Insert the TransitCenter Equity Dashboard. …
With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raging on, we’ve put together a quick list of interactive maps to better understand what’s happening in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. And, as always, feel free to explore more web mapping applications and interactive data tools found on this site. 1. Conquer and Divide: Interactive map illustrating …
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We already know that Big Oil spends millions to lobby against climate policy each year, but what about Big Meat? According to a new study by New York University, beef and dairy companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying against good climate policy, specifically trying to blur the connection between animal agriculture and greenhouse gas …
Read more “Just Like Big Oil, Big Meat Is Trying to Squash Climate Action”