Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better When It Comes to City Size

When it comes to cities and urbanization, it is generally thought that bigger is better. But a pair of recent studies suggests that although industrialized nations may have benefitted from larger cities, the same is not true for the rapidly urbanizing areas of the developing worl … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Running Water Can Ease the Effects of Homelessness

Last spring, as the homeless population swelled in the port city of Tacoma, Washington, it faced a problem: water everywhere, but almost none to drink.  Of the city’s more than 210,000 people, 1,231 were living unsheltered in January 2017, up from fewer than 500 in 2015. By this … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Is the Rental Housing Explosion Over?

For more than a decade, the number of renter households in the U.S. has expanded year after year, sometimes by more than 1 million renters a year. This year, the explosion of renters in the wake of the foreclosure crisis has maybe, finally, begun to fade: For the first time since … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: L.A.'s New Pipeline for Affordable Housing

$100 million per year: A new fee for developers in Los Angeles is intended to create a permanent revenue stream for affordable housing—$100 million annually—with builders paying between $1 and $15 for every square foot of new construction. The L.A. Times reports:“Today we see hop … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How One City Approaches Its Amazon Bid Through an Equity Lens

American cities are unequal because of intentional policy. That’s not just a chapter of history we’ve turned over; decisions are still being made at the city level that either maintain the status quo or perpetuate urban disparities.Recognizing this, a crop of U.S. cities have cre … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Price Black Voters Paid to Defeat Roy Moore

The narrative around the Doug Jones vs Roy Moore U.S. Senate race in the days leading up to yesterday’s election was that black people needed to vote at higher rates than normal. African Americans typically do not turn out in large numbers for Alabama elections, especially in off … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Battle of the Supertrains

In the space of one weird week in October, residents of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore were told that, one day, their commuting needs might be serviced by not one but two wildly ambitious high-speed rail projects.A private company called Baltimore Washington Rapid-Rail unveiled … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

MapLab: The Fire Starting in Alabama

The special election in Alabama seemed like a parable of contemporary U.S. politics. Perhaps the moral is to listen to black women.Doug Jones, the Democratic former U.S. attorney known as a champion of civil rights, won Jeff Sessions’s open seat in the U.S. Senate over Roy Moore, … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Switzerland Just Opened the World's Only Tri-National Streetcar System

The new streetcar link that launched in Basel, Switzerland, on Tuesday may not look all that special. A low-slung tram painted a shade of racing green, the rolling stock is ferrying passengers just a few stops further down a line that’s been in service since 1897. But these new s … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Is Canada One Step Closer to Declaring Housing a Human Right?

Housing activists in Canada have long decried the hypocrisy in their nation's rhetorical commitment to housing as a human right while its affordable housing supply has shrunk and fallen into disrepair. Canada, like most other countries in the world, ratified an international cove … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: Alabama's Cities Sealed Doug Jones's Senate Win

Alabama upset: The long-shot victory of Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday’s heated Alabama Senate race rested on voters from the state’s cities, most affluent suburbs, and black communities, who soundly rejected the controversial candidacy of Republican Roy Moore. The Washington Pos … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How Athens Confronted Government Distrust by Connecting Citizens to Each Other

If you took a walk around parts of inner Athens in the years following the 2007-8 financial crisis, you might have been forgiven for assuming the city was in the process of being evacuated. Empty shops and dilapidated buildings gave an impression of abandonment, of people giving … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How Place Shapes Our Politics

We urbanists are obsessed with place. So it may be hard for us to believe that the connection between physical space and urbanization has been neglected by much of social science, outside of urban economics, urban planning, and urban geography. Indeed, place and geography have be … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Ed Lee's Legacy

San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, the first Asian American to lead the city, died on Tuesday. He was 65.Former Mayor Willie Brown, whose push catapulted Lee to the Mayor’s office in 2011, told the San Francisco Examiner that Lee suffered a cardiac arrest at a grocery store Monday ni … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How to Make America Trust Again

In the age of Trump, America has a trust problem.Confidence in our institutions is at historic lows, and political polarization has skyrocketed. This extraordinarily divisive moment in our history may feel like a direct effect of Donald Trump’s presidency—in the year since his el … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Small Appalachian City That’s Thriving

At the end of October, a blue Amtrak train pulled into downtown Roanoke, Virginia, to the sound of applause. This was a big moment. For the first time in nearly 40 years, a passenger train was rolling into this city founded on railroads.The last time Amtrak carried passengers her … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: The Urban-Rural Divides at the Core of Alabama's Senate Race

Special election: All eyes are on Alabama today as the Senate race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones winds to a close amid ongoing controversy over sexual misconduct allegations against Moore. As with so many big issues of Trump-era politics, the contest hinges … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

To Fight 'Bikelash,' Get Your Boss to Back Protected Lanes

In 2014, when Boris Johnson started construction on his 18-mile, fully segregated cycling “superhighway” linking London from east to west, the “bikelash” was fierce and immediate.Local chambers of commerce protested that the then-mayor’s plan was being “railroaded” through withou … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Fire Damage to California's Homes Isn't as Random as It Seems

In the midst of the many wildfire emergencies that have faced California this year, it can often seem that the way houses burn, or don’t, is random.The thing is, though, it’s not. Firefighters and researchers alike have a pretty solid understanding of why some houses are more vul … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

When Teachers Punish Black Kids More Severely Than White Kids

Several years ago, Jason Okonofua, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted an experiment on K-12 teachers. Two sets of teachers were given records about misbehavior from a student, but one group thought they were reading about a student with … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Can the Affluent Be Convinced to Ride Transit in Delhi?

Every winter when New Delhi’s air quality reaches hazardous levels, much of the conversation about it tends to focus on two causes—the practice of crop burning by farmers in nearby states, and the bursting of firecrackers during the Hindu festival Diwali.There’s no doubt that the … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

'Game of Thrones' Tourists Are Beseiging Dubrovnik

Ivone Alvarado and Miguel Gomez planned to take in all the sites of Europe. The couple mapped out their vacation in June, a long sojourn from their home in Bogotá, Colombia, with stops in France, Norway, Portugal, and Spain. Then they added time for one final, more unusual destin … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How A Bid for Amazon HQ2 Got Tangled Up in a Fight for LGBTQ Rights

Cities competing to lure Amazon’s second headquarters have presented an array of economic incentives. But the competition may be eliciting at least one state to reconsider how its policies affect LGBTQ residents, too.Georgia has been fighting for four years to pass a religious fr … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Story of the Great Lakes in 8 Maps

Stretching across eight states and two Canadian provinces, the Great Lakes region contains the world’s largest freshwater system and is likely the greatest single surface aggregation of rare resources on the planet. If it was a standalone country, its economy would be the fourth … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Working Class That Wasn't

A grizzled face, smudged grey with the factory soot. Hands that are calloused from making things—things that Make America Great. This person is, of course, white.In the popular imagination, this is the portrait of a  “working class” American—a figure that political leaders say wi … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: Reclaiming Millennials With 'The Missing Middle' Housing

Breaking this morning: An explosion shut down one of New York City’s busiest transit hubs this morning. The New York Times reports one suspect is in custody, and says the explosive device went off prematurely. Details are still coming in.Putting down roots: As millennials mature, … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Incendiary States of America

California is burning, which is nothing new. But the wildfires now raging in and around Los Angeles—for which President Trump declared a state of emergency on Friday—are coming extraordinarily late in the season; by now, California’s rainy season should have eased the risk of unc … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Revisiting an Anti-Urban Children's Story Everyone Loves

It’s been 75 years since Virginia Lee Burton’s The Little House was first published. In the illustrated story, a simple little house has its happy rural existence threatened by suburbanization and then by the frightening engulfing city. At the last minute, it’s rescued and reloca … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Japan Asks Tourists to Buckle Up When Reenacting Mario Kart on City Streets

Let's-a-go! Except, not so fast, Mario.By now, locals in Japan are used to seeing foreigners zipping through Tokyo in bright red go-karts. Short of tossing banana peels at their rivals, tourists have been satisfying their need for speed by taking Nintendo’s beloved Mario Kart fra … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The House of the Future Is Elevated

Three months after Hurricane Harvey churned through Texas, dumping 51 inches of rain and damaging an estimated 150,000 homes, the state’s most populous county took a bureaucratic step that has huge implications for how it will deal with the risk of future flooding.On December 5, … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

One Nation, Under The Weight of Crushing Debt

Not much unites Americans these days, except perhaps, past-due bills. A third of American households are currently in debt, and in the second quarter of 2017, they owed a record $13 trillion altogether.In a new interactive map, researchers at the Urban Institute visualize how thi … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Questionable Imperative for a Black Mayor in Atlanta

It was important enough for Atlanta to have a black mayor that the Democratic Party pulled out its top black shot callers for the race between city council member Keisha Lance Bottoms, an African American from the party, and city council member Mary Norwood, a white woman who is … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: Carson's Plan to Boost 'Self-Sufficiency' at Housing Projects

HUD pilot: Housing Secretary Ben Carson has picked his hometown Detroit as a guinea pig for a new federal program aiming to boost the self-sufficiency of those receiving housing assistance. The plan calls for 10 community hubs, called “EnVision Centers,” located on or near public … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Congressional Gridlock Is Putting Flint's Pipe Replacement In Peril

Political gridlock has created a lapse in funding for a program that provides health insurance to poor children. It may also end up being culpable for preserving lead service lines that still run under the city of Flint, Michigan.Since its creation in 1997, the Children’s Health … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Homelessness in High-Cost U.S. Cities Is Driving a Nationwide Increase

On a single night in January 2017, 553,742 were homeless across the U.S. For the first time in seven years, this number has grown. In the past year, the nation has seen a one-percent increase in the nation’s homeless population. That’s 3,814 more homeless people since January 201 … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Here Comes the Soccer Arena Boondoogle

Officials from Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, and Sacramento appeared in New York on Wednesday to place their bids with Major League Soccer for an expansion team. Slots for two teams are now up for grabs in the league’s plans to expand, so cities are lining up to lob promises of … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

America’s Leading Art Hubs

It’s Art Basel Miami Beach on Wednesday, when the world’s leading artists, galleries, and collectors head to the main art fair and the many satellite fairs scattered across the Miami region. It’s impressive how much contemporary art can be amassed in one place. Walking through th … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

What Happened to 'LA Weekly'?

Last Wednesday, every editor and all but one writer at LA Weekly learned that they’d been fired. On Twitter, then-editor-in-chief Mara Shalhoup compared the mass layoffs at the storied alt-weekly to the “Red Wedding” on “Game of Thrones.”Since then, controversy around the fate of … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: Understanding the Debate Over Israel's Capital City

Capital conflict: President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is causing a diplomatic stir around the world. Even for a city that’s no stranger to tension and geopolitical posturing, the move is drawing unusual attention—but what’s so significant … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Los Angeles Is Burning, Again and Again

You’ve seen Los Angeles burning in the movies. But a video shot from a car on the I-405 early Wednesday morning was as apocalyptic a view of my city as in any disaster film.Along the dry western edge of the Sepulveda Pass, where the country’s busiest freeway bridges the Santa Mon … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Finding Light Through the Concrete of Canada's Holocaust Monument

In 2007, Laura Grosman, an 18-year-old university student in Ottawa learned that Canada was the only Allied nation that didn’t have a monument to victims of the Holocaust.The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Grosman was incensed and began lobbying politicians. It was perple … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How Architects Can Design 'Coherent and Peaceful Cities'

Watch our interview with Architect Francis Kéré at CityLab Paris.Three years ago, demonstrators in Burkina Faso set fire to the National Assembly in Ouagadougou. The Burkinabé uprising led to the ouster of the country’s longtime president Blaise Compaoré followed by a short-lived … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

How Columbus's Majority-Black City Council Might be Violating the Voting Rights Act

The majority of Columbus, Ohio’s, city council members are African Americans. But the city’s method for electing city council members is racially discriminatory, or at least this is what Jonathan Beard, a developer in Columbus’s poorest neighborhoods, is trying to prove. And the … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Google Street View Can Reveal How Your Neighborhood Votes

If you walk through a city and see more pickup trucks than sedans parked on the side of the road, there’s a good chance most residents there vote Republican. This sounds like just another stereotype—that Republicans cruise around in pickups while Democrats prefer the Toyota Prius … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

Lab Report: Obama Calls Cities 'The New Face of Leadership' on Climate Change

Carrying on: In Chicago yesterday, former President Barack Obama called cities “the new face of American leadership on climate change,” commending the charter that 45 mayors signed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. As President Trump plans to withdraw the U.S. from the lan … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Box That Brings Christmas to the Philippines

Editor’s note: Jason Reblando was a Fulbright scholar in 2015, photographing the families of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The photos of balikbayan boxes and their contents included here are part of his ongoing project on the Filipino diaspora.If you are Filipino, or have bee … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

In Quebec, Buckminster Fuller's Domed Dreams Live On

Around the world, if you’re talking about geodesic domes, you’re talking about Buckminster Fuller. But in Quebec, that conversation should also include Jeffrey Lindsay.A new show at the University of Quebec at Montreal’s Center of Design dives into the province’s history with the … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago

The Tax Bill Provision That Has Cities Up In Arms

On Monday, Congress started the process of hashing out differences in the Senate tax bill—passed early Saturday with last-minute changes scrawled by hand in its margins—and the House’s version from November.The two bills contain plenty that city leaders may find unpalatable. But … | Continue reading


@citylab.com | 7 years ago