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.
Massachusetts voters will decide whether to allow single-family homes on smaller lots. Supporters hope that a successful measure will demonstrate broad support for more pro-housing policies in the state legislature.
States have long tried to tamp down on speed traps and other operations where local law enforcement raise revenue via heavy use of citations.
Population growth slowed in big U.S. cities last year. Cities lost residents early in the pandemic, then grew amid an immigration surge which has since ebbed.
Diversity alone wonât get the votes for funding public education. It takes communities that are more integrated and connected, where residents have a sense of shared stake.
A 2025 push to round up undocumented immigrants continues to disrupt local economies in Los Angeles County. Local officials are doing what they can to help.
Local officials donât have to roll over in the face of todayâs political challenges to affirmative action and DEI. Fair opportunity can be grown in ways that help create companies, jobs, wealth and a broader business community.
Years of rapid growth have pushed development farther into fire-prone areas, exposing a challenge facing communities as more Americans make their homes in the wildland-urban interface.
A new state law weakens neighborhood petitions that once forced housing projects to win city council supermajorities, giving local officials more room to approve development despite opposition.
Houston adopted a new law clarifying landlordsâ obligation to provide air conditioning in rental units. Many jurisdictions have no such rules, raising concerns about health and safety as the planet warms.
The statewide database will track when affordability restrictions expire, giving officials more time to preserve nearly 10,000 subsidized units at risk of converting to market-rate housing.
The cost of developing a subsidized apartment has nearly doubled to $540,000, but a decades-old public records exemption prevents taxpayers from seeing detailed project expenses.
Homelessness declined across more than half of California communities, according to new data. Officials credit state investments in shelter and housing, but funding uncertainty could complicate those gains.
By hitting struggling property owners with additional taxes, cities are penalizing them for vacancies that their own policies may have helped to create and prolong.
After years of tougher state requirements and new laws aimed at boosting construction, nearly every city and county is still falling short of its housing targets.
In too many places it costs more to build than market-rate homes. Colorado is an exception, thanks to an array of policies that bring down costs.
States and localities need to improve housing affordability, availability and accessibility.
North Carolina is the latest state to lift minimum parking requirements in its cities, an action it says will help the environment and lower housing costs.
A proposed ordinance seeks to regulate Airbnb-style rentals as cities continue searching for the right balance between housing and the sharing economy.
Data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that rates of home ownership are lower than we believed.
Cities and towns are rewriting zoning codes, but disagreements over local control and the stateâs new housing mandate remain.
Former Austin Mayor Steve Adler has written a new book about his time in office. He shares some of the highlights and lowlights in an interview with Governing.
The federal legislation boosts Opportunity Zones in the competition for funding. Governors should choose neighborhoods that can support wholesale economic transformation.
City leaders plan to clear major camps before winter, but critics question whether enough shelter and housing exist to support the transition.
Itâs been reinventing itself since its steelmaking days. Like other places, it must deal with downtown-vs.-neighborhood tensions.
New state housing laws are fueling multifamily construction, but some cities are adopting rules to limit where apartments can be built.
The new law bars landlords from using pricing algorithms that rely on nonpublic data, making the practice an antitrust violation enforceable by the state.
Mobile home parks offer some of the regionâs lowest housing costs, but nearly a quarter of Los Angeles Countyâs stock has disappeared since the 1980s.
Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a statewide duplex mandate that would test how far states should go to increase housing production.
Steve Waldrip, a senior adviser on housing for Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, will lead a new state Division of Housing and Community Development. He wants to cut regulations and boost housing supply for younger people.
Homicides in the U.S. moves in near lockstep with trends in drug overdoses, alcohol consumption and firearm purchases, and de-policing is an incomplete explanation for the spikes of recent years.
State and local governments have more power than they realize to keep older adults out of nursing homes. The tools are in the housing code.
