In These Times

With a history of paltry funding, decaying infrastructure and soaring demand, the state of public transit in the United States is "perilous."

Ubiquitous access to GPS data and social software is generating a whole new breed of cartographers who are empowering themselves and others by mapping everything from community assets to occurrence of disease.

With homelessness rates doubling after hurricane Katrina, activists in New Orleans have filed lawsuits and faced pepper spray and tasers in their fight to save public housing units from being demolished.

Red tape and foot-dragging on the part of FEMA may prevent thousands of Black voters dispersed by Hurricane Katrina from voting in local elections.

With increasing car use in India and China will come a surge in their need for oil. The potential volatility from such aggressive oil politics could bring China and India into conflict with Western, Japanese and other regional interests.

Adam Werbach strips away the Bush administration's rhetoric to expose the "wholesale giveaway" of the nation's natural riches to large corporations.