Government / Politics

It makes sense that the transit agency serving the Silicon Valley would be one of the first to adopt a formal open data policy.

January 29, 2016 - Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

A local Democrat is not happy with the performance of the city in operating the Atlanta Streetcar.

January 28, 2016 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Heretofore, California's transportation funding woes have largely been restricted to future projects, expressed as "deferred road and bridge maintenance." That just changed—now current budgets face a $754 million cut over five years.

January 28, 2016 - Los Angeles Times

A new report issued by McGraw Hill Financial Global Institute provides new thinking about how to create "age-friendly cities."

January 28, 2016 - Grist

It's been said that children are the indicator species of urban health and great neighborhoods. By this measure, Oakland is in trouble.

January 27, 2016 - Shelterforce/Rooflines

Penn IUR Faculty Fellows and Scholars weigh in on the 2016 Presidential election. What urban issues should the candidates be focusing on?

January 27, 2016 - PennIUR

Learning from the mishaps shown by state regulatory agencies in Michigan, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency wasted no time in beginning a criminal investigation resulting from reports of concentrations of high lead levels in some Ohio homes.

January 27, 2016 - WFMJ-TV

Strong Towns, the same organization that runs the #BlackFridayParking campaign every year, is back with another social media campaign meant to raise awareness about the effects of car dependence.

January 26, 2016 - Strong Towns

A heated political battle over funding for the Washington State Building Code Council shows how legislated mandates for energy efficiency must also fund regulators to back them up.

January 26, 2016 - Crosscut

An affordable housing ballot measure opposed by affordable housing advocates: welcome to the strange housing politics of San Francisco.

January 26, 2016 - San Francisco Magazine

The damage caused by Michigan environmental agencies charged with protecting public health extend far beyond Flint. Residents suffering health effects from a huge natural gas leak in Southern California see parallels with the lead poisoning crisis.

January 26, 2016 - The New York Times

Following in the footsteps of Seattle, which recently followed a similar narrative arc, the city of Spokane will go back to the ballot for transportation funding, leaving the county of Spokane to its own devices.

January 25, 2016 - The Spokesman-Review

In his 2015 state of the state address, Gov. Jerry Brown announced his intention to tackle the Golden State's formidable $59 billion road and bridge deficit. A year later, that staggering figure jumped 30 percent to $77 billion.

January 24, 2016 - San Francisco Chronicle

Until this past summer, the Atlanta metro region was ranked second in electric car use in the United States. The generous state tax credit of $5,000 made electric vehicles (EVs) particularly attractive. But what happens when the credit is withdrawn?

January 24, 2016 - Marketplace

These days, Big Data is the topic at hand, but Arup's Vincent Lee says data analysis can only go so far. He uses his work on the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program to illustrate why a "human element" is crucial to finding solutions.

January 22, 2016 - Doggerel

Reporting from the world's most polluted capital, Julie McCarthy speaks with Ari Shapiro on NPR's "All Things Considered." McCarthy talks glowingly about how successful the two-week trial went in reducing pollution and congestion even more so.

January 22, 2016 - NPR

A raft of recent research finds that small, local businesses are critical to overcoming many of our biggest challenges. This article rounds up the new studies and what they say about why local business should be a focus of planning in 2016.

January 22, 2016 - Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Despite continued dispute over their effectiveness, carbon taxes and cap-and-trade programs in the United States and Canada have raised billions of dollars. And China has now followed suit.

January 21, 2016 - New York Times

Sacramento Bee's political columnist, Dan Walters, writes that NIMBYs are among the main reasons for the state's chronic housing crisis, and one of their main tools is the California Environmental Quality Act, which must be reformed by politicians.

January 20, 2016 - The Sacramento Bee

At the UN’s Habitat III conference taking place this fall in Quito, Ecuador, the role of cities in addressing the movement of migrants will be a primary topic of discussion.

January 19, 2016 - Citiscope