Economic Downturn
The transportation industry has been promising high-tech innovations for years, and has attracted a lot of big time investment dollars along the way. But it looks like some of them are struggling during the pandemic anyway.
The Verge
Millions of renters are at risk of eviction as federal support runs out and the economic realities of the pandemic take hold.
FastCompany
It might have been wishful thinking to assume the pandemic would cause big declines in costs for materials and labor in the construction industry.
The Dallas Morning News
Maurice Cox, planning commissioner for the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, is the subject of this in-depth coverage by the Chicago Tribune.
Chicago Tribune
Without rent relief from Congress, the recent wave of evictions could become a tsunami, according to housing advocates.
Diane Yentel via Twitter
The Rockefeller Foundation is launching a grant program intended to prevent displacement as Black and Latino communities experience the worst public health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Smart Cities Dive
Breaking news: a federal moratorium on evictions and foreclosures of single-family mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be extended until at least the end of August. The moratorium had been set to expire at the end of June.
Federal Housing Finance Agency
A new report from researchers at the Urban Institute makes the case for federal and state relief for renters and property owners hurt by the economic realities of the coronavirus pandemic.
Urban Institute
The retail component of the mixed-use development business model is expected to face a long, challenging downturn, and developers and designers are looking in other directions to make ends meet in the meantime.
The New York Times
Ithaca, New York is the first city in the nation to go through with a plan to cancel rent, giving three-quarters of the residents in the city a needed safety net as the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis persists into the summer.
FastCompany
An urban planning scholar of foreign conflict shares insights into how recent political unrest in the United States resembles and distinguishes from the ethnic and nationalistic conflict experienced in other countries in recent decades.
Scott Bollens
New survey data from Massachusetts finds massive housing market stress as more and more renters falling behind on payments.
The Boston Globe
The city of Philadelphia is facing a $649 million budget shortfall, and Mayor Jim Kenney is proposing to cut deeply from the city's housing budget to make up the difference.
WHYY
While fewer houses are being bought and sold in the first months of the pandemic, prices are on the rise as buyers find less supply available on the market.
CNBC
Facing a massive budget due to the declining revenues created by the coronavirus pandemic, California will have to cut a program intended to retrofit homes and roofs as a protection against wildfire, among other climate resilience programs.
North State Public Radio
Communities struggling with the economic, social, and health realities of the 21st century must start planning now to mitigate the worst outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report from the Center for Community Progress.
Center for Community Progress
Reports from the White House indicate that the Trump administration is planning to rollback federal environmental protections to expedite highway and other projects.
The Washington Post
A large-scale experiment is underway.
Brookings
Blog post
As the world rebounds from the first wave of coronavirus, and countries around the globe prepare to spend trillions of dollars for stimulus, should the funds be earmarked to flatten the climate curve?
Of all the nightmare scenarios that became possible when the coronavirus hit the shores of the United States, the possibility of massive evictions and a rental market failure seems to have averted the worst possible outcomes. That could still change.
The New York Times
