United States

Bill Fulton writes about the shift from permanent, full-time jobs to "1099 jobs": hourly, contract work that is becoming more and more common. If 1099 jobs take over the economy, how can economic developers do their job?

May 23, 2011 - Governing Magazine

Deteriorating commercial strips are commonplace in today's auto-oriented suburbs. Errin Welty outlines her strategy for turning stagnating strips into vibrant shopping districts.

May 23, 2011 - Errin Welty

Old Urbanist argues that zoning has never effectively preserved property values, but has done exactly the opposite by not allowing more valuable uses to replace less valuable ones.

May 23, 2011 - Old Urbanist

Keeping America innovative means maintaining its power to lure in immigrants, according to this article. But as it argues, that lure is fading.

May 21, 2011 - The Wall Street Jounal

Jarrett Walker looks at a recent "Top Cities for Transit" list that ranks Honolulu #1, and says the criteria that the Brookings Institution used are "especially perverse".

May 20, 2011 - Human Transit

Geomapping data is helping police in cities address problem areas, improve unsafe intersections and improve overall efficiency.

May 20, 2011 - Governing

Maggie Koerth-Baker digs into the history of monorails, and finds examples in the United States as early as 1876.

May 19, 2011 - Boing Boing

The Urban Guide for Alternate Use points to a campaign by a group called Varsity of Maneuvers that reuses street poles for pole dancing.

May 19, 2011 - Urban Guide for Alternate Use

Construction of a multi-use event arena in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, was supposed to be a boon for the city. But when events dried up, costs mounted and a big building became a big mistake.

May 19, 2011 - The New York Times

The U.S. is falling behind other nations in keeping up its transportation systems and infrastructure, according to a new report from the Urban Land Institute.

May 18, 2011 - The Washington Post

Projections of water shortages and predicted changes in the climate mean bad news for water users in the American West.

May 18, 2011 - Miller-McCune

Ryan Donahue of the Trust for Public Land says that it depends on age, health, time availability, quality of surroundings, safety, climate, and many other factors.

May 17, 2011 - City Parks Blog

When people love a city, it succeeds. That's the semi-obvious conclusion of a recent survey. So why aren't we working hard to make cities people will love?

May 17, 2011 - The Infrastructurist

Your streets could be killing you -- or at least making it harder for emergency services to reach you in times of need.

May 17, 2011 - Medill National Security Zone

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has supported roughly 700 affordable housing projects around the country that have never been completed, some stalling out for over a decade.

May 16, 2011 - The Infrastructurist

Race and ethnic groups have seen major shifts from the 1990s to today, according to this report from the Brookings Institution.

May 16, 2011 - Brookings Institution

Copper demand is on the rise all over the planet. As this post from InfraNet Lab points out, the U.S. has rich deposits -- in its telephone networks.

May 16, 2011 - InfraNet Lab

An increasing amount of architecture projects in the U.S. are taking regional concerns like water and energy production into consideration.

May 14, 2011 - Architect

The Brookings Institution recently analyzed the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S. to see how easy it is to use transit. Time presents the best and worst from the list, which includes some surprises.

May 13, 2011 - Time

A new study looking at neighborhood satisfaction finds that people living in the suburbs are less satisfied than urban dwellers.

May 13, 2011 - Men's Health