Aug 26, 2019
“We have to be there at ungodly hours, before transit even beings or long after it ends.” That is how one airport worker described her nighttime shifts to me back in 2016 when I was interviewing workers and union representatives across a wide variety of sectors. A key finding in my own interviews with workers…
Aug 26, 2019
A city’s nighttime activities need to reflect the population it serves. Government officials, community leaders, and residents must collaborate to support and promote diverse and inclusive nighttime activities for diverse communities such as people from different backgrounds, people who identify as LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities. One of Washington, DC’s prime cultural events is Art…
Jul 23, 2019
The world is experiencing three massive transitions in the urban space – the rollout of greenfield cities, the decarbonization of our energy system, and a profound mobility revolution that is fundamentally changing how goods and people move through cities. This Big Picture explores how these three transitions are changing the urban landscape and the way…
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Jun 13, 2019
Santa Monica’s Wellbeing Index was premised on a bold idea: what if we went beyond traditional performance measures and used data to genuinely understand the people we serve in order to more effectively respond to community needs? We have always believed that government exists to safeguard and improve people’s lives. But we, like many other…
Jun 04, 2019
Promoting Affordability, Health, and Community Most of the housing that has been built, and continues to be built, is premised on lifestyles, technology, and demographics of the past. As a result, a lot of the housing is unnecessarily expensive, unsustainable for the planet, unhealthy for its inhabitants, and not the type of housing today’s urbanites…
Jun 04, 2019
When something iconic fades away, is there a way to bring it back? In El Paso, TX, a figurative and literal flame was gradually extinguished as the historic Blue Flame building, built in 1954, sat mostly empty over the past quarter century. The building had served for decades as the natural gas company’s headquarters, its…
Jun 04, 2019
Los Angeles is facing an unprecedented affordable housing crisis. High rents are forcing many low-income residents to move out of the city in order to avoid succumbing to homelessness. According to homelessness counts between 2010 and 2017, the number of homeless people across Los Angeles County has gone up 42 percent from 38,700 to more…
Jun 04, 2019
While luxury apartment and condo living continues to rise as the largest multi-family construction boom ever continues into its 10th year, the United States faces a critical shortage of homes that are affordable to low- and moderate-income households. This is a crisis made even more severe when accounting for the number of affordable units in…
Jun 04, 2019
In 1943, Dr. Abraham Maslow advanced a theory for understanding human motivation: his eponymous Hierarchy of Needs. Several decades later, he would quietly amend the punchline of his original theory. The capstone of his initial pyramid, self-actualization, would instead become self-transcendence, reckoning that the highest form of actualization isn’t about “me”, but rather “we.” With…
Jun 04, 2019
The housing crisis is global in scale. An estimated 3 billion people will need new housing by 2030, with some experts estimating we will need to build as many houses as have ever been built in human history. Yet, every new house has a carbon footprint that stretches the length of the supply chain and…
Jun 04, 2019
With 8.5 million people, New York City’s population is at an all-time high, and projected to increase to 9 million by 2040. It is a sign of the city’s health and vitality that a growing number of people want to come to New York City, choose to stay and raise their families or grow old…
Jun 04, 2019
By 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double. To account for this increase, an estimated 25 million new dwellings will need to be built every year for the next 30 years. Housing the world’s population is quickly becoming one of humanity’s most pressing problems. And a home is far more than a…
