Land Matters

Recently reelected Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego reflects on a supercharged election season – and how, among other changes, Phoenix is becoming a more sustainable, and more urban, place. The nation's fifth-largest metropolis is battling COVID, stepping up measures to conserve water, and providing new housing and transit options for its growing population.

With revenues down and pandemic-related expenditures up, state and local governments are facing a fiscal meltdown this fall and beyond. Experts from the Lincoln Institute talk about the options, including layoffs and cuts in services, and explain how leaving cities and states to struggle on their own might actually worsen a recession.

To make sense of the current discussion of affordable housing in cities or in suburbs, it is necessary to understand the history of discrimination that has been part and parcel of US housing policy and programs, says Lisa Rice, president of the National Fair Housing Alliance.

The coronavirus pandemic and growing outrage about racial injustice have underscored the centrality of healthy, well-located, and affordable housing in society. Author Kim Vermeer and smart growth advocate Andre Leroux assess efforts to create more housing options to address longstanding economic and racial disparities.

For Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, the coronavirus crisis began in earnest when California Governor Gavin Newsom asked to allow sick passengers to disembark from the Crown Princess cruise ship, in the West Oakland port area. And life as mayor of this Bay Area city of 435,000 has not been the same since. Schaaf oversaw a successful lockdown, placed the homeless in vacant hotel rooms, and closed sections of streets to vehicular traffic to encourage biking and walking. Now she is focused on making Oakland more sustainable and equitable than before the pandemic struck.

The coronavirus pandemic has utterly changed virtually all aspects of urban life, both now and for the foreseeable future. Cities like Detroit – before the crisis, arguably on the brink of a rebound -- now must make a wide range of adjustments in programs and initiatives in their quest for equitable regeneration. The long recovery ahead will move from near-term responses to a more holistic re-imagining of how communities function, according to two leaders at the Lincoln Institute's Center for Community Investment.

Financing urban infrastructure and promoting decent, affordable housing were both big topics at the United Nations global cities summit, the World Urban Forum, recently held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Architect and urban planner Claudio Acioly helps explain the worldwide effort to improve conditions in fast-growing cities in the developing world, where one of four people live in slums.

The new year is a time to set goals for the future. But what happens when an entire planet tries to make a common pledge? Economist and Lincoln Institute President George W. "Mac" McCarthy takes stock of an impressive roster of global agreements, from the ozone-repairing Montreal Protocol to the Paris climate accord and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in the spotlight at the World Urban Forum 10 in Abu Dhabi.

A classic post-industrial city on the brink of bankruptcy, Hartford, Connecticut has overhauled its zoning and turned abandoned factories into craft breweries and makers spaces. Can the city be just as creative in replacing a crumbling 1960s-era highway through downtown? Planning commissioner Sara Bronin talks about the cutting-edge urban planning practices she hopes will put the city back on the map.

Cities around the world are hard at work on traffic congestion. Boston has established multi-modal street layouts and special drop-off zones for Uber and Lyft in high-volume areas such as around Fenway Park, for example. But the task is about to get more complex, with the advent of driverless vehicles, delivery robots, and AI-enabled trackless trams -- all of which will require a more wholesale transformation of the cityscape. In this episode, the Lincoln Institute's Heather Hannon explains how the emerging practice of scenario planning can help design the future city.