In cities across the country, the promotion of higher residential densities in certain areas has become an orthodox part of urban planning. Consolidation, as opposed to sprawl, is seen as a way to accommodate the apparent inevitability of larger cities in a more sustainable, economical, and healthy way.
Urban transportation planning is mainly concerned with easing traffic congestion, improving safety, and saving time for motorists. Most metropolitan transportation plans strive to blend environmental, economic, and social-equity goals to promote sustainability.
As each U.S. election cycle rolls by, public life seems to grow more rancorous, frayed and fragmented, and the 2014 midterms were no exception. There is a palpable sense that something deeper is at work in America, some sea change in the underlying patterns of life, but is this valid?
From kitchens that buy and sell locally grown food, to a waste co-op that will return compost to the land, new enterprises are building an integrated food network. It's about local people keeping the wealth of their land at home.
There’s a battle underway to protect Americans’ right to vote, and recent news from the frontlines has been grim. Republicans, assisted by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, have passed new restrictions at a breakneck pace. Texas’ draconian voter ID law was just upheld, possibly disenfranchising as many 600,000 voters.
In 2012, the UK’s Sunday Times reported that actor Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple because he was not legally allowed to bequeath his iTunes collection of music to his children. The story turned out to be false but it did start a conversation about what we can, and can’t, do with our digital possessions.
A coalition of representatives from 32 cities across the U.S. joined together to address the pressing need for fast, reliable and affordable high-speed Internet.
As an example of mass participatory journalism, where the voices of ordinary citizens are heard as much as public officials or PR professionals, the UK’s hyperlocal news network is second to none.
- By Robert Reich
American kids are getting ready to head back to school. But the schools they’re heading back to differ dramatically by family income.
So far this year, more than 48,000 undocumented minors have been detained while crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. But increasingly, the kids aren't from Mexico. They're from Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and they're fleeing from violence and poverty in their home countries, according to Reuters.
The explosive uptake of mobile devices including smartphones and tablets has us immersed in a complex, volatile soup of hyper-connected digital technologies, where not only is the perception of time being compressed, but privacy protections are being reshaped.
Facing declining visitors and uncertainty about what to do about it, library administrators in the new town of Almere in the Netherlands did something extraordinary. They redesigned their libraries based on the changing needs and desires of library users and, in 2010, opened the Nieuwe Bibliotheek (New Library), a thriving community hub that looks more like a bookstore than a library.
Today’s youth are so civic minded that some social commentators have dubbed them the “civic generation.” For them, it seems the American Dream has taken on a whole new meaning: it’s all about the people. “Community service is part of their DNA. It’s part of this generation to care about something larger than themselves...”
Publicly owned networks in cities across the US preserve net neutrality and provide quality service. With the announcement by the FCC that cable and telephone companies will be allowed to prioritize access to their customers, only one option remains that can guarantee an open internet: owning the means of distribution.
Meet the tenacious gardeners putting down roots in "America's most desperate town". They're not always optimistic about the future of Camden, N.J. But they're committed to it anyway, and they've created one of the nation's fastest growing networks of urban farms.
Ever wish you could live at your CSA? Or move to a neighborhood where everyone is as excited about fresh, healthy food as you are? All over the United States people are embracing local food production in an exciting new way. Called 'agrihoods,' this new type of neighborhood serves up farm-to-table living in a cooperative environment.
As income inequality has risen in the United States, significant research and press coverage has been devoted to how Americans may be correspondingly “sorting” themselves into class-based, or high- and lower-income, communities, as well as to the rise of suburban poverty.
“People are starting to ask, ‘What can we do together that we can’t do by ourselves?’” Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s the same ethos behind the sharing economy, an economic trend that Bradley believes emerged from the Great Recession. People are beginning to understand...
- By Robert Reich
Do you recall a time in America when the income of a single school teacher or baker or salesman or mechanic was enough to buy a home, have two cars, and raise a family? I remember. My father (who just celebrated his 100th birthday) earned enough for the rest of us to live comfortably...
I carried with me through life this lesson I learned in Middle School – the practice of viewing a culture, civilization or grouping of any kind from its edge. From that vantage point I could look within and view its dynamics and motion more clearly than from the center. I could also look outward...
People who win large amounts of money on lotteries tend to switch their political allegiances towards the right of the political spectrum and become less egalitarian, joint UK-Australian research has found.
- By Mystic Pete
Our problem is not technology. Our problem is using technology unwisely. We clever primates have fabricated an external brain around planet earth built from the internet, phones, and the media. But this virtual brain can...
A United Nations designation provides the perfect opportunity to invest in small- and medium-sized farms. In the broad discussion of agriculture, family farmers often don’t get as much attention as large-scale industrial farming operations.