Urban Affairs Archives

Home Urban Affairs

News in Brief

Should the U.S. Govern Lagos? Dhaka? Kinshasa?

A new book argues that the growing megacities like Lagos and Dhaka — with their massive suffering and chaos — are breeding grounds for epidemics and worldwide terrorism. And maybe its time for the U.S., and other developed nations, to intervene.

Lindsey McCormack

Environment

Street Makeovers Put New Spin on the Block

How community activists are taking city planning into their own hands and creating pedestrian-friendly blocks via pop-up urbanism.

Jonathan Lerner

Economics

Are Cities Like Lehman Brothers or AIG?

Things are tough all over, but the National League of Cities suggests when improvement comes, cities may be among the last to know.

Emily Badger

Economics

The Slumming of Suburbia

The poor are fleeing our cities, but life is not always greener, even when affordable housing comes with a two-car garage.

David Villano

Economics

Can Development Reduce Poverty?

The economic opportunities found in inner cities should attract private investment, although a nudge from government can overcome traditional inertia.

Amy R. Ramos

Economics

Moving Inner Cities Out of the Red, Into the Black

Researchers say America's chronically underserved urban cores are an untapped market that can sustain private investment — and turn themselves around in the process.

Amy R. Ramos

A woman and child walk down a street in the Fort Greene neighborhood where the director and artist Spike Lee once lived on February 27th, 2014, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.

Education

It Takes a Neighborhood to Raise an Articulate Child

Mr. Rogers was right: Neighborhoods play an important role in a child's development.

Tom Jacobs