It’s a plausible and widely-believed hypothesis: Poor people in the United States suffer from measurably worse nutrition because they have such limited access to good food. Confronted with a high concentration of poor diet choices (like fast food, and processed food in convenience stores) and with few markets offering fresh fruit and vegetables, the poor […]
More doubt cast on food deserts Read More »
What City Observatory did this week 1. Introducing City Observatory policy memos. At City Observatory, one of our goals is to translate the best and latest urban policy research for advocates, organizers, and practitioners so it can inform their work. To better do that, we’re introducing the first of a series of policy memos: short,
The Week Observed: October 30, 2015 Read More »
Recently, we’ve received three new pieces of evidence on how gentrification affects the lives of poor people in changing neighborhoods. First, a study from NYU’s Furman Center suggests that residents of public housing in wealthier and gentrifying neighborhoods make more money, suffer from less violence, and have better educational options for their children, despite also
Truthiness in gentrification reporting Read More »
Yesterday, we wrote about the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, which is in the unique position of being one of the wealthiest urban communities in the nation, and also having almost a third of its housing be public or otherwise subsidized. The question was, what happens to the residents of public housing in a place like
What’s really going on in gentrifying neighborhoods? Read More »
A few weeks ago, in a post about what income inequality means in an urban (rather than national) context, we contrasted images of a lower Manhattan neighborhood with a Dallas suburb. The Manhattan street had subsidized housing on one side and very expensive homes on the other; the Dallas suburb just had the expensive homes.
Higher-inequality neighborhoods reduce inequality Read More »
One role we hope to play at City Observatory is translator: taking some of the best, most rigorous research on American cities and urban policy and turning it into smart, sophisticated, and readable pieces that can inform people actually working on the ground, from community organizations to policymakers. So far, we’ve done that with blog-style commentaries and longer,
Introducing City Observatory policy memos Read More »
Our partners and supporters at the Knight Foundation have announced a new round of the Knight Cities Challenge, which gives grants to people and organizations around the country for projects that make their cities more livable. The deadline to apply is October 27—check it out! What City Observatory did this week 1. Affordability beyond the median.
The Week Observed: October 23, 2015 Read More »
Our recent conversation about the future of American driving habits, and the role of the price of gas in changing them, is a good reminder of a broader truth about transportation policy: prices are important, and getting prices right (or wrong) is crucial. And when it comes to driving, prices are frequently wrong. That’s because driving is extremely costly:
Beyond gas: The price (of driving) is wrong Read More »
At his blog, The Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark pushed back this week on the idea that we’re seeing a revolution in the way people get around cities and suburbs, largely thanks to new transit-and-bike-friendly Millennials. In fact, he cites one of our posts as an example of a narrative he doesn’t think is quite right:
Why creating meaningful transportation change is so hard Read More »
Last week, City Observatory celebrated its first birthday. This week, we’re taking some time to look back at all the reports and commentaries we researched and wrote in the last year, and picking out some of what we think are the most important facts and insights. We put eleven of them into a one-pager with links to
Eleven things you’d know if you read City Observatory Read More »
