Urban Edge Stories by Andy Olin

The new CDC moratorium on evictions will expire on Oct. 3, but renters who are in jeopardy of losing their homes — and landlords who are owed money — can still apply for federally funded assistance.

Trees can cool our cities and make them more resilient. Here’s a look at what is being done to grow and protect the urban forest in the Houston area.  

What for some may be an anticipated return to “normal” is for others an anxiety-filled readjustment to pre-pandemic life. No matter which category you place yourself, there are some aspects of normalcy we’d all prefer to leave in 2019. Chief among them is the daily struggle to get where we need or want to go. Unfortunately, it’s not certain how long we have before traffic in Houston returns and exceeds levels we saw a couple of years ago. 

Posts about where Houston and other Texas metros are ranked on lists of best and worst places for you-name-it routinely perform well on this blog. These lists range from happiest and safest cities to best cities for staycations, foodies and working from home. Today, we’re kicking off a new feature focused on rankings and Houston’s place on them. 

Trees provide significant benefits that can be felt both now and in the future, from lowering temperatures, fighting flooding and slowing climate change. But not all Houstonians enjoy the valuable shade and other advantages trees offer in equal measures. A new interactive mapping tool makes it easier to see which neighborhoods are most in need of more trees.

Economists studying the dramatic growth of new business activity found that the proportion of Black residents in a ZIP code had the greatest impact on the rate of increase and that business formation coincided with the stimulus payments.

The city has eight months of ideal cycling weather each year and has taken some sizable steps in building out its bike infrastructure in the past decade. But is anyone outside of Houston paying attention?  

The National Register of Historic Places lists 290 entries for Houston. Of those, only 13 focus on the history of African-American residents.

Houston, a quintessentially free-enterprise, anti-government city, is increasingly recognizing the critical role of government in strengthening the safety net, expanding opportunity and building resiliency, according to the Kinder Houston Area Surveys.

COVID-19 infections and fatalities peaked at different times in cities across the U.S., and local efforts to slow the spread varied as well. Despite those differences, retail spending in Houston and other large metros followed very similar trajectories.

The 2021 Kinder Houston Area Survey shows a striking uptick among white and Hispanic residents in their acknowledgment of racial injustice and the discrimination that Black Americans face.

As the devastating COVID-19 pandemic slowly dissipates, the 2021 Kinder Houston Area Survey results reflect the disproportionate impact it had on Hispanics and African Americans in the Houston area. This year’s survey also shows positive ratings for the economy and changes in attitudes about racial injustice and discrimination against Black residents.

As a kid, I spent a good chunk of time in the Astrodome, but I didn’t know the story behind how it was built and the role it played in the desegregation of Houston.

In Houston and across the country, the growth in younger populations is being driven by people of color — many of whom continue to grow up experiencing high levels of poverty. To ensure the nation's economic success in the future, there needs to be more support for children in the U.S. starting now.

The residents of University Village in Greater Third Ward made a very strong case for turning a vacant lot into a pocket park in their neighborhood — and the city listened.

Despite good intentions, the city’s three-month “slow streets” experiment in Eastwood may have been undone by efforts to react quickly to the circumstances of the pandemic. But the lessons learned could improve the initiative going forward.

A new report shows most local economies aren’t delivering enough high-quality jobs to support the cost of raising a family. As cities across the nation work to recover from a recession that has worsened the preexisting challenge of struggling families, how can more jobs be created or upgraded to pay a family-sustaining wage?