Urban Edge

In many places, the public library often functions as a community center — a free and shared space that provides crucial social infrastructure for neighborhoods. That’s especially true when a disaster such as Hurricane Harvey hits. But what happens when a crisis like COVID-19 keeps libraries closed for five months and counting.

NIMBY opposition alone isn’t enough to counter the harmful effects of air pollutants emitted by concrete batch plants located in underserved and over-polluted communities in Harris County, which is home to more of these facilities than any county in Texas. Too often, much of the pollution and many of the polluters largely go unchecked by the state.

A new report measuring the damage done to America’s creative economy by COVID-19 shows the South, Texas and Houston are among the most devastated. At the metropolitan level, the Houston area is the largest metro suffering the worst losses.

The Kinder Institute’s Community Bridges program provides Rice University students an opportunity to both study and work to address urban inequality in Houston. Here’s Susanna Yau’s story of how working with the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation changed her life.

To ensure Houston ISD schools don’t miss out on important census-guided funding in the next decade, there needs to be a full and accurate local population count. Unfortunately, the city’s self-response rate trails that of the nation by close to 10%. And on top of that, the counting is now set to end a month earlier than originally planned.

For the average Harris County household, the combined costs of housing and transportation are at the edge of affordability. Add to that the growing distance between home locations and jobs, and the costs quickly can become unsustainable, particularly for lower-income households.

As moratoriums on evictions expire and bonus unemployment benefits run out, many in Houston and across Texas face increasing uncertainty about their ability to pay for a place to live.

Large Sun Belt cities have similar strengths, such as strong economies and relatively low costs of living. They also face the same problems, like growing income inequality and rising housing costs. A Kinder Institute report concludes that Sun Belt cities need to find new ways to address their common urban issues.

Since mid-March, ridership has plummeted and there’s concern about a “transit death spiral.” But new studies show that public transportation isn’t a major source of coronavirus transmission.

Wage stagnation, low-paying jobs and bleak prospects for the future. These are some of the economic issues affecting the vast majority of income earners in America — including most white workers — as a result of racism.

Most people could care less about the inner workings of economics. Unless, of course, it begins to impact their jobs, their income and their wealth.

In the same way, many white people in America do not care about racial equity in the criminal justice system, police bias against minorities, or police brutality against black people. Why? Because in their minds, these issues do not affect them.

But they do.

Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Task Force on Policing Reform has started its work, drawing on a very broad set of local leaders, activists and citizens. A series of similar task forces were launched in Los Angeles in the 1990s, all of which arose from controversies and scandals within the LAPD. What can Houston learn from LA’s “blue ribbon” police task forces?

David Fields is the City of Houston’s first chief transportation planner. Leaving the Bay Area for this newly created position, he arrived in Houston at a time, though, when transportation was changing.

Traffic levels fell dramatically throughout the Houston metro area as people were ordered to stay at home and businesses were closed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 — and it worked. But, as the economy was reopened and people returned to work, restaurants, bars, beaches and more, traffic levels and infection rates increased.

While children attend K-12 public schools for an average of 1,195 hours per year, a full-time working parent averages twice as much time, about 2,450 hours per year, working and commuting. Now, as school districts prepare to reopen for the fall semester — whether in-person, virtually or a combination of both — administrators, teachers, parents and students are having to adjust their plans based what’s possible during the coronavirus pandemic.

Investments, institutions and decriminalization all are strategies that can reduce the mandate of police and be more effective in addressing certain “offenses” than the criminal justice solution. This post explores police alternatives for cities, dividing them into three groups: health, relationships and community patrol.

Surges, hot spots, reopenings and reclosings. As the pandemic’s jagged sawtooth trend line continues to cut across the nation, uncertainty remains. In the end, how much will the composition of urban and suburban areas change?

James Rojas has spent the better part of his career reconciling his formal training with his lived experience as a Gay Chicano.

While not all Americans support dismantling or defunding the police, recent surveys show the overwhelming majority do agree that changes in police training are needed. Most also think police officers shouldn’t be protected from being sued by “qualified immunity.” Part two of our reading list on policing brings together a collection of works on the culture within police organizations.

Overall, waiting times may be improving — but long waits are still common in Black communities. As the percentage of nonwhite voters in a precinct increases, so do wait times.