State and local aid will be contested under a Joe Biden presidency, too
As the president-elect's stimulus plans emerge, local leaders shouldn't get too excited for direct, flexible aid to bolster their flagging revenues.
Government / Local politics
Local politics
How Paris’s participatory budget is reinvigorating democracy
Participatory budgeting allows residents to propose projects and vote on how they want to allocate a significant amount of municipal spending.
How Florida’s largest city is solving its sewage crisis
Jacksonville has invested millions to repair and upgrade its sewage system, but with the state's population growth, the ageing network cannot keep up.
US cities rein in food delivery apps on behalf of embattled restaurants
Cities across the US have passed emergency measures to cap fees that apps like Grubhub and DoorDash charge restaurants. Those moves so far only scratch the surface of a more entrenched conflict.
China’s Gilded Age shows how corruption infects bureaucracies and economies
The professor and author Yuen Yuen Ang outlines four types of government corruption and the ways they can harm or assist economic growth.
State and local protections helped the US avert the worst-case evictions crisis this year
Recent analysis from the Eviction Lab finds that moratoriums significantly reduced the rate of expulsion filings in US cities, but many of those protections are set to expire soon.
Mumbai’s Coastal Road is an old mistake applied to a new problem
This major infrastructure project may or may not solve the city's traffic woes, but it will leave a vibrant fishing community in its wake.
Berliners want to expropriate 250,000 homes. Here’s what stands in their way
A group of housing advocates are hoping a new referendum will transfer ownership of a quarter of a million apartments to the people.
After 2020, who even wants to run for mayor?
Several major US cities will hold mayoral elections in 2021, but in an era of overlapping crises, ambitious candidates might just opt out.
How Los Angeles County voters secured a budget for prison alternatives
Proponents see Measure J as a means of achieving racial and economic justice through fiscal policy and hope the model can be replicated in other cities.
The urban-rural divide only deepened in the 2020 US election
Along with the major cities, Biden made progress in midsize and small metro areas. The biggest swings in the vote occurred in more densely populated counties.
Cleveland is still suffering from the last recession. It can’t afford another
Austerity feeds on the US's unique form of urban decline. To understand how, just look to Northeast Ohio.
Uber and Lyft beat California’s gig-worker law, and they won’t stop there
App-based companies spent millions to keep their California workers classified as independent contractors, not employees. Now they want to shop the law around the country.
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