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Cities

Weight of the ordinary

Q&A | Crosses and stucco in the ‘holy land’ of suburbia

by Steve West
Posted 4/11/19, 02:47 pm

Prickly social critic James Howard Kunstler once said “suburbs are the embodiment of existential evil.” Critics regularly condemn them as wastelands of cookie-cutter construction, social conformity, anomie, and racial segregation—and yet that’s where 55 percent of Americans live.

Houses in the neighborhood

Cities | Christians in New York gather to discuss the problem of housing in an expensive city

by Emily Belz
Posted 4/03/19, 10:30 am

A New York moment:

On Monday night almost 200 people packed out an upper room of W83 Ministry Center, the Upper West Side building where Redeemer Presbyterian Church meets, to talk about housing. It’s a hot topic in one of the most expensive places to live in the country and where homelessness is at the highest levels since the Great Depression.

Mountain movers

Cities | Medellín, Colombia, once the murder capital of the world, now bustles with better activity

by Jamie Dean
Posted 3/29/19, 10:43 am

Fourth in a series on changing cities

On a clear morning in mid-February, a giant boom and a billowing cloud brought a dramatic turn in one of Colombia’s most infamous storylines. Engineers in the northern city of Medellín triggered 180 detonators and demolished the six-story building that drug-lord Pablo Escobar once called home.

The cartel chief died in a shootout with Colombian authorities in 1993, but the building where Escobar once orchestrated his terrifying campaign of bombings and murders still stood decades later.

Ambition, money, and mercy: faces of Austin

Cities | People are flocking to Austin for the jobs, education, and hip culture, but the city’s rapid growth is hurting some longtime and low-income residents

Charissa Crotts | 3/28/19, 03:58 pm

Third in a series on changing cities

Turnaround town

Cities | Chattanooga’s reinvention—and those left behind

Andrew Shaughnessy | 3/14/19, 02:42 pm

First in a series on changing cities

When Pat Kelley was growing up in the 1960s, Chattanooga was still a bustling industrial town. Textile factories, chemical plants, and steam boiler manufacturers employed men and women by the thousands. As a boy, Kelley caught glimpses of fire flashing in the foundries and watched as steel mills hurled atomized carbon into the humid Southern air.

Scooters at your service

Transportation | For-hire electric scooters have arrived in many U.S. cities, and not everyone is happy about it

Alyssa Jackson | 1/31/19, 10:40 am

Remember fun? Your nostalgic childhood memories probably involve some sort of toy on wheels: Big Wheels, roller skates, wagons, skateboards. The latest craze is scooters—for adults.

K-9s in Times Square

Cities | A peek behind the curtain at New York City’s security preparations for New Year’s Eve

Emily Belz | 1/01/19, 05:54 pm

A New York moment:

A rainy New Year’s Eve in Times Square went without a hitch thanks to tight New York Police Department security. We likely will never know the full extent of the NYPD’s security operation for this celebration that brings tens of thousands of people to Times Square each year, but at a press conference the department’s leaders shared a peek at how they do their work.

Prime subsidies

New York | Local outrage over the Amazon deal in New York, and scientific delight over termite pyramids in Brazil

Emily Belz | 11/21/18, 12:17 pm

A New York moment:

All the buzz in New York at the moment concerns the new Amazon headquarters coming here with a promise of about 25,000 jobs. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and state Gov. Andrew Cuomo, typically archenemies, showed a united front supporting the deal. But they seemed surprised by the level of anger from the community about it—people who feel the transit system is already overloaded, who don’t like how much money taxpayers will shell out for the deal, or who just don’t like Amazon.

Dozens of structures caught fire after explosions near Boston

Kiley Crossland | 9/14/18, 11:57 am

UPDATE: The director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said that firefighters responded to 60 to 80 structure fires Thursday in the three communities affected by a series of natural gas explosions. Kurt Schwartz said Friday that firefighters in Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover responded to about 150 emergency calls, adding that close to 400 people spent the night in emergency shelters. The cause of the fires and explosions remains under investigation.

Flying through Denver

Travel | For a billion dollars, will it get any easier?

Joel Belz | 7/30/18, 03:17 am

Almost 20 years ago, when Denver International Airport was still brand new and I may have been a little too brash, I detailed in this space some of the airport’s most noticeable problems. A few Denver residents have never quite forgiven me.

Now I read that our friends in the Mile High City are getting ready to spend over a billion dollars updating and expanding the fifth-busiest airport in the United States. Yes, I said a billion dollars. For that kind of money, maybe I can sneak in a few kind words.