Search
Every story we have published and everything on the reading list, searchable by program, place, or policy area — including items that have aged off the section pages.
- Housing
One year later: Are California’s housing reforms working?
The path to ruin is paved with good intentions. In an effort to rein in the burden of environmental review standards, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed major CEQA reforms in June 2025. A year later, how is the program doing?
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
Pittsburgh cuts routine permit waits from a week to one day
A first phase of permitting reforms — virtual inspections, an online tracker, and an 'EZ Permits' fast lane — targets low-risk residential and commercial work.
- Health & Human Services
Who are the Ideal 911 Operators?
Washington, DC looped nurses into the 911 call flow and avoided nearly $4 million in ambulance costs during its pilot program.
- Reading list · Streetsblog USA
Combining free fares with faster routes multiplies transit ridership gains
A national report finds cities that speed up buses and drop fares together see bigger ridership boosts than doing either alone, with some agencies finding fare collection costs more than it collects.
- Reading list · KFF Health News
Massachusetts Medicaid meal deliveries cut hospital visits, study finds
A peer-reviewed study of nearly 1,900 Massachusetts Medicaid patients found medically tailored meal deliveries were linked to 20% fewer ER visits and 31% fewer hospitalizations, even as federal funding for such waivers grows uncertain.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
Early state pilots suggest agentic AI can speed up permits and prescriptions
A new playbook catalogs early agentic-AI experiments in Virginia, Utah, and Boston, including one pilot state officials say found $1.4 billion in annual savings and cut permit times by nearly 80%.
- Economic Development
How this Obscure 19th Century Feud Set the Rules of the Data Center Game Today
When it comes to data centers, this 19th century debate is having a lasting impact in town halls and for county commissions across the country.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
An Indianapolis school pairs reading intervention with housing help for families
A nonprofit-run Indianapolis Public Schools campus rebuilt around family support and daily reading blocks is showing early gains after years as one of the district's lowest performers.
- Reading list · The 74
Tulsa schools flag eviction filings so families get help before kids fall behind
A Tulsa Public Schools partnership with a local nonprofit alerts parents facing eviction to legal aid and rental assistance, aiming to keep children enrolled.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
Colorado's new program gives teachers help buying their first home
A state-funded down payment assistance program for public school employees has already helped 85 first-time homebuyers, with more expected as it scales.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
Philadelphia cut school weapon confiscations by two-thirds through relationship-building, not just security
District data show weapons confiscations down 67% and fights down 22% since 2021, which the safety chief credits to conflict mediation and trusted-adult networks rather than added policing.
- Reading list · The 74
A Kansas City health department turned around falling back-to-school vaccination rates
Extra clinics, extended hours, and a rapid-response news conference countering vaccine misinformation produced a measurable uptick in immunizations within days.
- Reading list · The Hechinger Report
A small Alaska town used a $1M windfall to fix its child care desert
Seward, Alaska put a one-time cruise-line donation into child care instead of just housing, and licensed slots rose 150% in five years.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
Nevada's SNAP fraud-detection program saved $300,000 in two months, as states brace for new federal cost-sharing rules
A civic tech nonprofit's caseworker toolkit points to state efforts, including Nevada's data-analytics program to catch erroneous SNAP payments, as models for handling looming federal cost shifts.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
South Bend built a digital services division over a decade by banking early wins for political capital
The Indiana city's digital services director explains how small early projects created the credibility and budget support needed to sustain longer-term modernization work.
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
Minneapolis and St. Paul's municipally owned EV car-sharing network logged 140,000 trips in 2025
A joint city program running 168 electric vehicles and 70 curbside charging stations may be the only municipally owned car-share and charging network in the US.
- Reading list · The 74
What reading programs that actually raise scores have in common
An analysis of thousands of schools that beat literacy expectations for their poverty levels finds a recurring set of practices, from protected instructional time to explicit foundational-skills teaching.
- Reading list · The 74 / Missouri Independent
Missouri's charter oversight agency returns unspent fees to schools it monitors
A lean state charter commission has rebated $685,000 in surplus oversight fees to the schools it sponsors, the third such rebate in recent years.
- Reading list · The 74 / Spotlight Delaware
Delaware district swaps armed police for district-employed constables in middle schools
Facing board pushback over school arrests, Christina School District will phase school resource officers out of middle schools and replace them with constables it employs directly.
- Housing
Panhandler? You could be a Santation Worker Instead
Albuquerque's 311 van drives around the city all day, picking up panhandlers and taking them to work. But is that really a viable way to reduce homelessness?
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
DC's locked food-waste bins have diverted over a million pounds since 2024
Washington, D.C.'s network of keypad-access composting bins, aimed at apartment dwellers without curbside pickup, has grown steadily in use and is expanding by 20 more sites this fall.
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
LA Metro's outreach division coincides with falling crime and rising ridership
A dedicated care-based services division pairing homelessness outreach with public safety staff accompanied an 8-month ridership rise, a 6.7% drop in violent crime, and a 57% decline in unhoused riders on the system.
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
Cleveland's bank-backed housing fund has financed 216 units in its first year
A public-private fund seeded with leftover federal pandemic aid and matched by three banks has raised $53 million toward a $100 million goal, financing construction of housing for residents earning under 80% of area median income.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
Denver's threat-of-closure policy pushed four struggling schools to improve ratings
A district policy pairing extra support with the threat of closure after repeated low ratings preceded rating gains at four Denver schools this year.
- Reading list · Smart Cities Dive
North Miami Beach transit ridership more than doubled after a route redesign
A city-hired mobility firm used ridership data to redesign bus routes and add on-demand shuttles, and monthly riders grew from about 4,000 to 10,000.
- Public Safety
Baltimore has Found the Key to Urban Violence
A knock at the door. Two cops, your pastor, and a social worker with a message: stop the gun violence. This is exactly how one of America's most violent cities reduced homicides by 60%.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
A Tennessee district's math software trial shows gains came from the platform, not the AI tutor
A two-year randomized study of 18 middle schools found faster math gains from Khan Academy even though students barely used its bundled AI chatbot.
- Reading list · Stateline
State disclosure laws are slowing private equity's healthcare buyouts
A Pitchbook analysis cited in the reporting finds private-equity healthcare deals on pace to fall by nearly half as at least 25 states add scrutiny to medical mergers.
- Reading list · Streetsblog USA
Camera-enforced loading zones in Philadelphia nearly doubled freight use of the curb
Fifteen months into an automated curb enforcement pilot, the reporting finds delivery vehicles using Center City loading zones up 97 percent and traffic moving faster, with safety effects still unmeasured.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
AI screening of permit applications cut Honolulu's median housing permit wait by about 40 percent
Cities are putting automated completeness checks in front of human plan reviewers, and the reporting finds real time savings in Honolulu alongside a pilot Seattle judged not ready to adopt.
- Reading list · The 74
Hawaii holds back roughly one in 13 freshmen, and its own data show what happens next
The 74 reports that Hawaii's ninth grade repeater rate runs well above the national average, and that students who fail two or more freshman classes rarely finish high school.
- Reading list · Chalkbeat
Denver hit its early literacy target and missed its 3-8 reading goal, four years after publishing both
Chalkbeat checks Denver Public Schools' 2022 strategic plan against the 2026 test results it promised to move.
- Education
How Mississippi Solved its Literacy Crisis
The state ranked 49th in reading in 2013. By 2025, it ranked 9th. Mississippi is no longer the butt of the joke, and other states should be taking notes.
- Reading list · Streetsblog San Francisco
Oakland's own before-and-after counts show speed cameras cut extreme speeding about 70 percent
A city transportation department evaluation using tube counts across three summers finds far fewer drivers going 11 mph or more over the limit at camera sites, though it measures speeds rather than crashes.
- Reading list · Shelterforce
A court order forces Chicago to fix the accessible housing it funded but never checked
Every one of roughly 100 city-funded affordable buildings surveyed in an eight-year civil rights case failed federal accessibility standards, and the settlement now requires 2,800 accessible units.
- Reading list · KFF Health News
Baltimore is spending opioid settlement money to send clinicians, not police, to some 911 calls
KFF Health News reports on the city's plan to expand mobile crisis response, with the clearest outcome evidence so far coming from Durham rather than Baltimore.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
California built a public tracker for AI job loss and so far it finds almost none
The state's unemployment agency and a university lab match jobless claims against AI task-exposure scores, and the reporting says the only moving line is claims from college-educated workers in high-exposure jobs.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
California's camera network spotted more than half of 2025's wildfires before anyone called 911
Nine years into a state-university partnership, the reporting says AI-assisted cameras informed the response to about 3,600 incidents last year, though no false-alarm or response-time figures are given.
- Reading list · KFF Health News
California built insurance billing for school mental health care, and most districts still aren't using it
KFF Health News finds that four years into a $4.4 billion initiative, fewer than a fifth of enrolled campuses had filed a claim.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
San Jose trained a seventh of its workforce in AI by building the course itself
The reporting says more than 1,000 city employees have finished an in-house program run with San José State University since 2024, though what is measured so far is enrollment rather than results.
- Reading list · Route Fifty
Detroit's own gunshot-detection numbers show alerts rarely end in evidence or arrests
As police sought a $2.06 million contract extension, department data cited in the reporting shows shell casings recovered in about 12 percent of ShotSpotter alerts and a lower arrest-clearance rate than for gunfire reported by other means.