YIMBY News for 8/22

[Eric Budd]

Fighting for Safe Streets in America’s Most Dangerous City

Strong Towns

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KEYWORD SCORE: 56.91. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, bike path, complete street, comprehensive plan, development, downtown, growth, house, housing, mobility, project, real estate, rent, segregate, segregation, transportation, urban, walk, zone, zoning

Memphis, Tennessee, was ranked the #1 most dangerous metro area by Smart Growth America in 2024. That’s not stopping *Kelsey Huse*, a safe streets advocate and grad student studying city and regional planning. She’s tackling the problem head-on by *analyzing car crash sites, helping launch a city-wide advocacy coalition, and raising awareness* for safer infrastructure online. Today, Kelsey joins Tiffany to share the inside scoop on Memphis’ dangerous design and how she’s working to change it. - Click here for the transcript. (Lightly edited for readability.) Tiffany Owens Reed 0:00 Tiffany. Hi

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Fifty Years After Mount Laurel, Affordable Housing Is Gaining Ground in New Jersey

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 55.66. affordable, affordable housing, construction, density, development, growth, homeowner, housing, housing crisis, income, parking, project, rent, renter, segregate, segregation, single-family, supply, urban, zoning

[image: Backyard] (Photo by Matt Donders / Unsplash) *This story was co-published in collaboration with Shelterforce, the only independent, non-academic publication covering the worlds of affordable housing, community development and housing justice.* More than a year ago, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation codifying the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine, the mandate that all cities and towns build their fair share of affordable housing. The new law streamlines the process, makes it easier to determine how much housing each town and city must build, and creates a new authority to handl

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Op-Ed: Sound Transit’s Light Rail Plan Leaves Kirkland And Issaquah Behind

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 39.22. affordable, apartment, bus rapid transit, bus stop, construction, density, development, downtown, housing, parking, parking lot, project, rent, urban, walk

4 Line light rail would stop well short of urban cores and not open until the 2040s, making a bus rapid transit line a better fit for Kirkland and Issaquah. Sound Transit promised a new light rail line to serve the growing Eastside cities of Kirkland and Issaquah. But the current plan for the 4 Line skips right past both city centers. Stations are placed on the outskirts of town, tucked into park-and-ride lots far from where people actually live, work, or shop. Service on the 4 Line isn’t expected to begin until 2041 at best or 2044 in the less rosy scenario, and by then, the project risks bec

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The Weekly Wrap: Trump Admin Won’t Approve New Wind and Solar Projects

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 30.38. development, growth, homeowner, house, income, preservation, project, rent, transportation, urban, walk

[image: The Weekly Wrap] (Photo by Nicholas Doherty / Unsplash) Welcome back to The Weekly Wrap, our Friday roundup of stories that explain the problems oppressing people in cities and elevate the solutions that bring us closer to economic, environmental and social justice. If you enjoy this newsletter, share it with a friend or colleague and tell them to subscribe. ------------------------------ Trump Admin Won’t Approve Wind and Solar Power Projects President Trump has announced that his administration will not approve new wind or solar power projects in the country, despite the need for ene

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Linking City and Countryside To Solve Food Insecurity

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 28.98. affordable, bus stop, downtown, house, income, parking, parking lot, project, rent, urban, walk

*This story is part of Next City’s joint **Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship for Rural-Urban Issues** with **Kentucky’s **CivicLex**.* There’s more than enough food to go around, say food access organizers across landscapes. That’s hard to imagine in Kentucky, home to some of the lowest-income and food insecure counties nationwide. The true surplus becomes apparent when a dozen pallets of peaches are loaded in for the Hazel Green Food Project, stretching across the stockyard lot in rural Wolfe County. Someone hollers for volunteers to sort through the haul, so they don vests and plastic gl

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Push to Water Down Route 40 Transit Upgrades Continues Through Construction

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 28.36. bike lane, bus stop, construction, downtown, occupancy, parking, preservation, project, transportation, urban, walk

Construction on upgrades to the King County Metro Route 40 are well underway through the heart of Fremont, as any resident or recent visitor to the neighborhood can easily attest. With the $20.7 million bus improvement project also tackling the replacement of a 100-year-old water main along with sidewalk improvements and new curb ramps, work has been creating major disruptions for people using all modes of travel. Throughout this work, opponents have continued their push to scale back plans to create dedicated bus lanes for the Route 40 as part of the project. A high-profile project from the 2

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This hidden tax will drain billions from the world’s poorest families

Vox - Policy

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.63. construction, development, growth, housing, income, project, rent, walk, zone

Remittances have been proven to reduce infant mortality, boost school enrollment, and fuel housing construction around the world. | Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images Immigrant rights activist Guerline Jozef can’t count the number of frantic texts, calls, and emails she gets daily from Haitians in the United States terrified that some day soon, they won’t be able to feed their families anymore. Not just those in the US, but their “mother, sister, niece, a cousin, a church member” back in Haiti, who heavily depend on their breadwinner abroad to survive. “Entire neighborhoods are being provi

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Rent Reporting Is a No-Brainer For Addressing Financial Inclusion

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 24.69. affordable, development, housing, income, rent, renter, urban

[image: Backyard] (Illustration by Fachrizal Maulana / Unsplash+) Half of American adults have a subprime credit score or no credit score at all. Without a good credit score, applying for a car loan, opening a credit card or getting a rental application approved becomes challenging, if not impossible. Despite the enormous influence they wield in consumer financial markets, credit scores only provide a partial picture of a person’s financial stability and disproportionately penalize marginalized communities. As such, more and more governments and financial inclusion advocates have become intere

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When a Street Kills a Child, We Put the Parents on Trial

Strong Towns

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KEYWORD SCORE: 22.09. apartment, development, growth, hud, income, rent, urban, walk

*The story out of Gastonia, North Carolina, is gutting.* On May 27, 2025, 7-year-old Legend Jenkins was walking home from the grocery store with his older brother when he was struck and killed by the driver of an SUV on West Hudson Boulevard. The driver faced no charges. Legend’s parents, Jessica and Sameule Jenkins, did. Two days after the crash, the district attorney charged both with involuntary manslaughter, set bail at $1.5 million each, and took their remaining children into protective custody. Facing the prospect of months in jail and the loss of their children, the Jenkinses took felon

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Douglas County pitches Lone Tree as potential site of new Broncos stadium

Denver Post Politics

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.31. development, downtown, housing, mobility, regional transportation district, transportation, urban, walk

The smart money may be on Denver’s Burnham Yard if the Broncos build a new stadium — judging by the tens of millions spent to snap up property in its vicinity — but Lone Tree and Douglas County had a message this week: Don’t count us out. Fresh off a recent meeting with the team, Douglas County’s three commissioners weighed in publicly for the first time to urge the NFL franchise to build a new football stadium in a place that “can deliver like no other.” They added their voices to that of Lone Tree Mayor Marissa Harmon, who is pitching the planned City Center development off Interstate 25 as

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