YIMBY News for 4/24

[Eric Budd]

Black Portlanders Were Displaced. This Project Aims to Aid in Their Return.

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 48.42. affordable, affordable housing, development, downtown, fair housing, gentrification, homeowner, house, housing, housing crisis, mixed-use, project, rent, urban

In an era when the Fair Housing Act is under attack across the country, a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, has broken ground on a mixed-use development project that will house hundreds of Black Portlanders who were previously displaced by the city’s use of eminent domain. The $163 million project, on a 1.7-acre site at the intersection of North Russell Street and North Williams Avenue, will eventually be home to former residents and their descendants of Albina. The community in the North and Northeast sections of the city was once home to nearly 80% of Portland’s Black population. While race-bas

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Where Better Data and AI Can Actually Move the Needle on Housing Supply

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 38.88. affordable, affordable housing, construction, development, housing, housing cost, housing crisis, land-use, rent, renter, supply, urban, zone, zoning

(Photo by James Kim Photography + PC Construction) *This op-ed is part of In the Shadow of the Server, a Next City series on the fight over urban technology infrastructure — who builds it, who benefits, and how local leaders can push back.* If one issue is top of mind for cities, it’s the need to build more housing. A shortage of safe and stable homes is driving an unprecedented affordability gap. America’s housing crisis is the result of decades of underbuilding driven in large part by restrictive zoning and land-use policies, and rising building costs. These constraints have limited housing

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Nonprofit Leader Jaelynn Scott Pitches Herself to LD37 Voters

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 36.33. affordable, affordable housing, bus route, development, house, housing, income, infill, project, rent, transit-oriented, urban, walk, zoning

[image: Nonprofit Leader Jaelynn Scott Pitches Herself to LD37 Voters] At the beginning of March, community organizer and Lavender Rights Project’s executive director Jaelynn Scott announced *her run* to fill the open 37th Legislative District seat in Washington State’s House of Representatives. Should she win, Jaelynn Scott would be the first openly transgender person to serve in the state legislature. As a Black transgender woman seeking to make history, Scott said she would bring a different perspective to the issues facing the state, but ultimately would be fighting for all of the 37th. “W

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The Weekly Wrap: A New National Strike Fund Plans to Get Money Into Workers’ Hands

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 35.59. construction, density, housing, preservation, project, rent, renter, urban, zone

[image: The Weekly Wrap] New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani delivered remarks with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) International President Sara Nelson at the Union Now rally in Manhattan on Sunday, April 12, 2026. (Photo by Michael Appleton / Mayoral Photography Office / © City of New York, 2026, Used with permission) 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

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Tech Giants Don’t Just Want Your Data. They Want Your City.

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 23.33. development, parking, project, public space, real estate, rent, urban, walk, zone, zoning

*This essay is adapted from the forthcoming book *Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data* by Ali Fard. It’s published as part of In the Shadow of the Server, a Next City series on the fight over urban technology infrastructure — who builds it, who benefits, and how local leaders can push back.* The fall of 2017 was a watershed moment in the evolving relationship between urbanism and technology corporations. In September, Amazon announced a request for proposals for cities to bid to host its new North American headquarters, Amazon HQ2. In October, a new partnership was announced be

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That Widely Misrepresented E-Mobility Study Actually Reveals Need For Safer Streets, Not E-Bike Crackdowns

Streetsblog Net

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KEYWORD SCORE: 20.31. bike lane, mobility, parking, project, rent, transportation, vision zero

Safer street design is the best way to mitigate rising-but-still-rare injuries stemming from the increase in biking and electric micromobility use, according to a new analysis of emergency room data that is being widely misrepresented by multiple media outlets as part of an anti-e-mobility, pro-driving agenda. Researchers looked only at the roughly 900 who were brought to the Bellevue Hospital emergency room from 2018 to 2023 with injuries resulting from being an e-mobility user or a pedestrian struck by one. The study, which covers the rise in post-pandemic electric micromobility in the Big A

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Though water is scarce right now, its price in parts of Colorado has dropped

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 18.81. construction, growth, house, housing, project, supply, urban

Despite the scarcity of water this year, water prices in Colorado have dropped in major markets, such as the northern Front Range, as construction of new homes flatlines and infertility and aging slow population growth, according to a new report. In northern Colorado, for instance, prices for Colorado-Big Thompson Project water dropped to $85,000 an acre-foot in 2025, down from a high of $101,000 in 2022, according to WestWater Research, a Boise-based consulting firm that tracks water transactions in Colorado and across the American West. One acre-foot of water equals 326,000 gallons, enough t

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