I understood at a very early age how much place matters and how impactful government services can be on one's life. The Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice was really focused on working with agencies to think about how they're addressing inequity, whether it's through budget as a lever or personnel as a lever, procurement, policymaking. But land use is a lever as well.
The elevator fell multiple floors with someone inside and abruptly stopped when the emergency brakes were activated. While the brakes fortunately kept the elevator from crashing into the bottom of the elevator shaft, the sudden stop caused the person to sustain moderate to severe injuries.
It's like, 'Ok, where? Who do we call? What do you mean?' said Batan, of the Queensboro Dance Festival, which puts on free dance performances, parties, and classes 30 to 40 times each summer. Batan compares the city's complex permitting process - which features an alphabet-soup array of agencies and offices that set guidelines for everything from block parties and street festivals to the use of stages, tents, and speakers - to 'avoiding a bunch of trap doors.'
Through Community Facilities Districts (CFD), Municipal Utility Districts (MUD), Public Improvement Districts (PID), Community Development Districts (CDD) and reimbursement districts (RD), builders can potentially shift infrastructure costs off their balance sheets and onto special districts that homebuyers ultimately absorb through property taxes without potentially adding debt to the builder's books.
I recognize that if we do the bread and butter stuff, we do the customer service, the customer delivery, then we get permission to do bigger things. This philosophy guides the commissioner's approach to balancing operational excellence with broader policy ambitions at the Department of Buildings.
Conservation area regulations aren't on the same level as those for Listed Buildings; however, they are still much stricter than in the average home. The most common legal consideration to make is understanding Article 4 Directions. Article 4 can essentially strip away your 'Permitted Development' rights, meaning you need full blown planning permission, even for minor changes, like front doors.
My family had Slide Show Night when I was growing up. Not every Saturday, but a whole bunch of Saturdays. Either my sister or I would be in charge of setting up the projector, the screen, and loading the carousel. During the show, there'd be a few landscapes or skylines taken during vacations, but almost all the shots were up close. Like most dads, mine wasn't a professional photographer, but he did a good job of capturing memory triggers: faces, gestures, and decorations.
America's quilt work of states whose governors and lawmakers are bucking for housing policy change to break through supply constraints at the root of the nation's affordability crisis now counts Massachusetts among them. With a focus on prohibitively constrictive building codes and zoning ordinances, Gov. Maura Healey has adopted an approach officials in other states and cities have taken before pulling the legislative trigger study the matter for a year or more before drafting a reform policy agenda.
Tower Hamlets Council said in September 2023 it wanted to take down the LTNs and was challenged by Save our Safer Streets (Soss). The court said a failure to reconsult was among the reasons for its decision. Soss said that "thousands of local residents will be extremely pleased and relieved". Tower Hamlets Council, led by mayor Lutfur Rahman, said it was "disappointed" while London's mayor called it "good news for Londoners".
A bridge failure might sound like something from a blockbuster, but real damage usually creeps in slowly. Across the nation, engineers watch thousands of bridges that remain open, yet are far from their best condition. "Structurally deficient" is not a death sentence, but it signals repairs can no longer wait. These 10 bridges handle massive traffic and are a serious concern nationwide today.
Jane Jacobs was also one of the voices that challenged this predominantly rationalist logic, arguing that truly vibrant streets are those capable of sustaining the diversity of everyday life, its informal exchanges, and the forms of care and natural surveillance that emerge from them. What these authors share is a fundamental insight: streets are not merely infrastructures for circulation, but social ecosystems, shaped by the relationships, uses, and encounters that take place within them.
Cedar Street just came out victorious in a multi-year saga with the city of La Canada Flintridge, winning the first successful builder's remedy case in California Superior Court for its 80-unit mixed-use project at 600 Foothill Boulevard and setting a path for other developers to build. But the fight may have left its scars, in time, stress and now soured relationships with some officials.
Cities around the world share a common goal: to become healthier and greener, supported by civic infrastructure that restores ecosystems and strengthens public life. The question is how to reach this. Global climate targets, local building codes, and municipal standards increasingly guide designers and planners toward better choices. Still, many cities struggle to translate these frameworks into everyday, street-level comfort and long-term ecological protection.
Raising the roof is a major structural change, but for some homeowners, it can be a practical way to gain space and modernize a home without relocating. Whether the goal is higher ceilings, an added level, or turning unused attic space into livable square footage, the idea to raise a roof on a house often comes up when a home no longer fits everyday needs.
For many years, bamboo has been mostly known as the favourite food of giant pandas, but a group of engineers say it's time we took it seriously as a building material, too. This week the Institution of Structural Engineers called for architects to be bamboo-ready as they published a manual for designing permanent buildings made of the material, in an effort to encourage low-carbon construction and position bamboo as a proper alternative to steel and concrete.
Some even rented out the new additions as Airbnbs with applications for retention permission flooding in More than 11,000 applications for retention permission have been submitted in the last two years after thousands of people built extensions, garages, log cabins, apartments and gyms without planning permission. An investigation by the Irish Independent into the culture of "build first, ask for permission later" has revealed how more than half of all retention applications lodged since January 2024 have been approved by local authorities across the country.
We have clients who have looked at property in the city or town where they live, but simply can't afford what is coming onto the market. Instead, they are considering using the considerable equity they have built up with those soaring real estate valuations in recent years. Many of these people can invest money into their properties and still have equity left after a major remodel and addition.
A lot of what we can do at DOT is ... is focusing on designing our streets, designing our infrastructure, to make it easier for delivery workers to make safe choices, to operate safely, to reduce conflicts between them and other users, whether that's basically wider bike lanes that can accommodate a wider range of users,