Next City

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. Across the country, communities are pushing back against the rapid expansion of data centers. In Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta, and other localities, public opposition has grown loud enough to stall rezonings, trigger moratoriums, and reshape local elections.

Jason Cromer has biked down the I-5 bridge between Portland, Oregon, and the suburb of Vancouver, Washington, hundreds of times over the last five years. But every ride is still a nerve-racking experience. “There’s a very narrow shared sidewalk on the bridge,” Cromer, the founder of local urbanist group Cycle Vancouver, says. He’s encountered pedestrians crossing the bridge over the Columbia River while cars rush past at 60 miles an hour, with just a railing in between.

This summer, Congress passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. Recent state and local efforts underway from Montana to Colorado to Pennsylvania also reflect this: Bipartisan momentum exists to develop real solutions that address the nation’s housing shortage and rising unaffordability. Contrast this with the state of climate policy, which has stalled in many places, and in some cases is even moving backwards.

This sponsored series is created in partnership with The Culture & Community Power Fund (C&CPF), a national funders’ collaborative advancing the role of culture in building identity, agency, and collective power. This series explores the cultural ecosystem—the traditions, stories, rituals, and spaces that sustain frontline communities—and what it takes to support and strengthen it. Read the complete series.

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.

Officials struggled for years to curb high-speed crashes along a residential corridor cutting through Albuquerque, New Mexico, but simply punishing the lead-footed drivers didn’t seem to work. What ultimately did was rewarding the law-abiding ones with fewer red lights.

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. Seven years after New York state made it illegal for landlords to reject housing vouchers, the state attorney general’s office has been steadily cracking down on violators despite multiple legal challenges that threaten the law’s existence.

On maps of food access in Charlottesville, the stretch of Carlton Avenue east of the railroad tracks isn’t classified as a food desert. But on a weekday morning, the only open doors belong to a vape shop, a laundromat, and a gas station selling shelf‑stable snacks. The nearest full‑service grocery store is two bus transfers away.

Residents celebrate LA Más's acquisition of a building at Arvia Street in northeast Los Angeles. This is your first of three free stories this month. Become a free or sustaining member to read unlimited articles, webinars and ebooks. Become A Member Helen Leung opened escrow on New Year’s Eve 2025. She had six months to raise $8.3 million, and while she had some ideas, she didn’t know yet where she would find all of it.

I stepped into the maze of stalls at Marché Sandaga in Dakar, where vendors holding vibrant indigo, crimson, and gold wax prints called out and urged me to enter their stalls. Within minutes, I wasn’t just browsing, I was in conversation. Which print? How many meters? What style? Thirty minutes later, with three fabrics folded under my arm, I was ushered around the corner to a tailor. Measurements were taken quickly.