CityLab

Fast-casual chains like Sweetgreen and order-ahead apps like MealPal are optimizing lunchtime to death.

Millions end up rotting in landfills. But Halloween’s leftover pumpkins don’t have to go to waste.

Companies hope they’ll keep the sidewalks clear, but there’s plenty of reason for skepticism.

Listening in on birds could help the bushy-tailed rodents know if they’re in danger.

Apps that track bike-lane offenders help cyclists feel a sense of agency. But they also encourage city residents to surveil one another’s movements.

The country now has a suite of buildings that generate more energy than they use.

In a battery-powered reboot, the ’90s toy is living up to its destiny.

“Memory towns” promise to provide an aging population with dementia therapy and the accessible spaces of a bygone era.

It’s one of several ways local officials are trying to reform a bail system that the state largely controls.

Officials in Louisiana have embraced a much softer approach to school discipline than they did just a few years ago. And suspensions are down dramatically.

A few more feet of water would flood 16,000 archaeological sites across Florida.

A new report shows how far the rest of the U.S. has to go to catch up on bail reform.

Recent reports highlight school disciplinary practices and suggest ways to stop them.

The most incarcerated city in the most incarcerated state is experimenting with programs to reduce its jail population. And so far, they seem to be working.

A new federal report explains why the number of people jailed for unpaid fines can’t be fully quantified across the U.S.

A new high-security facility in Auckland flips the incentives on for-profit incarceration to keep inmates from returning.

The younger generation, in particular, seems detached from the prospect of war.

To cut down on the burdensome costs of non-emergency medical calls, Memphis is taking an experimental approach to health care.

ThyssenKrupp’s design travels horizontally and diagonally, in addition to up and down, freeing up square footage that would otherwise be commandeered for a shaft.

A new report lays out design guidelines for community-based “justice hubs”—jails that create positive effects inside and outside their walls.

Why didn’t the fall of former Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams on fraud and corruption charges doom his reform-minded agenda?  

Local jails in smaller counties are seeing enormous growth. A new report explains why.

“The spectacular nature of the fire may be a one-off, but the conditions that made it possible are not.”

Louisiana just passed a suite of prison-reform bills, but that may not put a huge dent in incarceration rates.

The deal: $400 a week to stay in school. Is it worth it?

A new retrospective looks at a group of young photographers who infiltrated academic slide libraries with radical images of a changing city.

Charter schools have fueled school resegregation in urban America.

Firms in places with more tolerant laws, new research indicates, attract more talented workers and file more patents.

A floor-by-floor preview of the Smithsonian’s National African American Museum of History and Culture

Many cities are rethinking how they discipline students, but old practices remain in some neighborhoods.

Food insecurity has become normalized among American adolescents—who are also particularly vulnerable to its risks.

China’s capital is instituting a process for migrants to call the city their home. But who does it really benefit?

The New Orleans Bounce music legend has been caught in the crosshairs of the city’s complicated housing policies.

A new report identifies 50 places where schools are geographically adjacent but resourcefully juxtaposed.

A look at the country's burgeoning "arrival cities"

”People look around and think, ‘Boy, things are expensive.’ They don’t realize that they’re expensive because of decisions that the local government makes.”

What happens to all those stadiums?

Mayor de Blasio’s proposed “ban” on the disciplinary measure may not be a ban at all.

How the city’s vision for a networked infrastructure system will make its inequality problem worse

How a $3.1-billion project is a boon for Rio's richest