Archinect - News

Here's how Chicago's mayoral candidates responded to the Built Environment Questionnaire

2023-02-15T12:31:00-05:00

Three of the eight challengers to unseat incumbent Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot have so far responded to a questionnaire issued by a coalition of local chapters of architects, landscape architects, and planners asking for their input on the Windy City’s built environment.

Candidates Ja'Mal Green, Kam Buckner, and Brandon Johnson answered the seven-question prompt asking their positions on a range of issues that included zoning transparency, planning initiatives, the city’s recent Climate Action Plan, racial inequities, and urban policy.

In their replies, a divergent vision for the city’s future can be seen. One of the most important points related to the Climate Action Plan includes a wide array of responses, all of which called for it to be taken in a direction not previously espoused by the current administration. Ja'Mal Green said that it “must go even further,” adding his own idea for a citywide Green New Deal — a sentiment echoed by his counterpart Johnson, who also called for ...

Chicago unveils first city framework plan in more than 50 years and seeks public input

2022-08-02T09:00:00-04:00

Chicago has unveiled a draft of its first citywide framework plan since 1966, charting how the city intends to become more equitable and resilient. The plan, titled We Will Chicago, is led by neighborhood stakeholders, artists, community partners, and city agencies. Having launched in 2020, the draft framework is now seeking public feedback before completion and presentation to the Chicago Plan Commission in early 2023.

The framework describes itself as “the first planning process in the City’s history that acknowledges the past as much as the future.” To that end, the plan seeks to address systemic declines which have arisen from previous plans, policies, and market forces, including structural racism, poverty, depopulation, and health disparities. The plan also seeks to enable the city to “survive, adapt, and rebound in the face of chronic stresses and acute shocks like climate change and pandemics.”

The We Will Chicago framework consists of eight pillars

The draft plan consists o...

US Federal Reserve to weigh climate change risks in making financial policies

2019-11-14T18:54:00-05:00

The U.S. central bank signaled on Friday it may be getting ready to join international peers in incorporating climate change risk into its assessments of financial stability, and may even take it into account when setting monetary policy.

Despite the Trump administration's unabashed rejection of climate science, the United States Federal Reserve is moving in the opposite direction.

The shift could impact how America's central bank assesses financial metrics like interest rates and how entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac make decisions regarding which mortgages to acquire.

As President Obama leaves the White House, a closer look at his urban policy legacy

2016-12-30T18:04:00-05:00

City residents and urbanists had reasons to believe Obama would usher in a new urban era. [...] Now, as he leaves the White House, Obama’s legacy is being evaluated on many fronts, including within the realm of urban policy. In a new book called Urban Policy in the Time of Obama, academics appraise his successes and failures. CityLab spoke with the book’s editor, James DeFillippis, an associate professor in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

Why cities need to expand their idea of who is a "local"

2016-08-10T15:10:00-04:00

Part of the challenge throughout California and plenty of other communities...is that we tend to make local policy — and housing policy in particular — as if the only people who matter in a community are the ones who go to bed there at night. We don't think of people who work but don't "live" there, or who'd like to live there but can't afford to, or who once lived there but had to leave, or who could access better jobs if only they could move there, or who commute through there...

You may effectively live your life within, say, San Francisco or Washington, D.C., going to school there, working there, dropping your children at day care there, spending your money and your waking time there. But if, at the end of the day, you go sleep somewhere else, you are invisible to the process of how we decide what's right for that city.

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NYC becomes first city to provide free tampons and pads in public schools, prisons, and shelters

2016-06-23T14:19:00-04:00

Today, the New York City Council unanimously passed a set of bills requiring free menstrual-hygiene products in public schools, prisons, and shelters, making it the first city in the nation to pass so-called "menstrual equity" legislation. The city will budget for tampons and pads just like it does for toilet paper and hand soap.

"Tampons and pads are not currently covered by public-assistance programs and some school-aged girls stay home or use products longer than they should when they get their periods. Women in prisons face rationing and degrading treatment from corrections officers."

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