Latest news with #CityLab
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
‘Abolish FEMA' Memo Details Trump's Plan to Scrap Agency
A March 2025 memo seen by Bloomberg details how the Trump administration plans to drastically shrink the Federal Emergency Management Agency's key disaster response functions. The document, titled 'Abolishing FEMA' and addressed from then-acting FEMA head Cameron Hamilton, proposes ending federal aid for smaller disasters that aren't of 'national significance,' cutting long-term housing assistance for survivors and halting new enrollments in the National Flood Insurance Program, among other things. Such reforms would transfer responsibilities to state and local governments, even as the memo acknowledges that many are currently 'unprepared' to expand their roles. The changes could come as early as late 2025, though many of the proposals would require congressional action. Read more from Zahra Hirji, Jason Leopold and Lauren Rosenthal today on CityLab: 'Abolishing FEMA' Memo Outlines Ways for Trump to Scrap Agency
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
How Ohio Design Firm Moody Nolan Remembers Founder Curtis Moody
Moody Nolan CEO Jonathan Moody remembers his father, Curtis Moody, and how he built the largest Black-owned design firm in the US. Hello and welcome to Bloomberg's weekly design digest. I'm Kriston Capps, staff writer for Bloomberg CityLab and your guide to the world of architecture and the people who build things. Sign up to keep up: Subscribe to get the Design Edition newsletter every Sunday.
Bloomberg
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Bloomberg
Children's Museums Are Embracing Risky Play
When the City Museum in St. Louis opened in 1997 at the site of an old shoe warehouse, it was considered an outlier in the world of children's museums. Built using salvaged materials and featuring a massive playground that looks more like an active construction site, the institution was among the first to encourage more adventurous and less structured play — as opposed to more educational experiences. Its emphasis on exploration and risk-taking has since beengradually embraced by other interactive kids museums around the US — even as City Museum itself has had to tame some of its most unhinged aspects. The shift comes as childhood habits are changing, with fewer kids spending time outdoors or unsupervised, contribute Amanda Abrams writes. Today on CityLab: Where the Wild Children's Museums Are
Bloomberg
29-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Tulsa's Economy Reaps Benefit of Remote Worker Program
For every dollar Tulsa spent to pay remote workers to move there, the Oklahoma city generated $4.31 in local economic benefits — more than double the return ratio of traditional incentive programs aimed at attracting large employers. That's according to a new study on Tulsa Remote, one of the first and largest programs in the US to lure new residents with financial incentives. Since 2018, more than 3,400 people have received $10,000 to relocate through Tulsa Remote, the majority of whom still live in the city today. Adding these new workers has boosted incomes for existing residents and created new jobs, while also building Tulsa's tax base, the study found. Fola Akinnibi and I look at what made the program work, and how the study's finding can be instructive for other cities. Today on CityLab: The Economic Benefits of Paying Workers to Move
Fast Company
29-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
L.A. has 24,000 tiny vacant lots across the city—these designs show creative ways to use them for housing
It's incredibly hard to find a starter home in Los Angeles, where the median house price is now around $1.2 million. But in a new project, the city is working with architects and developers to build prototypes of more affordable homes that make use of small vacant lots scattered throughout the city. L.A. has around 24,000 privately owned residential lots that are a quarter-acre or less and haven't yet been developed. The city also owns this type of small vacant lot, and now plans to use up to a dozen of them to demonstrate new models for housing. Instead of single-family homes, each development will include multiple small units that make better use of a lot, while leaving room for outdoor space and ample light. 'We thought that there might be a way to unlock the lots the city owns, but also use that to actually spur private development on the many similar lots that are across the city,' says Emmanuel Proussaloglou, codirector of CityLab-UCLA, a think tank based in UCLA's architecture department. The group partnered with the city on a design competition called Small Lots, Big Impacts, focused on rethinking homeownership on urban 'infill' lots. Twenty-one winning designs were announced today, along with another 20 projects that received special recognition. Architects looked at new ways to divide small lots. Shared Steps, a design from the California-based firms Word and s_sk, is an example of what CityLab calls stealth density. From the front, it looks like it could be a single-family home. But it's actually nine units: three main buildings that each have a larger unit plus an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) and a junior accessory dwelling unit. The ADUs could be used as rentals for the larger units, help a family expand when they need more space, or be sold as homes of their own. The front yard, meanwhile connects to a pocket park for the neighborhood. A project called 4x4x4, from the Brooklyn-based firm Light and Air, uses a single 50-by-150-foot lot for four two-story houses. Each home has a ground-floor accessory dwelling unit. The homes, which are each around 1,600 square feet, fit together like Tetris blocks. 'The L-shaped plan has the ability to frame outdoor space, and also provide views in multiple directions,' says Shane Neufeld, who leads Light and Air. There are courtyards on the ground floor. On the second floor, residents can walk out sliding doors to a balcony on the roof of each ADU. From the street, again, it looks like it might be a single-family home. California and local laws allow housing development 'by right,' without the need for discretionary approval, as long as buildings meet certain zoning and design criteria and include some affordable housing. That means that neighbors shouldn't be able to block the projects. Still, the buildings were designed to fit into existing neighborhoods, and appease neighbors as much as possible. Physically building some of the new designs could help create more support. 'The whole point of what we're doing here is to try to build a couple so that you can go and actually look at them and say, 'That doesn't look as scary as I thought it might,'' says Proussaloglou. 'That's the hope, at least.' A design called Lotful, from Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven, proposes six individually owned buildings that each have owner-occupied units and two ground-level ADUs. The rental income can help owners qualify for a mortgage. The design is also modular, using a standard size that can make it faster and potentially less expensive to build. It's also easier to replicate. 'If we create these modules, these could be used on different sites in different areas, so you actually could get economies of scale,' says Alan Pullman, a partner at Studio One Eleven. A design called Ladderblock, from L.A.-based West of West, proposes creating a community land trust to lower the cost of each home. One- and two-bedroom units are designed with flexibility, so owners can change their homes over time, if needed. By adding a partition wall, the spaces can be split further to create a rental or another unit to sell. A 41-unit design from the New York-based firm Only If is one example of building with future density in mind. (Buildings on larger streets near transit can be taller and include more units.) The terraced floors create outdoor space on several levels. On the ground floor, a potential parking lot is 'reversible,' meaning that it could later be used to build another seven units. In the past, small lots might have been used for single-family homes, or sometimes stayed vacant because development didn't seem like it would pencil out. The competition aims to help clearly illustrate what else is possible. The need to build more is acute: Under state law, the city is required to build more than 450,000 homes by 2029 to deal with the housing shortage, and it isn't on track, with only around 17,000 new homes permitted last year. The devastating fires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena earlier this year, which destroyed thousands of homes, added even more to the challenge. In the next stage of the project, the Los Angeles Housing Department will choose development teams, including architects, contractors, and financial institutions, to build on specific city-owned lots in different neighborhoods. The city will be selling the lots, but will use the proceeds to help provide down-payment assistance for low-income buyers to live in the new developments. (The developments, which will be privately financed by the development teams, will target residents at various income levels.) The winning designs from the first stage won't necessarily be built, though each team will have an opportunity to apply again with the designs they've created. UCLA also plans to share all of the submissions online, including proposals that didn't win. 'There are only going to be a handful of sites available in the next stage, so not all 356 ideas are going to get built,' says Proussaloglou. 'But we're hoping that people with private lots look to the database of architectural ingenuity from the Small Lots competition, and say, 'okay, I love that submission. I want to work with that architect.'' The ideas could also be useful beyond L.A. 'So many cities are struggling with a housing crisis of affordability and a lack of the kind of units that families want,' says Studio One Eleven's Pullman. 'I'm hoping that we can show, through this demonstration project, the ability to really think beyond the standard ways that we've been building cities, either single-family or large multifamily, into what everyone's talking about—this missing middle. The ability to build family housing, but in a way that isn't just the single-family house.'
