Billions spent, miles to go: The story of California's failure to build high-speed rail

CitiStat has show great success in cities like Baltimore, where it has improved city services' efficiency (removing snow, fixing potholes, etc.). Many cities use Stat programs, but Baltimore has been a particular case of success. Looking at how it implemented its CitiStat program holds lessons for other cities.

In Memphis, a creative blight-reduction initiative called 25 Square Blocks broke down the city into blocks. Inspectors were able to quickly identify all the violations and fix them, using the same amount of funding, but less time, as the old call-and-respond model.

Bus service for people who live outside major cities is either nonexistent or might as well be. But some communities are helping bring mobility to non-drivers with bus service they can really use. This article looks at a variety of places in which public transportation is highly popular and efficient—from Germany to Seattle.

New York City suffered from fires that erupted in overcrowded, run-down apartments. Then the city sleuthed through residential records and found that landlords who foreclosed let their properties fall apart and ignored safety-code violations. Greater Toronto wants to expand upon New York City’s method by using transportation surveys, census data and computer data to build transit lines.

As a state with robust populations of wildlife, Montana has had its share of roadkill. Its Department of Transportation developed animal shelving, a type of wildlife crossing, to enable safe passage for small animals who need to cross the road. The measure, combined with other types of crossings, has reduced animal-vehicle collisions by half.

A Dallas urban neighborhood was dilapidated with abandoned storefronts and offered no vitality for pedestrians. A group of artists and community members created Build a Better Block, in which local artisans and small businesses took over a vacant block and transformed it for a limited time to encourage the ingredients for more permanent urban renewal.

Tulsa Public Schools drew on expertise across many sectors and extensive neighborhood input to address the issue of thousands of empty seats in local schools. Through a community-focused process, they were able to mindfully close under-utilized schools and better maximize the community's resources for students.

Throughout India, wastepickers – people who scour landfills for garbage they can sell to recyclers – live at the bottom of society. But the city of Pune did something radical: with the help of a collective, they did away with expensive garbage trucks, and now all household garbage is collected by wastepickers with pushcarts. Pune saves millions of dollars each year and recycles more – and the wastepickers have decent wages and social standing. The concept is now spreading globally.

In India, 620 million people openly defecate outdoors, causing harm to hygiene, sanitation, food, and water resources. The president of India funded an initiative to build public toilets for the people in his country, but the people did not use them because of traditions and behaviors. The Total Sanitation Campaign is starting to change villagers’ minds by having local leadership persuade those who resist the toilets by holding community activities and creating special committees to maintain the sanitation.

In Fayetteville, the Mayor and Police Chief have taken a personalized approach in seeking a solution for blighted, low-income neighborhoods and are working to increase the number of city staff on-hand to help address issues like decrepit buildings, as well as decrease the disparity in resources allocated to maintaining these neighborhoods. But many challenges remain, and the line between the government's role versus the private homeowner's responsibility remains difficult to define.