Can More Public Transportation Solve the Housing Crisis?

As Costs Soar, the Solution to Affordable Living May Be New Transit Projects

Last year, New York City’s Comptroller Scott Stringer released a bleak report: between 2000 and 2012, New York’s median rent skyrocketed 75 percent. Median household income, meanwhile, decreased by 5 percent. New Yorkers now are making less money but paying more to live in the city than they were a decade ago.

These numbers are extreme, but they highlight a dangerous trend in American cities: housing is becoming increasingly difficult to afford. In many cases, high prices are disrupting longstanding city communities, and even forcing low-income residents out of their …

Is the 720 L.A.’s Most Delicious Bus Line?

Eating Burgers, Ramen, Soft Serve, and Tamales on the Inaugural Metro Tour de Food

A Mexican-American take on In-n-Out Burger. A strip mall ramen shop. A soft serve ice cream stand. A Latin American cafe. Four restaurants in four Los Angeles neighborhoods, all served …

As L.A. Gentrifies, Who Gets Left Behind?

With New Development and Organic Markets on the Rise, Many Working-Class Neighborhoods Are Transforming—Maybe for the Worse

When a British sociologist coined the term “gentrification” in 1963, she wrote that it happens when “working class quarters have been invaded by the middle class … until all or …

Writer Tom Zoellner

Railroad Car Confessions

Tom Zoellner is the author of five nonfiction books, the most recent of which is Train: Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World—from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief, …

Legal Scholar Ethan Elkind

Ethan Elkind is associate director of UC Berkeley and UCLA’s climate change and business program, with a joint appointment at both universities’ law schools. He is also the author of …

Want to Drive California’s Most Terrifying Highways?

Sure, the 5 and the 101 Are Efficient. But If You Want to Find Beauty and Danger on the Roads of California, Head East or West.

Do you seek beauty and danger in California, but are unsure in which direction you can find it?

West. Just drive west.

Or east.

California is sturdily and reliably connected from north to …