The Urban Portal

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50th Percentile Rent Estimates

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Rent estimates at the 50th percentile (or median) for all Fair Market Rent areas provided by the HUD Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) and HUD USER- an information source for housing and community development researchers, academics, policymakers, and the American public.

Filed under: Data

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American Housing Survey (AHS)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
The AHS is the largest, regular national housing sample survey in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the AHS to obtain up-to-date housing statistics for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). An introductory booklet created by Census Bureau provides an overview of housing data. 

Filed under: Data

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American Planning Association (APA)

APA is an independent, not-for-profit educational organization that provides leadership in the development of vital communities. The American Planning Association was created in 1978 by the consolidation of two separate planning organizations, but its roots go all the way back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C.

Filed under: Organizations

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Announcing the 2013 Urban Forums

Between 26 April and 11 May 2013, the Network will host four conferences on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park to discuss the built environment, globailization and mobility, political networks and health in cities.

November 29, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Annual Adjustment Factors (for Residential Rents)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
The Department of Housing and Urban Development establishes the rent adjustment factors — called Annual Adjustment Factors (AAFs) — on the basis of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data relating to changes in residential rent and utility costs. 

Filed under: Data

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Assisted Housing: National and Local

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Picture of Subsidized Households describes the households living in HUD-subsidized housing in the United States for the year providing data from the 1970s through 2008. There is information describing the characteristics of assisted housing units and residents, summarized at various levels, including: national, state, public housing agency (PHA), project, census tract, county, Core-Based Statistical Area and city levels.

Filed under: Data

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Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM)

The Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving public policy and management by fostering excellence in research, analysis and education.  With over 1,500 academic, practitioner, organizational and institutional members, APPAM promotes its mission through the annual Fall Research Conference, with the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JPAM), the association's journal, several award programs and various activites including international and national conferences and workshops.

Filed under: Organizations

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Best Practices Database in Improving the Living Environment

UN-HABITAT
This searchable database contains over 3,800 proven solutions from more than 140 countries to the common social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. It demonstrates the practical ways in which public, private and civil society sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development.

Filed under: Links

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BJS Corrections Data

U.S. Department of Justice
This site holds a collection of BJS data related to corrections. The collection includes information on jail and prison inmates and sexual offenders, as well as probation services and the state of jails and prisons. 

Filed under: Data

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BJS Courts Data

U.S. Department of Justice
BJS provides data from statistical projects and surveys conducted at various court levels. The site also includes data on juveniles in criminal court.

Filed under: Data

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BJS Crime Type Data

U.S. Department of Justice
BJS provies data on the types of crimes that occur in the the U.S. and where. The site includes a city-level survey of crime, victimization, and citizen attitudes.

Filed under: Data

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BJS Law Enforcement Data

U.S. Department of Justice
BJS provides a variety of data related to law enforcement.

Filed under: Data

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BJS Victims Data

U.S. Department of Justice
BJS provides data on victimization and intentional violence.

Filed under: Data

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Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program

The Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program provides decision makers with timely trend analysis, cutting-edge research and policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

Our work is designed to help metropolitan areas (and the cities and suburbs within them) adapt to rapid economic, demographic, and technological changes and ultimately achieve three goals that are central for success in the new global order:

    * Productive growth 
    * Inclusive growth 
    * Sustainable growth 

Filed under: Organizations

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Building Resilient Regions

The University of California Berkeley
The MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Building Resilient Regions (BRR) examines the power of metropolitan regions to respond to local and national challenges.  BRR brings together an interdisciplinary  group of scholars and practitioners to investigate why metro regions matter now, what constitutes resilience in the face of challenges, and what factors help to build and sustain strong metro regions.  The Network’s analyses focus on several broad-based national challenges where the regional response is especially significant.  These include: how growing regions address conditions such as increased traffic congestion and housing affordability; how regions that have lost manufacturing jobs build on existing strengths and attract new growth; how regions with large influxes of immigrants have responded to increased diversity and population pressures; and how the continued concentration and emerging deconcentration of poverty across metropolitan areas has affected access to opportunity and patterns of service provision.   While these challenges appear as defining characteristics of regions, their origins and paths of development are conditioned in large part by global technological and economic shifts and concomitant alterations in the international division of labor.

Filed under: Organizations

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Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. Department of Justice
The Bureau of Justice Statistics provides national data on such justice-related issues as crimes, victims, and corrections.

Filed under: Data

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CalWORKs Datasets

Rand
The CalWORKs Datasets includes data related to the statewide evaluation of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) Program.

Filed under: Data

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Can anchor institutions build communities?

In a profile of Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, the New York Times described the area dominated by Columbia University and Barnard College as one of the most desirable places to live in Manhattan. The universities are “anchor institutions,” acting as real estate developers, generators of human capital, and employers. So far, the academic and political debate about these organizations has not resolved whether these strategic investments build community and revitalize neighborhoods.

June 01, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Can public art reverse urban decay?

American cities as diverse as Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland, have made significant investments over the past few decades in community-based art projects. One example is Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Project. Since 1984, the project has created over 3,000 murals, generating a slew of tourist attractions. Such considerable investments by Philadelphia and other cities beg the question of whether arts projects, aside from their aesthetic value, will have lasting effects on the community.

December 01, 2011

Filed under: Issues

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Can the “Rust Belt” be revitalized?

Between 1950 and 2008, Detroit, once a city of almost 2 million, lost about half of its residents. What used to be a symbol of American prosperity has become the most prominent example of postindustrial urban decay. A recent book has analyzed the origins of the population decline and proposed strategies for revitalizing the former manufacturing cities in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States.

July 01, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Census UK

Economic and Social Data Service
UK Census data.

Filed under: Data

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Center for an Urban Future

The Center for an Urban Future is a public policy organization dedicated to improving the overall health of New York City and serving its long-term interests by targeting problems facing low-income and working-class neighborhoods in all five boroughs.

A new kind of think tank, the Center brings a unique, community-oriented perspective to the public policy arena. Our staffers function more like beat reporters than like academics, going out into the field to observe and interview neighborhood residents, local businesspeople and community organizations. We also consult with academic experts, government officials and others, in order to get the broadest possible view of an issue or problem, and to hear from all those affected by it.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Health and the Social Sciences

University of Chicago
Center encouraging interdisciplinary health and social science research at the University of Chicago.  

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Human Potential and Public Policy

University of Chicago
Center at the Harris School focused on trans-disciplinary research and training on achievement, health, and well-being across the lifespan. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT)

Since 1978, Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has promoted urban sustainability—the more effective use of existing resources and community assets to improve the health of natural systems and the wealth of people, today and in the future. CNT is a creative think-and-do tank that combines rigorous research with effective solutions. CNT works across disciplines and issues, including transportation and community development, energy, water, and climate change.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Poverty Research

University of Kentucky
The Center’s research mission is a multidisciplinary approach to the causes, consequences, and correlates of poverty and inequality in the United States, with a special emphasis on the residents of the South. A focused research agenda on poverty among the residents of the South is critical to our Nation’s poverty research effort because low-income populations in the South face a different set of challenges than comparable groups in other parts of the United States, which is manifested in a host of economic and social disparities including higher rates of poverty, inequality, and welfare-program utilization.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban and Regional Studies

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Created in 1957, the Center for Urban and Regional Studies is one of the oldest university-based research centers of its kind. The Center's mission is to promote and support within UNC-Chapel Hill, high-quality basic and applied research on urban, regional and rural planning and policy issues. The Center seeks to generate new knowledge of urban and regional processes and problems and ultimately to improve living conditions in our communities. This is done by involving the University's faculty and graduate students in large, multidisciplinary research projects and smaller, more narrowly focused projects. The Center's mission also includes promoting the use of the research it facilitates.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Dialog and European Policy

The Center for Urban Dialogue and European Policy was established in 1995 by the Vienna Municipality with the basic intention to give support to the Vienna city government and administration in all issues relating to the EU integration process and the competition between European business locations.

Future work will focus mainly on three themes of the political and societal ''project Europe'': the enlargement of the Union with all its different aspects; the reinforcement of the Urban Agenda in thought and action of the Union; and the development, or improvement, of European democracy.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Initiatives and Research

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Urban Archive is designed as a catalogue of research studies and reports focused on greater Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin. Each catalogued item provides bibliographic information, content abstract, source and, where possible, an electronic link to the report. The catalogue is organized by topical categories.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Policy Research

Rutgers University
The Center for Urban Policy Research conducts basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues, including affordable housing, land use policy, environmental impact analysis, state planning, public finance, land development practice, historic preservation, infrastructure assessment, development impact analysis, the costs of sprawl, transportation information systems, environmental impacts, and community economic development. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Research and Policy—Columbia University

Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs
The Center for Urban Research and Policy (CURP) has been established at a time of profound economic, political, and social change. The civic discourse has become increasingly anti-urban with fewer opportunities for informed non-partisan dialogue. Political leaders and ordinary citizens need reliable policy research, training in technology, and opportunities for public discussion on issues of concern to America’s cities. As an internationally known research university located in New York City, Columbia has a special responsibility to make a substantial contribution to these efforts. CURP promises to fulfill this responsibility by becoming a national resource for education, research, and discussion on issues confronting America’s cities. The Center is engaged in an ambitious program of training, research, and public discussion.

The need for the Center is increasingly apparent in the visible problems and repeated fiscal crises of our cities. Opportunities are evident in the renewed interest in domestic public policy and by an increased willingness by various sectors of society to “do something.” However, greater voice and focus and better dialogue and data are required to create a capacity for more informed discussions which will help influence the larger national agenda in effective policy-making. With the support of the entire Columbia community, the Center and its programs draw attention to issues confronting urban America and prepare the nation’s leaders for the challenge of solving these problems. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Studies- University at Buffalo

University at Buffalo
The Center for Urban Studies (CENTER) is a research and community development unit located in the UB School of Architecture and Planning. It's mission is to (1) engage in research that produces knowledge which contributes to understanding and solving the problem of neighborhood distress and building a sustainable urban metropolis (2) develop a model for transforming distressed urban neighborhoods into socially functional communities that are based on the principles of solidarity, collaboration, cosmopolitanism, reciprocity, participatory democracy and social justice, and (3) train students in urban and regional planning with the ability to recreate and rebuild a sustainable metropolis based on socioeconomic justice. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Chicago Policy Review

University of Chicago
Since 1996 the Chicago Policy Review (CPR) has published top scholarship in the field of public policy analysis. Initially a forum for renowned scholars and policy experts such as Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, the journal has primarily published the work of students and alumni of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago since 2006.

The Chicago Policy Review (ISSN: 1093-8990) is edited and published annually by the students of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. By establishing linkages between theory and practice, the Review aims to promote thought provoking, insightful, and relevant public policy decision-making.

Filed under: Journals

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Chicago Studies

University of Chicago
Program that offers courses connecting the University with Chicago, supporting faculty with research interests of Chicago, and supporting programs and events that connect the University with the city's communities, it's leaders, and it's past, present, and future. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Cities Centre

University of Toronto
Cities Centre is a multi-disciplinary research institute. The mandate of the Centre is broad: to encourage and facilitate research, both scholarly and applied, on cities and on a wide range of urban policy issues, both in Canada and abroad, and to provide a gateway for communication between the University and the broader urban community.

Filed under: Organizations

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Cities Environment Reports on the Internet (CEROI) Programme

The CEROI programme was established to increase awareness about the urban environment, to improve environmental policy making by providing better access to information, and ultimately to improve the cities' and the world environment. The concept provides city authorities with an efficient tool to produce and present a report of the cities' environment on Internet. It includes a template with standard indicators and a tailor-made software for easy presentation of graphs, maps, photographs and text. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Cities in the 21st Century

International Honors Program
Cities in the 21st Century program examines the intentional and natural forces that guide the development of the world’s cities. It combines an innovative urban studies academic curriculum with fieldwork involving public agencies, planners, elected officials, NGOs and grassroots groups in important world cities where exciting changes are taking place.

Filed under: Links

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Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning

Cities offers a comprehensive range of articles on all aspects of urban policy. It provides an international and interdisciplinary platform for the exchange of ideas and information between urban planners and policy makers from national and local government, non-government organizations, academia and consultancy.

The primary aims of the journal are to analyze and assess past and present urban development and management as a reflection of effective, ineffective and non-existent planning policies; and the promotion of the implementation of appropriate urban policies in both the developed and the developing world.

Filed under: Journals

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City Mayors

Cities are shaping today's social, cultural, economic and technological agendas. They compete, learn from each other and act together.  The City Mayors Foundation was established in 2003 to promote, encourage, and facilitate good open and strong local government.

Filed under: Links

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City of Chicago Data Portal

The City of Chicago’s Data Portal is dedicated to promoting access to government data and encouraging the development of creative tools to engage and serve Chicago's diverse community. Here you’ll find essential data presented in easy-to-use formats to help Chicagoans keep track of how their government is performing and build innovative applications to benefit residents and visitors alike.

Filed under: Data

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City, Culture, and Society

The 21st century has been dubbed the century of cities - sustainable cities, compact cities, post-modern cities, mega-cities, and more. CCS focuses on urban governance in the 21st century, under the banner of cultural creativity and social inclusion. Its primary goal is to promote pioneering research on cities and to foster the sort of urban administration that has the vision and authority to reinvent cities adapted to the challenges of the 21st century. The journal aims to stimulate a new interdisciplinary paradigm that embraces multiple perspectives and applies this paradigm to the urban imperative that defines the 21st century.

Topics of special interest to CCS include urban economics, cultural creation, social inclusion, social sustainability, cultural technology, urban governance, sustainable cities, creative cities. As a peer-reviewed international journal, CCS welcomes contributions from disciplines including but not limited to economics, business, accounting, planning, political science, architecture, geography, sociology, historiography, cultural studies, population studies and public administration.

Filed under: Journals

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CITYNET

For over 20 years, CITYNET (The Regional Network of Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements) has committed itself to helping local governments improve the sustainability of human settlements. Starting with 26 members in 1987, CITYNET has grown to become an international organization of more than 100 members in more than 20 countries, most of which are cities and local governments in the Asia-Pacific region.

Filed under: Organizations

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Cityscape

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
The goal of Cityscape is to bring high-quality original research on housing and community development issues to scholars, government officials, and practitioners. Cityscape is open to all relevant disciplines, including architecture, consumer research, demography, economics, engineering, ethnography, finance, geography, law, planning, political science, public policy, regional science, sociology, statistics, and urban studies. 

Filed under: Journals

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Clean Cities

U.S. Department of Energy
Clean Cities is the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) flagship alternative-transportation deployment initiative, sponsored by the Vehicle Technologies Program. Clean Cities has saved nearly 3 billion gallons of petroleum since its inception in 1993. More than 8,400 stakeholders contribute to Clean Cities' goals and accomplishments through participation in nearly 100 Clean Cities coalitions across the country. Private companies, fuel suppliers, local governments, vehicle manufacturers, national laboratories, state and federal government agencies, and other organizations join together under Clean Cities to implement alternative-transportation solutions in their communities.

Filed under: Links

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Communication and the City: Voices, Spaces, Media

June 14–June 15, 2013
University of Leeds and the Urban Communication Foundation
Leeds, UK

Filed under: Events

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Community Development Society

The Community Development Society provides leadership to professionals and citizens across the spectrum of community development. Members have multiple opportunities to learn what's new in the profession, to exchange ideas, to obtain the most current research and reference information available and to share professional expertise. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society

Community Development Society
Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society is devoted to improving knowledge and practice in the field of purposive community change. The mission of the journal is to disseminate information on theory, research and practice.

Filed under: Journals

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Components of Inventory Change (CINCH)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
The Components of Inventory Change (CINCH) report measures changes in the characteristics of the housing stock of the United States. Using data collected from the national American Housing Survey (AHS), conducted every two years, the characteristics of individual housing units are compared across time. This comparison allows researchers to see not only changes in the characteristics of housing units, but also in the characteristics of occupants. Information is available on the characteristics of units added and removed from the housing stock.

Filed under: Data

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Congress for the New Urbanism

Nonprofit organization focused on sustainable, walkable, community development.

Filed under: Organizations

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Consolidated Planning/ Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) Data

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) periodically receives "custom tabulations" of Census data from the U.S. Census Bureau that are largely not available through standard Census products. These data, known as the"CHAS" data (Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy), demonstrate the extent of housing problems and housing needs, particularly for low income households. The CHAS data are used by local governments to plan how to spend HUD funds, and may also be used by HUD to distribute grant funds. 

Filed under: Data

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County and City Data Books

University of Virginia
This resource provides access to the 1944 through 2000 County and City Data Books providing users with the opportunity to create custom printouts and/or customized data subsets (subsets only available for 1988-2000). 

Filed under: Data

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Creative City Network of Canada

Municipalities are playing a growing role in the development of arts, culture and heritage in Canada. The Creative City Network of Canada (CCNC) is an organization of municipal staff working in communities across Canada on arts, cultural and heritage policy, planning, development and support.

The CCNC exists to connect and educate the people who do this work and share this working environment so we can be more effective in cultural development in our communities. By sharing experience, expertise, information and best practices, members support each other through dialogue, both in person and online.

Filed under: Organizations

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Crime Lab

University of Chicago
The University of Chicago Crime Lab seeks to improve our understanding of how to reduce crime and violence by helping government agencies and non-profit organizations rigorously evaluate new pilot programs.

Filed under: Organizations

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