On Our Radar

GBH, August 7, 2024, Boston City Council Proposes Taking Over Carney Hospital By Eminent Domain“This closure would exacerbate the already overburdened health care system we have today, and it will affect every constituent in the city of Boston and beyond seeking health care services,” said Councilor John FitzGerald, whose district includes Carney Hospital. “This closure […]

Politico, August 9, 2024, ‘Sitting Empty’ Vast Expanse Of Federal Land Eyed For New Housing The White House is taking a different — and more circumscribed — approach than the one outlined in Lee’s proposal. The administration effort is focused on “vacant and surplus federal lands that are within existing development zones and in metros

AXIOS Denver, August 9, 2024, Denver Aims To Ramp Up Permanent Housing For Unsheltered Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration wants to increase the number of people moved to stable living accommodations under its All In Mile High program with a recently approved contract. Why it matters: The mayor’s administration is prioritizing permanent housing to end unsheltered

NBC News, August 9, 2024, JPMorgan Chase Is Giving Its Employees An AI Assistant Powered By ChatGPT Maker OpenAI The technology — hailed by some as the “Cognitive Revolution” in which tasks formerly done by knowledge workers will be automated — could be as important as the advent of electricity, the printing press and the

AXIOS Nashville, August 12, 2024, Nashville Makes Progress On Affordable Housing Crisis What she’s saying: “It is a reflection of the city taking the issue of affordable housing really seriously,” Metro’s housing division director Angie Hubbard tells Axios. She says the housing situation is “dire” in Nashville as in other major cities. “It’s dire everywhere,”

The Denver Post, August 12, 2024, After Years Of Sellers Calling Shots, Homebuyers Getting Upper Hand In Some Metro Denver NeighborhoodsMetro Denver had 2.78 months of inventory in the second quarter, and in most places, sellers still have the upper hand, Welsh said. But they don’t have the power they did in early 2021, when

American Banker, August 9, 2024, Bank Buyers Ramp Up In July, Raise Expectations For More M&A Measured by deal value, five of the 20 largest deals so far this year were announced in July, including Tupelo, Mississippi-based Renasant Corp.’s $1.2 billion, all-stock bid for in-state peer The First Bancshares in Hattiesburg. It was the third-biggest

Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2024, 4.4 Earthquake Was Centered On Notorious L.A. Fault System Seismologist Lucy Jones, a Caltech research associate, said the earthquake, centered in the Eastside neighborhood of El Sereno, occurred on the Puente Hills thrust fault system. It’s the same overall fault network that produced the 1987 Whittier Narrows magnitude 5.9

CityLab Housing, August 13, 2024, Biden Invests $100 Million To Fuel Housing Construction The White House is announcing $100 million in grants to state and local governments to spur the construction of new housing, one of a host of new administrative actions to boost housing supply. The Biden administration has witnessed record levels of housing

Wall Street Journal, August 13, 2024, Hospitals’ New Push: Treating Patients in Their Homes In a suburb just outside Boston, Herbert Irvine sat in his recliner on a July morning as he got a visit from paramedic Elizabeth Kinch. She wasn’t there responding to a 911 call, but instead to provide at-home care. His prognosis

Baltimore Banner, August 26, 2024, Cumberland Wants To Pay You $20,000 To Move To The Mountains Nestled in the mountains of Western Maryland, the small town of Cumberland has been having an unexpected revival as remote workers move in and it upgrades its historic downtown. To keep the momentum going, the city launched a pilot

CNN Business, August 18, 2024, Burned And Uninsured: Wildfires Are Leaving California’s Housing Market In Trouble Since 2015, the California Department of Insurance has kept a record of the number of renewed and canceled policies in the state’s high fire-risk areas, which make up more than a quarter of the state. They recorded an increase

Brookings, August 8, 2024, How To Fix Federal Home Loan Banks The world has changed a lot since 1932. Today, banks and thrifts are functionally the same, and both are eligible for support from the Fed and FHLBanks. The range of collateral that banks, thrifts, and other member financial institutions can post to access financing

NPR, August 16, 2024, Harris Wants To Give Families A Big Tax Break For A New Baby The child tax credit is both popular with voters and effective at cutting child poverty rates. But, expanding the program also would be expensive. “It would be very costly. The current child tax credit costs something like $100

WLKY, August 13, 2024, New Initiative Addressing Racial Equity Gap In Funding For Louisville Nonprofits Smaller organizations, many minority and BIPOC-led, tend to have lower budgets and in turn receive little to no funding from several sources, including government. This raises equity questions for some. “I’m out here doing the work and I can’t get