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Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of large U.S. cities in August, despite zero job growth nationwide. Here are the cities with the highest and lowest rates: Best and Worst Metro areas Figures are in percentages Highest unemployment rates August 2011 El Centro, Calif. 32.4 Lowest unemployment rates August 2011 Bismarck, N.D. 3.0

For the fifth year in a row, crime is down in the United States, according to the FBI. The 2010 final statistics released today show a 6.0% drop in violent crimes from last year's report -- better than the 5.5% announced in the preliminary findings in May. Violent crime is down 13.2% from 2006 and 13.4% from 2001. But parts of the country are getting worse. Flint, Michigan -- the most violent city in America -- saw a 10% increase in violent crime over last year, with 2,208 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Rust Belt neighbor Detroit was only slightly...

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Anthony Watts Urban areas with at least one million inhabitants in 2006. 3% of the world's population lived in cities. Image via WikipediaFrom Yale UniversityGrowth of cities endangers global environmentNew Haven, Conn.—The explosive growth of cities worldwide over the next two decades poses significant risks to people and the global environment, according to a meta-analysis published today in PlosOne.Researchers from Yale, Arizona State, Texas A&M and Stanford predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles—nearly the size of Mongolia—to accommodate the needs of 1.47 billion more people living in urban...

Nine Chicago neighborhoods riddled with foreclosures will get a blitzkrieg of cash and attention to turn those properties around, thanks to a $20 million loan pool unveiled Wednesday. With foreclosures rising by 20 percent in 2010, and resources steadily declining, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying a new approach to combat the epidemic that threatens to tear down entire inner-city neighborhoods. Instead of approaching the problem on a house-by-house basis, the mayor is targeting “small sub-sections” of nine neighborhoods hardest-hit by the foreclosure epidemic: Humboldt Park; Chatham; Chicago Lawn; West Woodlawn; Auburn-Gresham; West Pullman; Belmont-Cragin, Englewood and Grand Boulevard. All nine...

For some time now, residents of some US cities have noted occasional incidents of seemingly random, racially motivated violence in which young Black males are involved. The hot weather and bad economy seem to be combining to generate a small but possibly significant uptick this year. The national media are doing their best to avoid looking too closely at this disturbing phenomenon, and perhaps for good reason. What the United States doesn’t need is a media firestorm that triggers copycat violence. Nevertheless some attention should be paid.

As we have watched horrified over the last week as parts of London and several other major British cities burned, one unspoken thought was; Are we next? In between all the harrumphing by talking heads going on about either turning the water cannons on the little monsters, or how this is just a protest gone wrong is a simple point: The West has created a generation of feral children. This phenomenon is not unique to Britain, or Europe, as the frustrated mayor of Philadelphia[1], Michael Nutter, demonstrated in the wake of a series of recent racially motivated “flash mobs”. Further...

There may have been no rioting in the Highlands, but no one has been watching the arson and looting of Britain’s cities more closely than the Queen. With fewer than six months to her Diamond Jubilee, when celebrations are planned for the length and breadth of the kingdom, the disorder has alarmed aides planning the extravaganza. Central to their concern is not just the damage to the country’s image overseas, but also how quickly the feelgood factor engendered by April’s Royal Wedding has been lost. From her summer home in Balmoral, the Queen has kept in touch with developments and...

From the mid-1990s to early 2000s, pundits blamed “urban sprawl” for soaring infrastructure costs, environmental degradation, increased CO2 emissions, shrinking farmland and even obesity. Today, in Michigan and across the country, this issue has largely disappeared. Strangely, this disappearance is attributable to the government, albeit more by accident than by design. If sprawl is to remain in the rearview mirror, politicians must address their own contributions to its rise. In the 1990s, the number of people moving out of cities and inner-ring suburbs into surrounding areas increased, turning more Michigan farms and open spaces into housing developments and suburbs. In...

Bankruptcy: From Greece To Rhode Island By Frederick SheehanJuly 25, 2011 07/25/11 Central Falls, Rhode Island faces a plight that should be studied for its application elsewhere. It is nearly out of money. This is common news today, whether in Greece or California. The various parties are assumed to possess a means to carry on. This is assumed because it is generally so. The banks had the Fed; General Electric had the Fed and the FDIC; Greece has the ECB; California is prepared to launch a bridge loan. Despite the band-aids, the trend towards insolvency continues. Central Falls has reached...

Americans sweltered today in the scorching heat in what was officially the hottest day of the year in scores of cities across the country. The heatwave covered a million square miles, affecting 141million Americans. New York's Manhattan experienced the hottest ever July 22 recorded, with an overwhelming 104-degree temperature in Central Park. The Washington DC region continued to be smothered in heat and humidity with temperatures reaching 102 degrees but with a heat index of more than 120 - hotter than Death Valley at daybreak

For well over a decade urban boosters have heralded the shift among young Americans from suburban living and toward dense cities. As one Wall Street Journal report suggests, young people will abandon their parents’ McMansions for urban settings, bringing about the high-density city revival so fervently prayed for by urban developers, architects and planners. Some demographers claim that “white flight” from the city is declining, replaced by a “bright flight” to the urban core from the suburbs. “Suburbs lose young whites to cities,” crowed one Associated Press headline last year. Yet evidence from the last Census show the opposite: a...

California cities can protect workers from being fired immediately when their company changes owners, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.The 6-1 decision reinstated a Los Angeles ordinance, struck down by lower courts, that required supermarkets to keep their workforce for 90 days after a new owner takes over. Similar laws covering different industries are in effect in other cities - including Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley and Emeryville - and the state also has a law protecting janitors who work for building contractors. "When you're keeping a business open and all you're doing is changing the name

After years of declining tax revenues, cities and towns across the country are now running out of ways to deal with their ballooning budget deficits. ... Public employee costs account for a large share of municipal budget woes.

The election of the first African-American president was widely hailed as a giant step forward for American racial politics. The future, however, may remember this administration as a giant step back for Black America during a period of deepening alienation, anger and despair in America’s inner cities. Not since the 1960s, when scores of American cities were shaken by one race riot after another, have African-Americans faced such deadly conditions: high expectations and hopes running up against a reality of vanishing jobs, shrinking government budgets and a fractured and fragmented leadership. Barring an unlikely change in economic fortunes we could...

Excerpt only site: Cities like New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles may be some of the most popular and exciting cities in the U.S., but they also happen to be the dirtiest. A list of the most filthiest cities in America has been compiled by Travel and Leisure magazine. Most of the places that made the top ten were some of the most popular in all of the country, perhaps something to do with the number of tourists who frequent there or the street parties and events that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Which cities top out as best read? Or, at least according to Amazon.com which compiled sales data for cities over 100,000 and came up with this top 10 list: 1. Cambridge, Mass. 2. Alexandria, Va. 3. Berkeley, Calif.4. Ann Arbor, Mich.5. Boulder, Colo.6. Miami7. Salt Lake City8. Gainesville, Fla.9. Seattle10. Arlington, Va.Not surprisingly, most of these cities are big college towns. But Cincinnati was ranked  #18, and Alexandria, VA is hardly a hub for universities. Some more fun facts from Amazon:In taking a closer look at the data, Amazon.com also found that: Not only do they like to read,...

The New Black Panther Party, the racist and radical black power group, has a big day ahead of it this coming Saturday. According to its website, it’s planning a massive 60-city “showdown.” And the day of rage will include a protest of “non-black” businesses. The group says it’s establishing a home base at an office building in Harlem, an area it’s modeling after revolutionary ground zero in Egypt. The site goes on to explain why its rallying: As in other revolutions, protests and uprisings going on around the earth, a showdown is looming for Saturday April 23rd as marchers with...

Over the past decade urbanists, journalists and politicians have hotly debated where Americans were settling and what places were growing the fastest. With the final results in from the 2010 Census, we can now answer those questions, with at least some clarity. Not only does the Census tell us where people are moving, it also gives us clues as to why. It also helps explain where they might continue to go in the years ahead. This information is invaluable to companies that are considering where to expand, or contract, their operations.

For many mayors across the country, including New York City’s Michael Bloomberg, the recently announced results of the 2010 census were a downer. In a host of cities, the population turned out to be substantially lower than the U.S. Census Bureau had estimated for 2010—in New York’s case, by some 250,000 people. Bloomberg immediately called the decade’s meager 2.1 percent growth, less than one-quarter the national average, an “undercount.” Senator Charles Schumer blamed extraterrestrials, accusing the Census Bureau of “living on another planet.” The truth, though, is that the census is very much of this world. It just isn’t the...

The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County. The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday, claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the “super-majority white ” cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to dilute minority votes in those...