The COVID-19 lockdowns of last spring put a number of “cities that never sleep” to sleep overnight. On the transportation front, the ultimate symbol of this was the decision to end overnight subway service in New York for the first time since the subway opened in 1904 (“The Mobile City,” May 6, 2020). But now that the country is getting vaccinated at a rapid clip, many states and cities are moving just as quickly to lift all the restrictions imposed over a year ago. Among them: New York City, which will see 24-hour subway service return on May 19 as part of a coordinated three-state effort to resume business as usual, more or less, in the Big Apple.
Will a tax credit for first-time homebuyers be available in 2021?
To keep a campaign promise, the President called on Congress to pass a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and two House members have answered the call.
JOE RAEDLE
AFP
Two House representatives, Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), have followed the President’s lead and introduced a bill that would provide first-time homebuyers with a tax credit valued at 10% of the property’s purchase value, up to $15,000.
Rep. Blumenauer stated that the legislation would help those who have been historically shut out of the housing market as prices and demand continue to rise to unprecedented levels. The act would target low and middle-income families in the United States, particularly families of color, and would who have been subjected to decades of discriminatory and racist “housing policies that have left massive wealth, homeownership, and opportunity gaps between white communities and communities of
We ve all heard stories about how people left the big cities during the COVID-19 pandemic, opting for smaller communities, but does data back that up? Bloomberg s CityLab released data that showed where people moved in the last year; which cities shrunk, and which grew. Across the U.S., the number of people making moves that they defined as permanent was up a modest three percent between March 2020 and February 2021, Bloomberg said. .But zoom in to a few of America’s densest and most expensive metro regions and the picture is more dramatic, with the percentage increase in moves well into the double digits.
I’m Carolina A. Miranda, arts and urban design columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and it’s the weekend which means it’s time for the week’s essential culture news.