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The Devil in the DetailsTown after town adopts a policy to open its meetings with a prayer — and discovers it has just invited the Satanic Temple to the microphone. Six councils, one recurring invocation, and a First Amendment rule that won't let them take the mic back.
BostonThe Conversion GapA city rezones its empty office towers for housing and calls it a plan. But the conversions that actually get built are few, heavily subsidized, and short on affordable homes — and the gap between what's announced and what's delivered is the real story.
NashvilleSpeed Bumps and SilenceA city will argue for an hour over a speed bump, then move $23 million in audited opioid money without a word. What a council fights about isn't set by the stakes — but by what residents believe they can change.
Los AngelesWhen the Games Come to TownLA asked for the World Cup and the Olympics. What followed wasn't one decision residents could vote on but dozens — scattered across an organizing committee, the state, and a permit desk.
Earlier stories
- Peacock Problems
- Bear, Down
- Showing Teeth
- That Sinking Feeling
- No Zoning District
- Bell to Bell
- Running on Empty
- Aloha to Airbnb
- The Last Warehouse
- The ADU Mirage
- Out of Order
- Four Boards, Four Rooms
- 100 Days of Zohran
- Five Years After Marshall
- Three Cities, One Fire Zone
- The Most Deliberative Square Mile in America
- The Bill Comes Due
- Forty-Seven Million Words
- The City That Won't Agree
- Through the Fog
- Five Futures for Oakland
Civics
Tools
- The Data Center AtlasNobody publishes where the world's data centers are, so we built the map from public records — 2,353 sites, each tied to a permit, filing, or report you can open yourself.
- The Vote Tracker1,524 local officials. 25,219 recorded votes. See who's voting yes — and who's blocking progress.
- Temperature Check438 cities. Millions of public comments. How contentious is your local government?
- The Abundance IndexWhich cities welcome growth and which fight it? 84 cities ranked by their openness to housing development.
- The Data Center Gold Rush156 cities. 2,847 meetings. Where will America's digital infrastructure live — and who gets to decide?