Housing
Ninety Words on a Ballot That Could Rebuild a City
A housing measure in a port city fits on a postcard. What happens if it passes would take thirty years.
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Cities correspondent
Julien Moreau
Julien Moreau is the magazine’s cities correspondent, writing about housing, transit, and local government—the decisions made in council chambers that turn up years later as a bus route or an apartment block. He worked for six years as a route planner for the Halbridge Transit Authority, and his book Frequent Service is a sympathetic history of the timetable. He lives in Halbridge, does not own a car, and has ridden all 41 of the city’s bus routes from end to end, some of them twice by mistake.
4 pieces by Julien
Borders
A Library That Sits on a Border
The reading room is in one country and the front door in another. For a century it has been the easiest place in the region to meet your neighbours.
Transit
Redrawing a Bus Map Without Losing a Single Rider
A rural county tried to make its buses frequent instead of everywhere. The people at the ends of the old routes had other ideas.
Local government
The Council That Meets After Midnight
In a port town run by shift workers, the council moved its meetings to 12:30 a.m. Attendance tripled.