A new law that was signed on May 1 will prohibit more than 15 minutes of indoor smoking time at the city’s sole cigar lounge You can’t smoke a cigar in 15 minutes, not even a short one. But a new law that was just signed into effect will limit cigar smokers in Minneapolis to...
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Uptick in NYC Transit Assault Rate During COVID Pandemic; Has Not Returned to Pre-Pandemic Levels Despite Subway Safety Plan
Has the New York City subway become less safe? This is the question Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health researchers sought to answer in their newest paper investigating rates of complaints to and arrests by the New York City Police Department Transit Bureau. The findings showed that anxieties related to crime on New York...
Study Reveals Higher Injury and Assault Rates Among NYC Food Delivery Gig Workers Dependent on the Work
A study published Monday in the Journal of Urban Health by a team of CUNY researchers finds that food delivery gig workers in New York City face a high risk of injury and assault, particularly those dependent on gig work as their main job. The study analyzes data from a survey of 1,650 delivery workers, collected between October and...
All-Cash Home Buyers Pay 10% Less Than Mortgage Buyers
Owning a home has long been considered a crucial way to build wealth, but making such a purchase has become increasingly difficult for many residents. In addition to steep housing prices and high interest rates, there have been a growing number of all-cash buyers who can close a deal quickly, beating out competing offers from buyers who...
Reducing Late-Night Alcohol Sales Curbed All Violent Crimes by 23% Annually in a Baltimore Neighborhood
A new study found that reducing alcohol hours of sale for bars and taverns in a Baltimore, Md. neighborhood also reduced homicides by 51 percent within the first month and by 40 percent annually, pointing to possible opportunities for other cities to address excessive drinking and crime. Simply reducing the hours during which alcohol may...
What Congress Should Do About Hate Crime Statistics
To improve hate crime statistics, Congress should amend existing legislation, not impose hate crime reporting mandates. A new bipartisan bill in Congress would require police in major American cities to prioritize hate crime reporting as a condition of receiving grants under a popular federal program. That bill, the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act, is the...
Wide Variation in Rates of Police Killings Suggests Unnecessary Deaths
One in three police homicides could have been avoided without endangering police or the public, according to a study. Eight percent of all homicides of adult men in the United States are committed by police. Using data from 2008–2017 from the National Officer-Involved Homicide Database, Josh Leung-Gagné compared police homicide rates across the 711 local...
Reinforcing the Diverse Ways People Access Seafood Can Ensure Healthy Communities in the Face of Change
As climate change affects the oceans, coastal communities, particularly those at the front lines of ocean warming and sea level rise, are facing pressures that could threaten their access to aquatic foods. “Climate change and other economic shocks are impacting how people access seafood, and typically households that are most reliant on seafood, such as...
As Cities Grow, How Will City Trash, Wastewater, and Emissions Rise?
More than half of the world’s population—4.4 billion people—lives in cities, and that proportion will grow to two-thirds by the year 2050, according to the United Nations. As the world’s population expands, and becomes increasingly urbanized, many have raised concerns about the impact of waste—from house trash to wastewater to greenhouse gas emissions—on the planet....
Food from Urban Agriculture Has Carbon Footprint 6 Times Larger Than Conventional Produce
A new University of Michigan-led international study finds that fruits and vegetables grown in urban farms and gardens have a carbon footprint that is, on average, six times greater than conventionally grown produce. However, a few city-grown crops equaled or outperformed conventional agriculture under certain conditions. Tomatoes grown in the soil of open-air urban plots...