As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transform lives and ways of living across the globe, it is becoming increasingly clear that adaptations involving both physical and institutional infrastructure are warranted. Cities are at the forefront of these adaptive changes as dense urban environments are particularly vulnerable to the spread of contagious airborne diseases such as the novel coronavirus. This paper considers how COVID-19 might influence where and how people live, work, recreate, and move about the city, and how these changing patterns might in turn shape future development trajectories. We also discuss how cities are currently responding to the public health threat posed by COVID-19, and how they might use planning and design strategies to improve resilience in the face of future pandemics.

Objective. We examine the effects of neighborhood walkability on house values. Recent research claims that walkability makes homes more valuable, ceteris paribus. We contend that some studies report a spurious effect of walkability because of differences between areas with high and low walkability. Methods. We replicate the positive effect of walkability on prices for single-family homes and condominiums in Miami, Florida, using a unique data set of house values and characteristics. We employ a fixed effects regression model instead of a traditional ordinary least squares regression model to account for the unobserved heterogeneity of neighborhoods. Results. We find that walkability's impact on housing value becomes statistically insignificant at the margin after controlling for heteroscedasticity and neighborhood fixed effects. Conclusions. The significant impact of the fixed effects suggests that something other than walkability is affecting prices and that better specified models are needed to discern the real price effects of walkability.

In its 1993 report, the Winter Commission gave direction to the federal government in the area of health policy and Medicaid: lead, follow, or get out of the way. This article examines how the federal government responded to that advice, specifically asking what has happened in the allocation of responsibility in health policies between 1993 and 2006. In short, unlike the suggestion that there be a better‐defined direction in federal–state policy assignments in health, the ensuing years have resulted in more of the same. The authors examine what has happened, particularly focusing on vertical diffusion—where the states have acted first—and on the role of policy learning in federal decision making. They find little recognition of policy learning in recent federal health laws—even in areas in which state experience was extensive. The federal government is leading in some health policies—but it is leading without learning.

More U.S. citizens live in neighborhoods governed by homeowners (HOAs) or neighborhood associations (NAs) than in any period of American history. Property values are typical association goals. Research fails to consider all types of associations in the examination of the effects of neighborhood governance on property values. In this article, I study the effects of HOAs and NAs on property values. I find that HOAs increase property values, while NAs exert no influence on property values.

This study examines the influence of economic, political, and demand factors on the adoption of public–private partnerships (PPPs) from 2000 to 2016. State debt, urban travel demand, and state laws allowing unsolicited PPP proposals have a significant effect on PPP adoption. Counter to previous studies that suggest conservative state governments adopt PPPs at a greater rate than liberal governments, we find that the influence of political ideology on PPP adoption is contingent upon state legislative professionalism. For states with high legislative professionalism, a change in state government ideology in the liberal direction decreases the likelihood of PPP adoption. For states with low legislative professionalism, a change in state government ideology in the liberal direction increases the likelihood of PPP adoption. The results inform the study of politics of privatization by demonstrating how ideological preferences can be shaped by the legislative capacities of state governments.