cities

This hour, we talk with Democratic State Sen. Marilyn Moore who, in addition to representing the 22nd District, is campaigning for mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

What is her strategy to successfully unseat the city's current mayor, Joe Ganim? We find out and we also hear from you.

Abandoned factories tagged with graffiti. Vacant properties marked by broken windows and overgrown lawns. This hour, we consider the impact of urban blight on communities and hear how some local municipalities are working to improve quality of life.

We check in with the cities of Waterbury and Hartford, where significant strides have been made to survey and address blight.

We also talk with Laura Bliss of CityLab and with a housing official in Baltimore. How effective has the Maryland city’s Vacants to Value program been at reducing the number of vacant, blighted properties? We find out. 

A state jury has ruled in favor of the city of Hartford and against a developer in the controversial case of the bungled construction of the city's recently-built minor league baseball park. 

In a decision announced Tuesday, the jury found against developer Centerplan in a suit brought after the city fired the developer from the job.

Abandoned factories tagged with graffiti. Vacant properties marked by broken windows and overgrown lawns. This hour, we consider the impact of urban blight on communities and hear how some local municipalities are working to improve quality of life.

We check in with the cities of Waterbury and Hartford, where significant strides have been made to survey and address blight.

We also talk with Laura Bliss of CityLab and with a housing official in Baltimore. How effective has the Maryland city’s Vacants to Value program been at reducing the number of vacant, blighted properties? We find out. 

If large corporations, like United Technologies, are increasingly eyeing urban hubs for future growth, what are we doing to put our cities at the cusp of that trend? Or more likely, what aren't we doing as a state?

This week, we take stock of what cities such as Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport have to offer CEOs looking to relocate their companies, and where they fall short. 

It's been a half-century since the torture and eventual murder of wrongly suspected FBI informant Alex Rackney by members of the Black Panther Party. The racial tensions in New Haven that followed when party leaders were put on trial for Rackney's death led to the National Guard patrolling its streets.

In some ways, the city has changed a lot since then. But many of the social problems that provoked New Haven's angst during that period--injustices by police, substandard housing, gentrificaton, and racial disparity--remain unsolved.

They live underground and gorge themselves in dumpsters. This hour, we’re taking a long, hard look at creatures you’d probably rather not think about: RATS!

We hear about how the city of Hartford is fighting these unwelcome rodent residents, and we ask a researcher why are these scurrying creatures so successful at living alongside humans?

By turns contrite and defiant, Eddie A. Perez launched a populist campaign for mayor of Hartford on Thursday, attacking the downtown corporations that once backed him and testing the notion of whether Connecticut’s capital is ready to join its largest city, Bridgeport, in returning a corrupt former mayor to City Hall.

Connecticut’s cities were the glories of their time. Handsome and self-reliant, well-built and functional, they were economic dynamos, often known by the products they made: The Hat City, Brass City, Silk City, etc. These cities made the state strong. And then the U.S. won World War II. Many cities hit their population peaks just after the war, and then began a long decline. The pre-war trickle to the suburbs became a torrent (of whites), on new highways that wrecked city neighborhoods.

It is estimated that 12 million Americans live inside one of our nations roughly 45,000 mobile home communities. Despite these numbers, few people outside these parks truly know what life is like for their residents.

A state judge has revoked the public pension of former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez, a year and a half after Perez pleaded guilty to two corruption-related offenses stemming from his time in office.

In the wake of a series of shootings involving teen shooters and victims, two Connecticut cities are outlining plans to address youth gun violence. 

ShotSpotter is a gunshot detection system, which uses a combination of sensors to determine the location of gunfire. Bridgeport has become the latest Connecticut city to roll out the technology. 

Connecticut is receiving a $10 million grant that will be used to increase access to care for people with substance abuse and mental health disorders.

As state budget cuts have left cash-strapped towns and cities looking for ways to recoup revenue, several nonprofit organizations have been denied their tax-exempt status.

A landmark Supreme Court case over eminent domain and people’s right to private property is back in the headlines with the new movie “Little Pink House.” It tells the story of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood in New London, which was the scene of an epic struggle between a municipality that wanted to take property for the purpose of economic development, and the homeowners who resisted every step of the way.