Emily Badger

If the aggressive show of force had a deterrent effect on crime, it appears to have deterred some entirely normal aspects of city life, too.

The city’s limited self-governance has set the stage for the president’s police takeover.

Critics fear that personal data might be used to monitor immigrants and political foes, and to spread false tales of fraud.

To secure a key vote, an “absurd policy” was created that winds up encouraging states to make more mistakes.

Almost immediately after congestion pricing took effect in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, it began to alter traffic patterns, commuter behavior, transit service and even city noise. Emily Badger, who writes about cities and urban policy for The New York Times, looks at three apparent effects since the tolls began in January.

His team found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason.

Elon Musk’s team is leading an effort to link government databases, to the alarm of privacy and security experts.

For the second time in a week, Elon Musk’s government overhaul effort updated its “wall of receipts” to remove mistakes that inflated its success.

Sixty-five thousand have submitted resignations as part of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” offer. But 150,000 voluntarily leave every year anyway.

A new order revives an old battle about how much an administration is allowed to coerce cities and states by withholding money.

Rebuilding can be a chance to rethink things.

Big cities have faced serious problems lately. But there’s little evidence those problems are what drove voters to the right in November.

A huge drop in 2023 has been followed by an even greater improvement so far this year.

One economic question that really matters in an election year: Are others doing better than you?

There’s a powerful but obscure force operating in New York and elsewhere: the parking minimum.

It’s a quiet force that contributes to a sameness across the country and to climate change.

Areas with good data often have policy debates that are not possible in places with poor data.

The retreat by the police coincided with a surge in reckless driving and a rise in road fatalities.

Chicago reversed the flow of a river. Boston put a highway underground. And New York, well, came close to enacting congestion pricing.

To understand a messy problem, The Times needed to look at the city from a different perspective, one where garbage sits at the foreground.