On Our Radar

The essential thinginess of capitalism has been one of its most-criticized features. Materialism, and specifically consumerism, are almost always used as pejorative terms. Nostalgic conservatives, egalitarian progressives and environmentalists loudly agree on at least one thing: we are just buying too much stuff.

The Black Socialists of America (BSA), a coalition of “anticapitalist, internationalist Black Americans,” just launched its Dual Power Map. The map promises to plot every single worker cooperative, small business development center, community land trust, and dual power project in America so “you can support them right now.

Amazon HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia, is just getting started — with a smattering of employees and a new campus construction — but the surrounding housing market is already experiencing a boom in anticipation of the new demand.

Much of the conversation about school segregation in America is about how to lessen segregation within a school district, ensuring students of all races in the same district can study together in the same school.

As the water recedes for the first time in months, a group of mayors from small and midsize towns along the Mississippi River are calling for more federal support to upgrade infrastructure and help move residents out of harm’s way.

aced with a rising backlash over the spread of disinformation in the aftermath of the 2016 elections, Facebook last year came up with a seemingly straightforward solution: It created an online library of all the advertisements on the social network. Transparency, it decided, was the best disinfectant.

In a new book called The Making of a Democratic Economy: How to Build Prosperity for the Many, Not the Few, Howard and Kelly spell out seven principles for creating a fairer and more sustainable economy that could help pull the U.S. out of the “extractive economy” that exists today. Those values are community, inclusion, place, good work, sustainability, democratic ownership, and ethical finance.

More than 50 years after the federal Fair Housing Act took aim at discrimination in the housing market, and four decades after the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act did the same by shining a light on lending practices, blacks are still twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage, according to a new national study.

Even when older plaintiffs win their suits, correcting institutional biases can take years.

The world’s largest retailer is partnering with Realogy, the largest U.S. residential brokerage, to match homebuyers with real estate agents through a program called TurnKey.

Most states lean heavily on lower-income families. An Illinois referendum is a step toward correcting the problem.

Student debt is often thought of as a generational issue, plaguing 20- and 30-somethings as they make their way into adulthood. And while it’s true that young adults are coping with levels of student debt rarely experienced by their parents and even older siblings, perhaps one of the biggest factors defining a borrower’s student loan experience is their race.

L.A.’s 2018 push for public banking zeroed in on its potential to serve cannabis companies, as many traditional banks won’t while the sale of marijuana is illegal at the federal level, but his time around, activists and legislators in California cities are focusing on what public banking could do to help cities finance affordable housing, shrink inequality and bolster climate change resilience efforts.

In increasingly expensive D.C., about 20% of residents in Wards 7 and 8 anticipate being unable to afford their home and needing to move in the next three years.