GovTech Research

After two years of delays and disputes, the developers of the Gowanus Green — the massive affordable housing development set to be built atop one of the most toxic sites in Gowanus — appear to see a light at the end of a long, sludgy tunnel. brooklynpaper.com/development-go…

The TOD Standard 3.0 is a global guide for creating walkable, bikeable, transit-rich communities. It tackles car-dependent sprawl by showing how to design dense, mixed-use neighborhoods that truly support #publictransport. Built around 8 principles—Walk, Cycle, Connect, Transit, Mix, Densify, Compact, Shift—the Standard offers clear, measurable tools to evaluate and improve development around transit stations. The TOD Standard helps cities design healthier, more inclusive, low-car neighborhoods where public transit and people come first. Download the Standard at itdp.org/publication/to…

✍️ Making Industrial Strategy Great Again Industrial policy will fail unless it is organized around missions. @IIPP_UCL Prof. @MazzucatoM's recent @ForeignAffairs article critiques the Trump administration's approach to industrial strategy 🔗 Learn more: buff.ly/aXhwOR6

The Chancellor’s fiscal devolution roadmap is a major shift. But without the right local boundaries, it risks creating uneven tax bases and service gaps. Local government reform must match economic reality👇 buff.ly/fqXZERH

If you are real about a fundamental transition of our streets, you need to challenge the implicit design priorities. Any inclusive street pyramid🔻 should put nature and human life on top (by @GemeenteUtrecht).

Neat profile of Taiwan's "Industrial Technology Research Institute", a government-funded lab which helped spin out TSMC and much of Taiwan's chip industry. One of the most impressive industrial policy plays of all time. asteriskmag.com/issues/13/the-…

Oregon may ban unfunded affordable housing mandates — because data proves they suppress homebuilding. When cities require below-market units without offsetting costs, developers build fewer homes, pushing up prices for everyone. California still uses the same counterproductive approach that Oregon may ban. sightline.org/2026/03/05/ore…

Sunshine on Leith 🌞 Fantastic to launch this new #ActiveTravel route today in Edinburgh 🚶‍♀️👨‍🦽🚴‍♀️ Leith Connections is giving people real transport choice, whilst making the area much more accessible and welcoming for residents, visitors and businesses 🎉 #PlacesForEveryone

UK Government to lift paywall from large parts of the Land Registry theguardian.com/environment/20… Details later today. Sounds like there will be a spatial dataset with ownership of large land parcels in E/W; probably free to access (like some other LR datasets) rather than #opendata

If you own a home with a basement, attic, or backyard, chances are you’ve thought about using it to earn a little extra income or as space for a loved one. We want to make it as easy (and affordable) as possible for you to do that. NYC recently legalized ADUs — but for too many New Yorkers, they’re still tied up in bureaucracy and expense. We're fixing that. Our new toolkit at nyc.gov/aduforyou includes preapproved building plans and a financing calculator so you can get right to building. If we want New York to remain a city for everyone, we have to make it easier for homeowners to stay here. ADU for You will do just that.

Did you already notice the current call in relation to the #OpenInternetStack framework? It funds #OpenSource, European-made digital infrastructure solutions that strengthen🖥️#DigitalSovereignty and trust. Explore this and other interesting calls here: 👉link.europa.eu/m7Hn3k

✍️ Reframing urban innovation around capabilities, directionality, & the politics of change @IIPP_UCL Professor Rainer Kattel argues that cities need a new investment logic to steer innovation towards societal wellbeing. 🔗 Read his Substack here: buff.ly/TAvptdj

Contrary to what Governors DeSantis and Abbott claim, H-1Bs are a boon to tax paying residents. Here is what the 6 year fiscal impact for H-1B households looks like in every state. eig.org/fiscal-impacts…

Join us as a Senior Product Manager in our Police & Public Protection Technology portfolio. Apply by 6 Apr: tinyurl.com/48enzrmw Starting salary £62,109 (National), £66,229 (London) + up to £6,000 on assessment. 📍Multiple locations #techjobs

We’ve seen a *massive* swing away from homeownership into expensive private renting among low income households in Britain. Mortgaged families dropped from 30% to 17% of Unsung Britain, while private renters nearly doubled. Almost as many people live with parents (15%) as own with a mortgage (17%).

We are hiring full-time research scientists in dexterous manipulation! We've got multiple openings at Google DeepMind London. Apply at job-boards.greenhouse.io/deepmind/jobs/… and job-boards.greenhouse.io/deepmind/jobs/…. And feel free to ping me if you apply 😄🤖

A new edition of our newsletter just went out! This week's launch season Read it online: eepurl.com/jBQgWI Subscribe here to get it directly in your inbox: app.civictech.guide/subscribe ift.tt/qK5VtF8

We know New York isn't building enough housing. But outside NYC, the housing we do build is overwhelmingly single-family sprawl, often bulldozing acres of forest to build mansions. This broken status-quo is ironically the result of our environmental review law, SEQRA. 🧵

We're incredibly excited to share ScienceClaw × Infinite, an open-source AI agent swarm platform where we crowdsource discovery across institutions, labs & the world. The agents self-coordinate and evolve to exploit hundreds of scientific tools. Remarkably, the swarm is already solving real scientific problems of consequence: 1⃣ designing peptide binders for a cancer-relevant receptor 2⃣ discovering lightweight ceramics 3⃣ uncovering hidden structure linking cricket wings, phononic crystals, and Bach chorales 4⃣ building a formal bridge between urban networks & grain-boundary evolution (two fields with zero Deeply proud of the extraordinary @LAMM_MIT team behind this work: @fwang108_, @leemmarom, @palsubhadeeep, Rachel Luu, @IrisWeiLu, and @JaimeBerkovich. This works is supported by the @ENERGY Genesis Mission and we believe this can open a new paradigm for science - from discovery to dissemination of results. Read the article below for details ⤵️

Send this to a small business who deserves all the funds. Applications are open for the NYC Future Fund: a loan program with affordable, flexible financing for seasonal and growing small businesses. Apply now at nyc.gov/futurefund