ASC's Intersections Newsletter — March 20, 2026
🎧 Listen to this article
Nora's Note
Opening Doors to Affordable Housing. This week ASC launched a campaign supporting Making Moves, a New York State Homes & Community Renewal initiative to activate landlords as essential partners in helping families with Section 8 vouchers relocate to high-resource areas. The program offers personalized coaching, landlord incentives, and financial aid to combat housing discrimination and improve access to quality schools and jobs. Working under the leadership of Enterprise Community Partners, ASC’s marketing team conducted research, developed targeted, landlord-focused messaging, and built out a compelling campaign that starts its run today in program site areas, including Tompkins, Orange, Westchester and Dutchess Counties, as well as in Buffalo and on Long Island. We’re excited to help change and improve lives in New York—Doors open with Making Moves!
Transportation
New York State Democratic House members are pushing to include Mayor Mamdani's proposed fare-free bus lines in their 2027 fiscal budget. This program is a revival of the 2023-2024 program that the MTA declared unsuccessful and instead promotes its existing Fair Fares program, which grants half-priced fares to qualified low-income New Yorkers. Governor Hochul is open to negotiations to revive the fare-free bus program but has not yet expressed support for it. Learn more about the MTA's fare-free bus routes and the governor's concerns about bringing it back. (Source: AMNY)
Mass Transit: RideCo technology helping to improve dispatch experience for transit operations
Gothamist: NJ Transit opens new bridge over Hackensack River, enabling faster train speeds
Transportation Topics: PlusAI adds night driving for latest SuperDrive iteration
Climate
Since 2010, nineteen cities, including London, San Francisco, and Beijing, have seen a reduction of more than 20% in air pollution. Through deliberate action, restriction, and intervention, such as adding bike lanes, promoting electric vehicles, and the shifting away from coal and wood home heating, air quality statistics have dramatically improved, with other cities seeing reductions of up to 40-45%. Read on here, and learn more about the types of air pollutants being tackled by cities today. (Source: The Guardian)
Grist: In rural West Texas, renewable energy brings a windfall for seniors
Canary Media: Virginia to become second state that allows balcony solar
Anthropocene Magazine: The future of epoxy could be plant-based—and recyclable
Economic Development
A new supportive housing development in the Bronx highlights efforts to address housing instability and mental health issues. Baez Place in Claremont consists of 154 units that will house low-income residents, seniors, and unhoused individuals with mental health challenges, as well as provide on-site social services in partnership with the nonprofit Community Access. Learn more about the development and how residents say the housing has transformed their lives. (Source: Bronx Times)
Smart Cities Dive: Bipartisan affordable housing legislation just cleared the Senate. Here’s what it could mean for cities.
QNS: Queens ground lease co-op residents urge state to pass standard housing protections
New York YIMBY: Housing lottery launches for 2892 Nostrand Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
Digital
The city of Raleigh, North Carolina, is leading the way in municipal innovation by adopting a cautious yet progressive strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into local government operations. The city recently launched an internal AI assistant to streamline employee administrative tasks and is currently piloting a vision-basedanalytics system to evaluate urban traffic patterns. Learn more here about how these internal tests and regional cybersecurity partnerships are transforming service delivery in North Carolina’s capital. (Source: Gov Tech)
Forbes: Gilbane’s Alex Gutman on tech, data, and the future of construction
AI News: How multi-agent AI economics influence business automation
The Wall Street Journal: The AI boom has exploded the San Francisco housing market
About Arch Street Communications
At ASC, we help government agencies, corporations and nonprofit organizations across the globe communicate issues that affect people’s lives. We’re the bold, nimble, women-owned small business (WBE) that has supported strategic communications programs to build stronger communities for 30 years.
Ready to find the “simple truth” solutions to build a better future? We want to hear from you! Get in touch to learn how our signature approach can work for you.
Subscribe to Arch Street Communications' Newsletter Intersections
