Retirement was once a hard-earned rite of passage for most Americans. However, in modern times, as many working Americans struggle to make ends meet, it’s not always an option. And, outside of financial concerns, more individuals’ sense of purpose appears to be deeply connected to working. That means that for many, retirement is no longer a given, and for some, it’s not desirable.
Asset Preservation Wealth & Tax surveyed 1,000 working Americans age 65 to 99. According to the research, 51% of respondents said they planned to continue working indefinitely. “This isnt too surprising considering the cost of living is on the rise, the report explained. “Many seniors struggle with financial insecurity or fear of outliving their retirement savings. Those with major healthcare costs or other financial stressors are the most concerned, the report noted.
Financial concerns are certainly plentiful today, especially for older working Americans. From high costs of living to worries about the fate of social security, it makes sense that adults are retiring later, or not at all. A 2022 Gallup survey found that on average, Americans are working around four years longer than they did in the 1990s, from an average age of 57 in 1991 to 61 at the time of the survey.
According to the Asset Preservation Wealth & Tax survey, 48% of respondents say they will continue working due to financial necessity. “Our survey also found that just 34% of people feel financially prepared for retirement,” the report explained. “Another 32% do not feel prepared at all, while 34% only feel somewhat prepared. Along with this, 85% of respondents said that financial considerations somewhat or strongly influenced their decision to work past the standard retirement age.”
In addition to their own financial concerns, many older workers are supporting other family members, such as grown children. One in five said they are supporting or supplementing children or other family members who do not live with them. And according to a recent Savings.com survey, parents are shelling $1,474 monthly to help their adult children. Therefore, retirement may no longer be a personal choice, but one that may have generational impacts.
Still, the shift away from retirement isnt entirely financial. It’s also related to concerns about physical and mental health. According to the Asset Preservation Wealth & Tax survey, many Americans want to continue working as a means of supporting cognition and overall wellness. Forty percent of those surveyed said that even if they had no financial need to continue working, they still would prefer to in order to stay physically and mentally well.
And for many, work is central to their sense of identity, which makes retirement an emotional choice. Almost 70% (68%) said that working gives them purpose and 55% said having a job makes them feel valued in society.
While there are clear financial incentives that are keeping many Americans employed longer, work is also closely connected to a sense of purpose, identity, and therefore, to mental health. So, for some, giving it upat any ageno longer feels like a reward, but a punishment.
The internets favorite programming is back on: #RushTok season is officially upon us.
If this is your first time tuning in, rush is the informal name for the recruitment process in which college students in the U.S. vie for a spot in a Greek organization at their campus. On #RushTok, potential new members (PNMs) document their experience rushing different sororities, typically those affiliated with the National Panhellenic Conference.
The phenomenon first went viral in 2021, thanks to the University of Alabama. The hashtag #BamaRush now has more than 1.3 million posts, setting the blueprint for how pledge week plays out on TikTok. Since then, #RushTok has evolved into a full-blown internet subculture, with more than 67 million posts at the time of writing.
@itsleeonardo The duality of #rushtok original sound – Lee
Across the world, people tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at the recruitment process. Current pledges are building excitement, while viral personalities return for their fourth and final year.
@kylan_darnell In case you forgot #bamarush Legends Are Made – Sam Tinnesz
RushTok has essentially become its own reality TV show (think Dance Moms or Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders but in bite-size content). Young women try to get into their dream sorority, and the internet comes along for the ride. Bama rush tok is my superbowl, one TikTok user posted. Guys who are we rooting for? another asked.
@ssammimaee I cant wait to see this rush season #bamarush #bamarushweek #bamarushtok #bama #rolltide original sound – thehotwonton
With 2025 recruitment well underway, content ranges from simple OOTD videos to high-energy choreographed dances. Brands are swarming the comments to get in on the action (as are plenty of confused Europeans).
@gsuchiomega DAY 4 OF WORK WEEK, WE ARE RAVING OVER PC 25 #LICO #XOXONUKAPPA #GREEKLIFE #GEORGIASOUTHERN #SORORITY #CHIOMEGA #XOGSU #FYP #RUSHTOK #CHIOMEGA original sound – ukkappadelta
Peripheral content ramps up during this time, too, including parodies tht highlight the homogeneity of the content. One creator, DestineeMoreh, returns each year to break down the costs behind the flood of outfit of the day posts on the For You Page. The phenomenon has even inspired its own Lifetime documentary, set to premiere later this month.
@luciejlass I love watching #bamarush videos so much. #bamarushtok #bamarush #parody #pov original sound – Lucie Lass
A number of schools are involved, but ask anyoneBama Rush is the main event. While major players are already warming up, recruitment events at the University of Alabama dont officially begin for a few more days. According to UAs Panhellenic Association, recruitment runs from August 9 through 17.
If last years content is anything to go by, itll be over-the-top, chaotic, and very American.
Location sharing among friends, family, and significant others has quietly become the norm in recent years.
Now Instagram is looking for a piece of the action with the launch of a new opt-in map tool that lets users share their whereabouts, similar to Snapchats Snap Map or Apples Find My.
The feature is already available to users in the U.S. Tapping the Map circle on the Messages tab reveals an interactive map showing which friends are nearby and any location-based content theyre posting.
“People have always come to Instagram to share what theyre up to and where they are,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Now, with reposts, the map, and the Friends tab in Reels, its easier for you and your friends to stay in touch through the content youre enjoying on Instagram.”
In addition to being a convenient way to link up with friends, the tool allows users to explore local hot spots that creators have shared or engaged with. If a friend shares a story from a nearby music festival, for example, it will show up on the map. And if an influencer recommends a new coffee shop, youll be able to see exactly where it is.
While location sharing has become a common tool for keeping track of loved ones or checking in with friends, Instagram’s map offers robust controls to ensure the feature is not abused. Location sharing is off by default, and users locations update only when they open the app. You choose who you share your location with and can opt not to share your location in specific places or with specific people.
Even if you’re not sharing your own location, you can still use the map to explore public posts and tagged spots. Users can also leave notes on the map for friends to see.
The update reflects a broader trend of social apps becoming more rooted in real-world connection. After coming for Snapchats Stories back in 2016, Instagram is attempting to steal Snap Maps thunder. Snap Map recently surpassed 400 million monthly active users and remains one of Snapchats core engagement drivers.
At least one companys bet on AI appears to be paying offfor now.
Language-learning platform Duolingo reported earnings results for the second quarter of 2025 on Wednesday after the market closed, and the numbers were eye-opening. The companys revenue increased 41% year-over-year to more than $252.3 million, and net income tallied $44.8 million, up 84%. Its number of paid subscribers was up to 10.9 million from 8 million a year ago, and its daily active users neared 48 million, up from 34 million last year.
Im happy to report another quarter of great results, driven by product-led growth, a delightful learning experience, and fast iteration,” wrote Luis von Ahn, Duolingos co-founder and CEO, in a letter to shareholders. “Our user growth and engagement remain strong, and our subscription performance and profitability exceeded expectations.”
Von Ahn also thinks theres plenty of room to grow ahead, too, especially as AI is helping boost user engagement and profitability.
We believe were still early in our user growth journey,” he continued. “Weve delivered innovation while growing profitabilitythrough strong performance across all subscription tiers, continued investment in our core product, and new subjects that help us increase engagement. We remain focused on building for long-term engagement and growth.
The blowout quarter, notably, comes after Duolingo was among the first large companies to publicly lean into AIspecifically, replacing swaths of its human workforce with AI. For a while, it appeared that the strategy was backfiring, but now, thats not so clear.
Investors seem happy, as the price of Duolingo shares shot up significantly after hours. As of the closing bell at 4 p.m. ET, Duolingo stock was trading for less than $344 per sharebut as of 4:10 p.m. ET, shares were trading for $426.60. Thats an increase of more than 24%.
Duolingos shares had been on a downward slide, too, in recent weeks. Over the past month, the stock was down more than 13%, although its more than doubled over the past calendar year.
The White House was preparing to act against banks for allegedly dropping customers for political reasons, as President Donald Trump said he believes that banks, including JPMorgan and Bank of America, had discriminated against him and his supporters.
A draft of the executive order, which was reviewed by Reuters, instructs regulators to review banks for “politicized or unlawful debanking” practices. The order could authorize monetary penalties or other disciplinary measures against violators.
It is likely to be announced as early as this week, two industry sources said.
The White House had no immediate comment on the reported order.
Trump’s criticism adds pressure on America’s largest lenders, but it also shows how the president’s personal slights and business interests are getting reflected in the administration’s policies — something that critics say raises issues of conflicts of interest. The sprawling Trump business empire has been placed into a trust, but it is still ultimately owned by the president.
An executive order against the banks would come after Trump said in a CNBC interview on Tuesday that the country’s top two lenders had previously rejected his deposits. Trump said, without providing evidence, that the banks’ refusal to take his deposits indicated that the administration of former President Joe Biden had encouraged regulators to “destroy Trump.”
“They did discriminate,” Trump said of actions taken by JPMorgan after his first term in office. “I had hundreds of millions, I had many, many accounts loaded up with cash and they told me, ‘I’m sorry sir, we can’t have you. You have 20 days to get out.”
“They totally discriminate against, I think, me maybe even more, but they discriminate against many conservatives,” he said.
Trump said he subsequently tried to deposit funds with Bank of America and was also refused, and eventually split the cash.
“I ended up going to small banks all over the place,” he said. “I was putting $10 million here, $10 million there, did $5 million, $10 million, $12 million,” he said, without naming the lenders.
In a statement, JPMorgan did not address the president’s specific claims about his account.
“We dont close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed,” JPMorgan said. “We commend the White House for addressing this issue and look forward to working with them to get this right.
BofA also did not address Trump’s specific claims.
‘Reputational risk’ issue
During Biden’s administration, regulators were able to scrutinize banks’ decisions on the basis of reputational risks, a source familiar with the matter said.
Lenders were under intense scrutiny and pressure to weigh reputational risks when dealing with Trump because of his legal woes, another source familiar with the situation said.
JPMorgan continues to have a banking relationship with members of the Trump family that dates back years, and it also banks a number of campaign accounts linked to Trump, the source said.
After Trump took power, the Federal Reserve announced in June it was directing its supervisors to no longer consider reputational risk when examining banks, a metric that had been a focus of industry complaints.
“What the White House is doing is telling the banks not to hide behind regulations to deny loans or banking relationships,” said Wells Fargo bank analyst Mike Mayo. “Banks can use their normal underwriting standards and deny services, but not blame regulators or use reputational risk as a justification.”
BofA said it welcomed the administration’s efforts to clarify the policies.
“Weve provided detailed proposals and will continue to work with the administration and Congress to improve the regulatory framework,” the bank said.
Trump in January admonished the CEOs of JPMorgan and BofA for denying services to conservatives. At the time, the two banks denied making banking decisions based on politics.
‘Regulatory overreach’
Banks have consistently argued that any complaints about “debanking” should be aimed at regulators, as they argue onerous rules and overzealous bank supervisors can discourage them from engaging in certain activities.
“The heart of the problem is regulatory overreach and supervisory discretion,” the Bank Policy Institute, an industry group, said in a statement.
Lenders have held discussions around debanking and weighed scenarios around a potential order, the first source said.
Banks are also hopeful the administration may change anti-money laundering laws that they say are outdated and burdensome, the source added.
Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Pete Schroder, Nupur Anand, Tatiana Bautzer, and Saeed Azhar, Reuters
Mickey Mouse and Love Island will soon live under the same roof. The Walt Disney Company announced Wednesday plans to sunset standalone Hulu streaming app to integrate its content to the entertainment company’s flagship app Disney+.
News of the integration came during Disney’s third quarterly earnings report and is part of the company’s ongoing focus on streaming entertainment, including an upcoming Aug. 21 release of an ESPN streaming service.
“The company is taking major steps forward in streaming with the upcoming launch of ESPNs direct-to-consumer service, our just-announced plans with the NFL, and our forthcoming integration of Hulu into Disney+, creating a truly differentiated streaming proposition that harnesses the highest-caliber brands and franchises, general entertainment, family programming, news, and industry-leading sports content,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in the report.
While Hulu isn’t disappearing as a brand, its set to fold into the existing platform. This quarter, Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions grew to 183 million, up by 2.4 million from the previous quarter. Despite growth in subscriptions, and beating earning projections, the entertainment giant’s stock was down 2% at the time of publishing.
Closing out a decades-long effort
Hulu was initially founded in 2007 as a joint venture between 21st Century Fox (then News Corporation) and NBC Universal, with The Walt Disney Company and others later joining as stakeholders.
Disney acquired 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019, giving the company controlling interest of the streaming platform ahead of of Disney+’s debut. Since, Disney has tried to acquire the remaining 33% of stakes in Hulu owned by Comcast (which bought NBC Universal). In June this year, both companies reached an agreement, with Disney set to pay $439 million to take full control of the platform.
A Hulu integration unto the existing app had already been teased back in 2023, when Disney rolled out a beta version featuring Hulu’s content inside the Disney+ app.
Goodbye”Star+,” hello new homepage
Users outside of the US might already be familiar with Hulu’s programming available on the Disney+ app, under the tile dubbed “Star+.”
Until last year, Star+ served Latin America with its standalone app and platform featuring shows from FX, ABC, Hulu originals, and more. The standalone app folded into Disney+ last july, integrating as a tile within the app. Starting in the fall, the Star tile will now be replaced in Disney’s international markets by Hulu’s logo.
Additionally, imporvements to the existing app are underway, the company revealed during their earnings call.
Over the coming months, we will be implementing improvements within the Disney+ app, including exciting new features and a more personalized homepage,” Iger said. “All of which will culminate with the unified Disney+ and Hulu streaming app experience that will be available to consumers next year.
In recent months, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used its social media platforms to promote its vision of an ideal country. In between posts celebrating mass deportations and defending ICE, the department has taken on the role of curator, posting a series of artworks that appear to communicate an idealized, Eurocentric concept of the American dream. The department’s artistic choices haven’t been subtle, but none can compare to the overt messaging of its most recent art choice.
On July 23, DHS posted a painting titled American Progress, alongside the caption, A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending. The 1873 painting by John Gast shows a group of white pioneers traveling west, forcing a group of Indigenous people out of frame.
The irony of the DHS post and caption, according to Martha Sandweiss, Princeton professor and historian of the U.S., is that American Progress does not show Americans defending a homeland: “What we actually see here are American settlers invading a homeland, Sandweiss says. Of course, that’s the homeland of the Native people that we see fleeing into the darkness, and, metaphorically, into extinction.
[Screenshot: Department of Homeland Security/X.com]
Gast’s painting has long been used as an embodiment of the concept of Manifest Destiny, a belief held by many during the nineteenth century (and beyond) that the United States was destined by divine right to control the entire territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. For decades, this dogma was used to explain and legitimize the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.
The DHS’s choice to highlight American Progress shows that its art choices have become an intentionally provocative flashpoint in an ideologically divided United States. And, Sandweiss says, it represents a whitewashing of the past that might signal a desire to exclude non-white Americans in the present.
The fraught history of John Gasts American Progress
Gasts work on American Progress began in 1872, when he was commissioned to make a work for George Crofutt, an American publisher of several different guides promoting westward expansion.
The image shows settlers traveling by stagecoach, conestoga wagon, and railroads, guided by a giant allegorical female figure of America, who holds a schoolbook in one hand and places a telegraph wire in the other. While these figures are glowing in a bright light, the fleeing Indigenous people are shrouded in darkness.
[Image: United States Library of Congress]
On the one hand, [Crofutt] needs a set of ideas that his readers will readily respond to and are, in a sense, already familiar with,” Sandweiss says. “In addition, he’s using the picture as a kind of propaganda. He’s picturing an imaginary scene that he hopes will resonate with people who might want to buy his travel guides and travel west themselves.
American Progress ultimately appeared in the monthly publication Crofutt’s Western World. The image’s description, as written by Crofutt, is full of racist tropes that align with the Manifest Destiny ideal of bringing “civilization” to an “uncivilized” place and people.
An advertisement for prints of American Progress, offered as subscription bonuses for Crofutt’s Western World magazine. Ca. 1873. [Image: United States Library of Congress]
“This rich and wonderful countrythe progress of which at the present time, is the wonder of the old worldwas, until recently, inhabited exclusively by the [lurking] savage and wild beasts of prey,” Crofutt writes.
Crofutt goes on to describe how the painting associates American settlers with the transformative power of technology, like transcontinental rail lines, trans-Atlantic trade (pictured in the top right of the image), and new telegraph wires. On her head, the symbolic female figure of America wears what Crofutt calls the “Star of Empire.
In contrast, he writes, the lefthand side of the image “declares darkness, waste and confusion.” The Indigenous people in the image are visually grouped with fleeing wild animals like a herd of bison and a black bear, all shown, per Crofutt, “as they flee from the presence of the wondrous vision.”
“It doesn’t reflect reality in any way”
According to Sandweiss, it’s no coincidence that American Progress shows trains in conjunction with the displacement of Native peoples. By 1872, it had been three years since the completion of the first transcontinental rail line, and several other lines were already underway. In the coming decades, Indigenous people would be forcibly located away from these routes.
Absolutely, when the large reservations were created in the late 1860s, it was in part to move Native peoples away from the prospective railway lines so that they would not pose a threat to either the railroad companies or the settlers that the railroads would bring west,” Sandweiss explains.
American Progress, Sandweiss says, is an idealized version of the American settler story. Encoded in the image is the idea that white Europeans were the sole people living in the American West, while, in actuality, the region was primarily settled by people of Spanish origin who arrived from Mexico.
It doesn’t reflect reality in any way,” she says. “It doesn’t reflect the multiple sources from which non-Native people came into the West. It doesn’t depict the more complex racial identity of people who came into the West, which, by 1872 is including more free people, is including people coming north from Mexico, and it doesn’t convey the role of women and families in the settlement of the Western landscape.
The press office of California Governor Gavin Newsom also reposted the painting with the response, This painting is housed at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. The museum heavily features Native American history and intentionally embraces a more honest, inclusive understanding of Western historya concept the Trump administration fails to understand.
This painting is housed at the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. The museum heavily features Native American history and intentionally embraces a more honest, inclusive understanding of Western history a concept the Trump administration fails to understand. https://t.co/fctWTKRlb7— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) July 23, 2025
Whitewashing of the past leads t whitewashing of the present
Many American schoolchildren will be familiar with American Progress because, for decades, textbooks have used it as a visual explanation of the Manifest Destiny concept. The images themes of divine conquering, the spread of technology, the superiority of European settlers, and patriarchal structure capture the complex dynamics at play within this belief system.
For the DHS to post this painting through an uncritical lens, Sandweiss says, signals a broader ignorance of American history on the part of the current administration; an ignorance that she sees reflected in the administrations efforts to alter the historical information shared by agencies like the Smithsonian and the National Park Service.
If you overly simplify the pastif you pretend that the only important people in the story were white menyou not only distort the past and dishonor the many other kinds of people who were part of American society at that moment, you also suggest that there’s not a space for different kinds of people in the present, Sandweiss says. Whitewashing the past makes it easier to whitewash the present, and pretend that people who are not like the people we see in this painting have never had a part in the American nation.
WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts that were linked to criminal scam centers targeting people online around the world, its parent company Meta said this week.
The account deletions, which Meta said took place over the first six months of the year, arrive as part of wider company efforts to crack down on scams. In a Tuesday announcement, Meta said it was also rolling out new tools on WhatsApp to help people spot scams, including a new safety overview that the platform will show when someone who is not in a users contacts adds them to a group, as well as ongoing test alerts to pause before responding.
Scams are becoming all too common and increasingly sophisticated in today’s digital world with too-good-to-be-true offers and unsolicited messages attempting to steal consumers’ information or money filling our phones, social media and other corners of the internet each day. Meta noted that some of the most prolific sources of scams are criminal scam centers, which often span from forced labor operated by organized crime and warned that such efforts often target people on many platforms at once, in attempts to evade detection.
That means that a scam campaign may start with messages over text or a dating app, for example, and then move to social media and payment platforms, the California-based company said.
Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, pointed to recent scam efforts that it said attempted to use its own apps as well as TikTok, Telegram and AI-generated messages made using ChatGPT to offer payments for fake likes, enlist people into a pyramid scheme and/or lure others into cryptocurrency investments. Meta linked these scams to a criminal scam center in Cambodia and said it disrupted the campaign in partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Samsung is one of many companies that have been pushing for employees to return to the office fulltime. However, now the brand is taking RTO efforts in the U.S. one step further with a tool that tracks attendance for a group in its semiconductor business.
In an internal email, seen by Business Insider, Samsung informed employees about the new compliance tracking tool. “This tool will provide each Manager with visibility to the number of days & time in building metrics for each team member,” the email said.
It continued, “This will ensure that team members are fulfilling their expectation regarding in office work – however that is defined with their business leader – as well as guarding against instances of lunch/coffee badging.”
In 2023 the brand embraced a global hybrid work model, rolling out 500 new jobs. While the specifics varied, the majority of the postings (58.3%) included the ability to work from home at least part of the work week. The brand also gave employees in the company’s corporate offices in South Korea one Friday off a month.However, last April, after posting lower than expected sales, the brand asked its corporate executives to begin working six days a week in order to “inject a sense of crisis” into its workforce. Considering that performance of our major units, including Samsung Electronics Co., fell short of expectations in 2023, we are introducing the six-day work week for executives to inject a sense of crisis and make all-out efforts to overcome this crisis, a Samsung Group executive told the Korea Economic Daily.
This May, Samsung asked employees to begin returning to the office full time. The following month, it updated employees on the RTO initiative. “We are already experiencing increased foot traffic daily, with more cars in the parking lot and hungry mouths in our cafeterias on Fridays, to name just a few signs,” Samsung said in an email viewed by BI. At the time, Samsung also noted that it was developing a tool to track attendance.
Employee tracking might sound offbeat, but workplace surveillance is on the rise. According to a recent ExpressVPN survey, 74% of U.S. employers now use online tracking tools to monitor work activities. That includes real-time screen tracking (59%) and web browsing logs (62%). Likewise, 61% use AI-powered analytics to measure productivity and around 67% collect biometric data to monitor things like behavior and attendance.
Still, that doesn’t mean it’s popular among employees or feels all that ethical. While most companies (three out of four) use biometric surveillance, only 22% of employees know theyre being monitored, according to the same report. Likewise, 17% of employees said theyd be very likely to resign over workplace surveillance. Another 32% said they’d strongly consider it.
It’s unclear how Samsung’s new tracking tool will work, how closely employees will be monitored, and how many employees will be impacted. Fast Company reached out to the brand but did not hear back by the time of publication. Samsung told employees they will find out more about the tracking system soon.
“Additional information regarding the new tool will be made available to Managers this month,” the email to employees said.
Denver has a sidewalk problem. About 40% of its sidewalks are missing or dont meet the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Remarkably, the citys own plan recommended a fix over 20 years ago: Move responsibility for sidewalk repair from property owners to the city and implement an annual fee to pay for the program.
The fix might seem simple, but it took over 20 years and grassroots advocacy to make it happen.
In 2022 we just got tired of waiting and decided to do a citizen-initiated ordinance, says Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership, a group of community organizations pushing for multimodal streets in the city. Which is basically implementing exactly what the citys own plans had been saying we should do.
A broken sidewalk in Denver, ca. 2016. [Photo: Jeffrey Beall/Flickr]
Sidewalk advocates fought and won. The ballot measure, dubbed Denver Deserves Sidewalks, swayed 56% of voters. There was no organized opposition to the measure.
Dont underestimate how sexy sidewalks are, says Locantore.
Sidewalk repairs started July 2025.
Could Denvers program serve as a model?
Denver isnt alone with its sidewalk woes. Cities across the U.S. are grappling with how to fix broken, narrow sidewalks or build missing ones.
Los Angeles, dubbed the city of broken sidewalks in an article by late parking guru Donald Shoup, has roughly 9,300 miles of sidewalk and no clear plan for fixing them.
With the car-free 2028 Summer Olympics looming, the pressure is on to find a solution.
If people break their hips or knees or wrists falling on a broken sidewalk what terrible advertising this is for L.A., Shoup told Next City last year. Paris is a city of light, and L.A. will be the city of deferred maintenance.
In 2010, Angelenos with disabilities sued the city of L.A., alleging that broken and inaccessible sidewalks were a violation of the American with Disabilities Act. In 2016, as part of the Willits settlement, the city agreed to spend about $1.4 billion over 30 years to fix sidewalks, with priority given to requests submitted by residents with mobility disabilities.
Despite the big dollar commitment, most of L.A.s broken sidewalks remain broken, and experts say that the Willits case has largely failed to improve the pedestrian experience. People with mobility disabilities still wait up to a decade for sidewalk repairs.
Less than 1% [of sidewalks] have been fixed, says Jessica Meaney, executive director of Investing in Place, a local nonprofit transportation advocacy group. So the lawsuit that people thought was going to solve a lot of problems well, its solving some important ones, but at an incredibly slow pace.
Broken sidewalks dont just impede mobility for pedestrians; they also come with a huge price tag. L.A. spends millions every year on liability lawsuits caused by broken public infrastructure.
Who should be responsible for sidewalks?
It turns out that pre-2022 Denver is not an outlier: Most major cities expect property owners to foot the bill for fixing sidewalks.
Laura Messier, a researcher in public health and public spaces at the University of Southern California, compared sidewalk policies in the 30 most populated cities in the U.S. To her surprise, she found 77% require the adjacent property owner to fix the sidewalk.
This presents a problem.
Cities are not enforcing that responsibility because they dont want resident blowback, says Messier. And so it seems like theres sort of this collective wishful thinking that somehow this critical infrastructure will take care of itself.
Taking on responsibility for sidewalks means Denver is treating sidewalks as part of its overall transportation system. To fund repairs, most property owners are charged an annual fee of $150. Income-qualified residents can apply for a rebate.
As part of Willits, L.A. has taken on responsibility for sidewalk repairs with the goal of releasing responsibility back to property owners, fix and release. However, the pace of repairs is so slow that its unclear how the city will achieve this goal. With over 9,000 miles of sidewalk, L.A. is fixing roughly 15 mils and adding 50 curb ramps per year.
Fear of liability, in my mind, is driving every decision cities are making about sidewalks, Messier says.
Its a Sisyphean system: On the hook for millions per year in liability lawsuits, L.A. is also legally required to spend millions per year on a sidewalk program that has yet to make a dent in a backlog of repairs that might prevent future liability lawsuits.
As Meaney has stressed, Los Angeles doesnt have a sidewalk program it has the Willits settlement. And Willits doesnt address street infrastructure as a whole, says Messier. Instead, it mandates that the city spend a certain amount per year on sidewalks. The consequences can prove counterintuitive.
I think that the citys finding that some of the places that theyve fixed are already getting damaged again from tree roots, Messier says, noting that sidewalks and street trees are managed separately. Were spending all this money, but it doesnt really feel like were going to end up with long-term improvement.
The root of the issue is that cities have prioritized infrastructure for cars over all other possible uses of public space. If cities treated streets more holistically, they might be able to prioritize trees and sidewalks.
Where we might have excess lane capacity for cars, we might be able to widen parkways, widen sidewalks and really solve the tree root-sidewalk conflict so that it doesnt become a problem in the future, says Messier.
Are sidewalks having a moment?
There are signs that L.A. residents want better streets for people outside of cars. Last March, voters passed Measure HLA, mandating the city follow its own mobility plan when it repaves streets. Since the measure passed, progress on more bike, pedestrian and bus infrastructure has been slow.
In October, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass signed Executive Directive No. 9 to streamline public infrastructure improvements and create a multi-year plan for projects.
Would L.A. property owners be willing to pay a sidewalk fee? Maybe.
Lets look at Denvers revenue generating [program], lets look at a bond, lets look at a sales tax, says Meaney. Both inside and outside City Hall, people are like, Wait, this is so broken, lets fix it.
This story was produced through our Equitable Cities Fellowship for Social Impact Design, which is made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This story was originally published by Next City, a nonprofit news outlet covering solutions for equitable cities. Sign up for Next City’s newsletter for their latest articles and events.
