10 BIG IDEAS TO IMPROVE LIFE IN SMALL AND MIDSIZE CITIES

For those who want to know what the U.S. might look like in 20 years, a look at a handful of small and midsize cities offers clues. As mayors look to plug holes in their budgets, help people who lost their jobs or work to fix crumbling infrastructure, they are turning to ideas that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. They are testing ambitious social programs including universal incomes and reparations, adding sensors to everything from sewers to streetlights, and testing self-driving shuttles.