Most cities require homes and businesses to have parking. Critics say they drive up housing costs, foster car dependency and raise carbon emissions.

City officials hope that allowing up to three units per lot will increase supply and slow the explosive increase in housing costs. The measure was approved by Austin City Council in a 9-2 vote late Thursday night.

In cities dominated by single-family neighborhoods, local leaders across Texas want a broader variety of housing to combat the affordability crisis.

Autonomous vehicles, or AVs, are here. Tribune journalists took a ride in one recently and answer the biggest questions about who’s driving the driverless trend and how the state regulates them.

The city’s decades-long battle to overhaul local rules to allow more, denser housing to be built may be reaching a turning point.

The bill marks the Legislature’s turn toward supporting natural gas-fueled electricity after the deadly winter storm in 2021.

Police have had to eject hundreds of people from encampments. They still struggle to tell many of them where to go.

Incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott entered this year with a much larger war chest and still has the financial upper hand in the race. He raised $24.9 over the same time period.

Texans on both sides of the abortion debate marched, rallied and chanted after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The Democratic nominee faces an uphill battle in his challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott, and the Legislature is likely to remain under Republican control.

Casar will be among the most progressive members of Congress ever to serve from Texas. During his tenure on the Austin City Council, he was best known for supporting cuts to the police department and his fight against encampment bans.

Former Austin mayor and Democratic state Sen. Kirk Watson has also expressed interest in running for the position, as has City Council member Kathie Tovo. Two candidates have formally announced their candidacy: Jennifer Virden, a Realtor and former Austin city council candidate, and Erica Nix.

As 2021 comes to a close, here’s a look back at just some of our favorite images captured by Texas Tribune photographers all over the state — and across the nation — to tell the stories of Texans in a challenging year.

Days after Congress passed a law proclaiming Juneteenth a federal holiday, Texas Tribune photographers captured how Texans celebrated June 19.

Officials in Travis and Harris counties — both early adopters of pandemic restrictions — rolled some back Tuesday in an effort to allow vaccinated residents to return to pre-pandemic living.

Polling suggests that along with an increasing number of vaccinated people without masks, there will be many others who are unmasked but unvaccinated — posing a public health hazard to themselves and to other unvaccinated people with whom they come into contact.

After the near-collapse of the state's power grid, seven board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas have resigned. Another Electric Reliability Council of Texas board member has resigned after a winter storm caused the near-collapse of the state’s power grid. Clifton Karnei, executive vice president of Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, is the seventh board member of the state’s power grid operator to quit this week. Unlike Karnei, the other board members who resigned this week reside outside of Texas. “The PUC was non-existent.”The other board members who resigned this week did so at an ERCOT board meeting on Wednesday.

The federal moratorium on evictions is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Texas ruled Thursday, siding with property owners in the state who have argued that the U.S. government does not have the power to stop evictions. Ad"The federal government cannot say that it has ever before invoked its power over interstate commerce to impose a residential eviction moratorium," Barker wrote in his ruling. "The federal government has not claimed such a power at any point during our Nation's history until last year." “The Department of Justice takes the position that it will adhere to a judgment without having to have an injunction against it.”He called the CDC eviction moratorium harmful toward landlords and property owners. Tens of millions of people could lose their homes if the eviction moratorium is overturned, she said.

Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneEditor's note: If you'd like an email notice whenever we publish Ross Ramsey's column, click here. And the public health effect — the number of people hurt, sickened or killed by the storm, hasn't been measured. It could leave a lasting bruise on the Texas exceptionalism political and business leaders like to brag about. But we're rationing gas, turning off electricity for millions of households and boiling water so it doesn't poison us. Low energy prices attract business, and Texas has made a name for itself as a fast-growth, pro-business state.

“Please help us, please,” Farah Rivera, 58, a resident of the Rebekah Baines Johnson Center in East Austin, said early Wednesday. AdHome to about 150 residents, the tower is run by the nonprofit Austin Geriatric Center to provide affordable housing to especially vulnerable populations. The outage means the elevator was not operating in the 16-story building and only flashlights, headlamps and windows were providing light. They did not specify which areas but said circuits that had been out of power the longest would be the priority. Rivera said the entire neighborhood around the tower, which is just east of I-35 in downtown Austin, is without power.

And advocates for those communities are worried that they will have more trouble accessing vaccinations than the white population because of where vaccination sites are located. Yet the state’s designated vaccination sites — mostly hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and pharmacies — are concentrated in more affluent areas where those facilities tend to be located. Out of 140 distribution sites in Dallas County only 10 are located in majority Black census tracts while 37 are in majority Hispanic census tracts. “Recognizing the historic absence of science or health care services in these areas is paramount,” Andrulis said. Some Texas cities have announced plans to address the uneven distribution of vaccination sites.

In Texas, the ads will focus on “[President Donald] Trump’s mismanagement of COVID-19 crisis,” according to a Bloomberg spokesperson. In the last month, however, Biden has sent a flurry of surrogates to the state to campaign on his behalf. Until now, Bloomberg had focused his general-election activities in Florida — where he pledged to spend $100 million supporting Biden. The Bloomberg spokesperson told the Tribune on Tuesday that Bloomberg also plans to increase the size of his television ad buys in Florida over the next week. Another nonpartisan Texas poll released Monday, from the Hobby School for Public Affairs at the University of Houston, gave Trump a 5-point lead.

AUSTIN, Texas – Austin city crews and some community members united Wednesday to remove graffiti from more than a dozen headstones at a historic cemetery for Black residents. Vandals defaced nearly 15 headstones earlier this week at the Evergreen Cemetery in East Austin, the city’s first major municipal cemetery for Black people, according to Austin police. East side 😤 Posted by Sarah Long on Monday, September 21, 2020About 12,000 people have been buried in Evergreen Cemetery, including some from the African American community and civic leaders. Black residents had been laid to rest in shared sites before the cemetery was created in 1926. Nyeka Arnold, a co-founder of the local organization Black Austin Coalition, told the Austin American-Statesmen that she was heartbroken and furious after finding out one of her family’s headstones was damaged.

Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas TribuneIf Memorial Day unofficially signals the start of summer in Texas, the Fourth of July confirms that it's here for the long haul. Eddie Seal for The Texas TribuneNeighbors in East Austin have gotten together for over 100 days to chat, sing and dance. Allie Goulding/The Texas TribuneA family tours the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi on the Fourth of July. Eddie Gaspar/The Texas TribuneFamilies attend a fireworks show at Docs Drive-in Theatre in Buda to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday. Allie Goulding/The Texas Tribune | Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune

For the past three months, the coronavirus has disproportionately sickened and killed black Texans, and for the last month protesters have filled the streets marching for racial justice. Juneteenth is a celebration that honors the day black Texans learned of their emancipation from Union soldiers in Galveston on June 19, 1865. Bob Daemmrich/The Image WorksCrystal Aitaegbebhunu and her studio partners run through their choreography for a Juneteenth black empowerment video at Emancipation Park on June 15, 2020. Last: Crystal Aitaegbebhunu and her studio partners run through their choreography for a Juneteenth black empowerment video at Emancipation Park on June 15, 2020. For her five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, shell do an oral retelling of moments in black history, their family lineage and the meaning of Juneteenth.

Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneMany Austin residents bask in their citys reputation as a laid-back liberal bastion a city of hippies and festivals that coined the motto Keep Austin Weird to distance itself from the surrounding states conservatism. Racial and economic justice have not been Austins top priorities in the past, said Austin City Council member Greg Casar. The City Council is liberal, has a female majority and includes several people of color, one of whom is black. But in addition to the death of Floyd, Austin residents have expressed outrage over the death of Michael Ramos in their own backyard. Protesters in Austin marched Sunday against the killing of Michael Ramos in Austin and George Floyd in Minneapolis.