🔮 City Cast predicts the big stories of 2026

Nobody understands a city’s pulse quite like a City Cast host. Each one of them proved to be a reliable voice for identifying and understanding what matters on a local level in 2025. Now, we’re turning to our hosts to forecast what’s in store for 2026. From political shifts to data centers, their perspectives offer a candid preview of the issues and surprises that could shape our hometowns.

Curious about what’s around the corner? Catch their unique insights on our latest podcast episode, where all 13 hosts predicted this year’s biggest stories. Here’s a preview of that conversation:

🚔 Crime and Tourism

Nevada’s new crime bill, which goes into effect this year, will allow judges to banish anyone with a criminal charge from the Las Vegas Strip.

“What’s to stop these ‘order outs’ from becoming very commonplace in tourist districts throughout the City Cast network? It’s really an interesting trend that is going to be taking hold in 2026.” — City Cast Las Vegas host, Dayvid Figler, on Nevada's crime bill that would allow judges to “order out” people with a criminal charge from the Strip.

What are the implications for the city’s tourist corridor when individual rights are sacrificed for the goal of encouraging tourism? And how could similar bills affect tourism nationwide?

🗳️ Local Politics

Zohran Mamdani’s election in New York has energized Democratic Socialists across the U.S. Seattle got a taste of that with the election of Katie Wilson, but it’s yet to be seen if she has the same star power or sway inside City Hall.

City Cast Seattle host Jane C. Hu says the linchpin of Wilson’s election is likely to come with this summer’s FIFA World Cup, as advocates for the city’s unhoused population watch whether Wilson will sweep encampments as previous mayors have.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what she decides there, because there's going to be tension between what people elected her for and what action she’s actually able to take,” Hu says.

⚡ Data Centers

Many City Cast cities are seeing a surge in data center development. “It’s going to be a doozy” of a conversation in 2026, as our CEO David Plotz pointed out.

In Madison, the mayor and much of the City Council last year proposed a one-year moratorium on zoning certificates for new data centers while they try to better understand how data centers could impact the electric grid and energy bills. City Cast Madison host Bianca Martin says Madisonians are “up in arms.”

“Folks are concerned that this might be a bubble, that this could be another dot-com bubble where Silicon Valley folks rush in, move to scale, and then they’re like, let’s abandon ship,” Martin says.

But aren’t data centers great for the economy? Plotz posed that question to the group, suggesting that data centers contributed to the tech economy in Washington, D.C. Well, that got the group fired up.

“We’re also talking about doing it in really beautiful green spaces that we don’t want to be cluttered with this kind of nonsense,” says City Cast Pittsburgh host, Megan Harris.

Recognize this sign? If so, where is it?

A. Clark County Museum

B. Clark County Shooting Complex

C. Beatty

D. The Downtown Arts District

Click here to play along and find out where the photo was taken.