Christopher Swope

Recent Articles

• Next Up For Zach: People Mag
• Jul 25, 2007
• Zach Patton, our colleague and 13th Floor blogmeister is out today. Which is the only reason why I'll get away with posting this item from ...
• 2 Comments

• Domain Poisoning
• Jul 1, 2007
• How states and localities lost ground after their Supreme Court win on eminent domain--a tool they can use to turn around dying or dangerous neighborhoods.

• Web Custodians
• Jul 1, 2007
• Kentucky's decision to block political blogs has rankled many state employees.

• A Revenue Revives
• Jul 1, 2007
• Left for dead, corporate income taxes are making an unexpected contribution to state income.

• Sell Out Already!
• Jul 1, 2007
• The sale of naming rights for stadiums, arenas and other public buildings is not nearly as controversial as it used to be. Perhaps we've all grown accustomed to the weird ring of venues such as Quicken Loans Arena or Merchantsauto.com Stadium. Or maybe, in an advertising- saturated world, we're now pros at tuning out corporate gobbledygook. Either way, our tolerance for sponsorship is growing

• Don't Mess With Texas' Image
• Jun 18, 2007
• Last week, Texas followed in the footsteps of many states by passing a big tax break for movie productions. The hope, as always, is to ...
• 2 Comments

• Surveying State Blogs
• Jun 3, 2007
• Attention, readers and writers of state blogs: Who are you? What blogs are you reading? What are you writing? Why? Don't tell me. Tell Emily ...
• 6 Comments

• Heads Up: 6.1.07
• Jun 1, 2007
• Too-big big rig is a tin can in the Lincoln Tunnel. NYT Luxury hotel developer bets big on downtown Detroit. WSJ (paid subsc) Is Villaraigosa ...

• In With the Old
• Jun 1, 2007
• One reason why the affordable housing problem seems so insurmountable is that we usually try to build our way out of it. There's never enough money to finance new homes for all the low-income people who could use them. And if you want to wake up the NIMBYs, just propose building a large subsidized housing complex.

• Heads Up: 5.31.07
• May 31, 2007
• An artist's rendering of what an offshore wind farm would look like from the beach. WaPo A D.C. bureaucrat who's gettin' it done. WaPo ...

• WiFi in the Ambulance
• May 30, 2007
• When I wrote about WiFi applications for government this month, I focused mostly on Corpus Christi, Texas, which has become something of a national laboratory ...

• Heads Up: 5.30.07
• May 30, 2007
• Denver tests new model of child welfare. Rocky Mountain News Spitzer's new take on Wall Street. NYT NV Guv gets off to "suboptimal" ...

• Sell Out Already
• May 22, 2007
• The selling of naming rights for stadiums, arenas and other public buildings is not nearly as controversial as it used to be. I'm not sure ...

• Heads Up: 5.21.06
• May 21, 2007
• Is MI too broke to show the governors' convention a good time? Free Press Sal DiMasi: from Governing's cover to MA's top pol. Boston Globe. ...

• Fiscal Romance
• May 1, 2007
• The town of Clayton, Missouri, loves neighboring Richmond Heights for its money. And Richmond Heights loves Clayton for its looks. If these two St. Louis suburbs get hitched, it'll be a Donald Trump-style wedding.