Stephen Goldsmith

Recent Articles

• Fixing What's Broken
• Mar 24, 2010
• This interesting article in the Washington Post by Bill Eggers and John O'Leary lays out some of the challenges associated with getting big things done...

• The High Cost of Hidden Pension Promises
• Mar 23, 2010
• For mayors across the country a single budget item threatens their cities' capacity to maintain parks, keep the streets safe, pick up the trash and...
• 1 Comments

• Phone + GPS + Camera = Revolution
• Mar 17, 2010
• Three simple tools are revolutionizing the delivery of city services. The phone, the camera and the GPS, now generally contained in the same device, are...

• Monopsony and Social Innovation
• Mar 9, 2010
• As I write this column I am listening to my iPod and typing on my new Dell computer. Both of these products impressed me from...

• Burdening the Future: It's Not Just the Feds
• Feb 19, 2010
• The recently released federal budget has shed a harsh spotlight on government's tendency to spend today while leaving the bill for our children to pay....

• Webinar: Fighting Poverty
• Feb 11, 2010
• February 16, 2010: 3 - 5 pm (EST) Despite decades of work and billions of dollars, millions of American families remain stuck in a cycle of poverty--often exacerbated by...

• Innovations and Social Edge: Join the Conversation
• Feb 9, 2010
• You may have heard President Obama speak about the need for a new approach to community problem solving, or heard that he's created a White...

• The New Political Reality
• Feb 8, 2010
• For decades, public officials viewed voters either as passive recipients of government largesse or as active advocates for special treatment. Getting reelected generally meant launching...

• Digital City
• Jan 25, 2010
• You've probably seen the ads touting the notion of "building a smarter city." There is little doubt that the technology revolution around Gov 2.0 holds enormous...

• Executing on a Good Idea
• Jan 24, 2010
• The use of 311 systems by municipalities to intelligently respond to citizen inquiries is no longer cutting edge, but neither is its use universal. A column...

• Successful 'Fiasco': Chicago's Parking Meter Mishap
• Jan 20, 2010
• Critics call Chicago's privatization of parking meters an epic failure, but could it be it's an epic success?
• 1 Comments

• Chicago's Meter 'Fiasco'
• Jan 20, 2010
• It should have been a relatively straightforward public-private partnership. In exchange for a lump sum, the city of Chicago would turn over the operation and...

• More on Chicago Parking Meters
• Jan 19, 2010
• Over the last five years no city in the United States has more experience in large infrastructure public private partnerships than Chicago, including major deals...
• 1 Comments