Features

• Taxophobe Targets
• By: Zach Patton
• Breaking a promise not to raise taxes is a dicey thing to do. But lawmakers get away with it.

• Refugee Renewal
• By: William Fulton
• Absorbing the displaced from overseas can be a tough urban task. But for a city in decline, it can be an unexpected opportunity.

• Law of the Land
• By: Jonathan Walters
• Voters' challenge to Oregon's stringent land use controls may signal a major shift in the property rights debate nationwide.

• High-Tech Hide-And-Seek
• By: Christopher Swope
• A new sport called "geocaching" presents a challenge for park managers.

• Sticking it to the Cities
• By: Christopher Swope
• Revenue losses add up in localities where hockey teams are supposed to play.

• The Erpworks
• By: Ellen Perlman
• Recoding the guts of an enterprise can bring a city or state to the brink of failure, fatigue and notoriety.

• The Fast Lane
• By: Christopher Swope
• As gridlock gets worse and technology improves, the use of toll lanes and other market-based tools to regulate rush-hour driving is gaining acceptance.

Up Front

• Tired of Tin-Cup Politics
• By: Jonathan Walters
• A new group of urban leaders wants a strategy based on success, not on pleading for help.

• Tabor Repairman
• By: Rob Gurwitt

• Growing Wild
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• The D.C. area's boomingest county is about to start booming even more.

• Diamond in the Rough
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• How a 600-page book became a must-read in rural Montana.

• Nothing Scandalous
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• Wisconsin politics used to be squeaky clean. Now "jaded" would be a better word.

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• By: Alan Greenblatt

• Found Money
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• State finances are looking better, but it's due more to luck than design.

• Don't Forget Philanthropists
• By: Otis White

• Sacredness in the City
• By: Alan Ehrenhalt
• There are three basic elements to a superior urban experience, declares Author Joel Kotkin: economic power, personal security and sacredness.

The Business of Government

• Minnesota Stops Whining
• By: Elizabeth Daigneau
• A new way to texturize roadways tempers highway noise.

• Cheering Squad: Seattle Settles a Line-Cutting Score
• By: Ellen Perlman

• The Frequency Factor
• By: Ellen Perlman
• When children in school and books in libraries can be tracked by radio waves, privacy advocates get all upset.

• Wisconsin Fights the Feds
• By: Ellen Perlman
• The state is defying a moratorium on Internet access taxes.

• Finger Pointing
• By: Elizabeth Daigneau
• A New Technology Targets Gun Sales

• Cashing Out
• By: Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene
• Our household is just like a state: good at forecasting revenue, but when it comes to expenditures, things get dicier.

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• By: Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene

• Nexium's Start Turn
• By: Penelope Lemov
• As TV ads hype the demand for costly brand-name drugs, those who pay Medicaid's pill bill are fighting back.

• The Oldest State
• By: John E. Petersen
• Gone are the comforts of an era when an ever-expanding economy coupled with growing populations could pay the future freight.

• Farm-Fed Fuels on the Rise
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• Ethanol plants grow in the Midwest

• It's in the Bag: Acting on an Eyesore
• By: Zach Patton

• Setting Limits on Big Boxes
• By: Alan Greenblatt
• Small towns try to zone out big stores.

Training Opportunities

• Accelerating Economic Growth and Vitality
• This white paper describes how developing competencies in five key area can help public safety agencies more effectively do their jobs in the face of extremely important and difficult sets of issues.
• Crime Prediction and Prevention


• FutureStructure: A New Framework