States and localities tried for years to figure out ways to tax online sales, without success. The Supreme Court gave them a green light in 2018, which has proven key to surviving the pandemic financially.
By Alan Greenblatt, Senior Staff Writer | January 22, 2021
A new book by a founding member of Boston’s Urban Mechanics calls for changing how government addresses its problems and provides an operating manual for generating new ideas and putting them into practice.
By Dustin Haisler, Futures and Innovation Editor | January 22, 2021
Hispanics are almost 19 percent of the U.S. population, but account for only 6 percent of state legislators. Thirteen percent of these officials are Republicans.
By Carl Smith, Senior Staff Writer | January 22, 2020
Distributed power remains critical in the face of governance crises and federal assaults on liberal democracy. States and localities provide a sturdy popular base for modeling better policy outcomes.
By Gerald Benjamin and Scott Minkoff, SUNY New Paltz | January 21, 2021
It can take decades for slowly changing circumstances to alter the understanding of a region's strengths or weaknesses. That can have an impact on everything from revitalization to political discourse.
By Pete Saunders, Urban Affairs Columnist | January 21, 2021
The attacks on the U.S. Capitol building early this month are an important reminder of why great Americans, from Thomas Jefferson to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, see architecture as a crucial component of our system of government.
By Alex Marshall, Urban Affairs/Infrastructure Columnist | January 21, 2021
Rapidly maturing technologies hold the key for dramatic improvements across an institution that was designed for incremental change. Governments need to act quickly, deliberately and flexibly.
The number of states in which Walmart will begin providing COVID-19 inoculations starting next week. The retailer was already providing vaccinations in New Mexico and Arkansas, but will now expand into Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas. Walmart will also begin distributing vaccines in Chicago and Puerto Rico.
Roadside America has been open since 1953, delighting visitors with its model of a Pennsylvania town frozen in time and full of little cars and trains. But the popular roadside attraction couldn’t survive the pandemic.
By David Kidd, Photojournalist and Storyteller | January 20, 2021
State legislatures will have a lot on their plates. They’ll deal with issues in wildly differing ways. We set the context for the 2021 session with an overview of everything from abortion to redistricting.
By Alan Greenblatt, David Kidd, Carl Smith | January 19, 2021
A confluence of social and political pressures is making a comprehensive federal privacy law seem inevitable. The incoming Biden administration could help ensure legislation heads in the right direction.
By Lucas Ropek, Government Technology | January 18, 2021
Working together to create their own alternative to Bitcoin and its copycats could be a way to generate value, at no initial cost, for struggling pension funds. Madisons, anyone?
By Girard Miller, Finance Columnist | January 19, 2021
As 2020 comes to a close, we take a moment to reflect on the numerous books that government officials from across the nation have recommended over the past several years.