Archive
The travel section of this Sunday's New York Times had a cool little piece about the houses that Brad Pitt's Make It Right ...
I've been traveling around the country, photographing people and places for GOVERNING, for almost a year now. The obvious location to make pictures of dedicated ...
Google has released its annual "zeitgeist" numbers, tallying the top Internet searches for the past year. (Congrats, "michael jackson" and "...
This stoplight has won a design award for incorporating a progress bar that shows drivers exactly how long they can expect to wait at an ...
A decade ago, a group of computer scientists in the Bay Area launched the first large-scale distributed computing project, SETI@Home. Its mission: to harness ...
Is excellent individual design what public buildings should aspire to, or is there still a place for civic architecture?
If you're finding lately that your local tavern's quaffs are packing more of a wallop, it could be because an increasing number of ...
The light-rail line in Phoenix has been running for a year now. But automobile drivers are still having trouble getting used to dealing with the ...
In next month's issue, for the fourth time in my five years at Governing, I'll be writing our annual preview of state legislative ...
Colorado voters approved a medical-marijuana law in 2000. But since then, THC-users have had to make do getting their drugs from medical dispensaries. The facilities were ...
What if gay couples could get married in a state without ever setting foot there? Two University of Michigan professors say that should be an ...
Both my colleague Penelope Lemov and I have both written about New York City's recent ad campaign aimed at curbing obesity. The poster ads, ...
Photo courtesy of pugetsoundphotowalks, Creative Commons.
Here at Governing, we wanted to have a little fun for the holidays. So we posted a government-themed holiday ...
Finalist #2 in our 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, Government edition contest is from North Carolina:
Twas' the night before Christmas, and all through the State ...
Prison inmates at the Danville Correctional Center in Illinois are being fed too much soy, according to a new lawsuit from the Weston A. Price ...
For our final entry in the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas government-poem contest, an entry from Colorado:
'Twas the ...
Among the many goodies doled out by last year's stimulus package were some $2 billion for innovative health IT programs at the state and local ...
You may not really notice it, but the fonts used on the signs you read have a huge role in how you receive information. If ...
As you most likely have already read, disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is finally getting his day in the reality-show sun. A federal judge ...
On Facebook, both seasoned users and newbies may struggle with what to put in the little box below the profile picture that says "Write ...
New York City has shed its pop-culture image as a dingy, dirty burg where all the streets have rats and all the apartments are full ...
Despite the renewed attention on counterterrorism, health reform promises to be the issue that will consume Washington's attention this month, as negotiators from the ...
While on assignment in Syracuse last week, I did what I always do: drive around to see the old neighborhood and my favorite places in ...
San Francisco City Supervisor Chris Daly is getting a lot of attention for his New Year's resolution to drop the F-bomb at every city ...
For the next 2-3 weeks, Washington will be consumed by one thing -- health reform. Although the House only returned to work yesterday (and the ...
When I go on a long car ride, I always end up with a long mental list of things to look up on Google or ...
All eyes are on Massachusetts special Senate election, which pits Republican state senator Scott Brown against Democratic attorney general Martha Coakley. Brown has sought to ...
One year ago, President Obama released his Open Goverment memo, encouraging more transparency. How much progress has been made one year later?
Chris Quigley, founder ...
What does Scott Brown's victory mean for the future of President Obama's health reform agenda?
In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's vote, ...
In the February issue of Governing, I have a story about the rise of family homelessness in the United States. Over the past couple years, ...
If you read the Huffington Post at all, you've no doubt read about this "Move Your Money" notion they've been pushing. ...
**From GOVERNING's Outlook in the States and Localities 2010** "Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate." If there was one overarching theme of the first day of ...
Syracusans have much to be proud of. Their city has a long history of accomplishments. But there is one accomplishment that many of its citizens ...
**From GOVERNING's Outlook in the States and Localities 2010** The fiscal outlook for cities and counties may be bleak, but it's nothing compared to ...
**From GOVERNING's Outlook in the States and Localities 2010** If consolidation is the watchword for what cities and counties will do to help manage during ...
Yesterday I mentioned the idea -- voiced by Dan Borut at the National League of Cities, but supported by several others -- that the era ...
Mark your calendars, everybody: Feb. 11, 2011. That's the day Moody's.com economist Mark Zandi says the economy will shift from financial recovery to a &...
Editor's note: Reading this month's photo essay on Syracuse's snow plows stings just a little for Governing's D.C. staffers, who ...
Last month, when I spoke to e-communications firm Delib founder Chris Quigley (who filmed a short documentary about President Obama's Open Government memo one ...
A big day in the health reform world. First, Kaiser Health News reports that insurers across the nation are raising insurance premiums dramatically -- and ...
In the February issue of Governing, my colleague Josh Goodman wrote about Utah's health exchange -- a free-market alternative to the Massachusetts Commonwealth Connector. ...
The annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association this past weekend in D.C. began -- as all state and local meetings must nowadays ...
Governing announced the winner of our state and local government journalism award, the Hal Hovey award, last month.
Governments have performance data to judge the efficiency of the programs they put in place. Naturally, online sites have metrics too. How soon will that ...
David Kidd is behind the camera, capturing John Buntin interviewing Sonny Jackson, public information officer with Denver Police Department.
Governing has long been committed to ...
One of the most controversial tactics in the fight against health reform has been the conservative push to nullify health reform at the state level. ...
Governing writer John Buntin and I were in Denver in February to look into that city's use of DNA testing as a means of ...
That, basically, is the question taken up by health economists Michael Chernew and Katherine Baicker and Dr. John Hsu in their latest New England Journal ...
A promising innovation? That seems to be what Nevada thinks. In last month's issue of Governing, my colleague Josh Goodman examined how state local ...
I tend to think that one mistake people often make (in business, in government, in life in general) is to assume that maintaining the status ...
I'm working on a story for an upcoming issue of Governing that takes a look at the increasing rates of poverty in suburbs across ...
We all make mistakes. If it's a really big mistake (say, an unauthorized "hike along the Appalachian trail") and you're an ...
Today's Guardian has a story that describes the urban mega-city as "the greatest design challenge" of our time. Given the numbers that ...
The U.S. Department of Education announced the first winners of Race to the Top, the $4.35 billion grant program encouraging states to make big reforms ...
Last week, Governing's Public Workforce newsletter writer, Heather Kerrigan, and I were throwing around some potential story ideas to cover this summer. One topic ...
In January, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger basically refused to give his State of the State Address during his State of the State Address: "It doesn't make...
A budget crunch often offers an opportunity to introduce cost-saving efficiencies that would otherwise be too politically difficult to achieve. This blog entry was going...
In July, President Barack Obama held a meeting in the White House, bringing together some of the nation's most distinguished social innovators. Stephen Goldsmith, who...
Sometimes the best technology isn't the latest gee-whiz gadget, but something that's been around for a while. Sometimes the best cost-savings ideas aren't the result...
In April 2005, San Diego mayor Dick Murphy stepped before a hastily assembled crowd of news reporters and announced his resignation. Murphy, elected just five...
Contrary to stereotypes, governments innovate. Public officials, and the non-profit and for-profit partners they work with, are continuously developing creative approaches to solving difficult challenges....
In July, President Barack Obama held a meeting in the White House, bringing together some of the nation's most distinguished social innovators. Stephen Goldsmith, who...
Atlanta tried a four day work week. The Santa Clara jail now takes reservations--for visitors, not inmates--greatly streamlining the process. New York City is creating...
Engulfed by a tidal wave of red ink, governments across the nation are struggling to keep their head above water. The temptation, says Professor Stephen...
President Barack Obama came to office promising he will "redesign" the federal government and how it interacts with citizens by moving to a "21st century...
A great column above by John Kamensky and Jonathon Breul of the IBM Center for the Business of Government makes a compelling case that state...
Green is good. But right now there isn't enough of the "green stuff" to go around. Which is why the column by Lynn Scarlett is...
Municipal "311" systems have transformed the way cities hear about problems like broken street lights and car crunching potholes. But a column by Zach Tumin of...
First, the bad news: Nationwide, urban development with impervious surfaces has increased 20 percent over the past two decades. The resulting increase in stormwater runoff is...
311 is growing up fast.
We caught glimpses of 311's powerful future last year in a Harvard report called "311: The Next Wave." 311 stood at the intersection...
Vivek Kundra, the former Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia, decided to turn everything on its head.
Instead of waiting for a FOIA (...
Private investors in the Indiana Toll Road have taken a bath. In April, a $2.5 billion deal to lease Chicago's Midway Airport to a private operator...
The District of Columbia's Apps for Democracy initiative is turning government inside out and upside down. As a long-time resident of the DC area, I...
Andrew Bary's piece on "The Long and Binding Road," in Barron's has been widely noticed, especially after it was picked up by the Wall Street...
The Santa Clara County Department of Correction had a problem. The system couldn't handle the daily onslaught of those coming to visit the more than 4,500...
When you say "infrastructure" most people think roads, bridges, and tunnels.
That's fine. But these conduits of physical goods were more crucial to the economy...
It was William Bratton who brought criminal justice into the information age, launching New York City's CompStat under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He's stepping down now...
Today, the word "foreclosure" evokes an unfortunate reminder of the nation's economic meltdown, particularly the speculation and collapse in the real estate market.
For city...
Private companies think about their "value proposition" all the time. What are we doing for our customers that make them happy to pay our price?...
Two articles below include two totally different takes on how New York is dealing with the problem of homelessness. Steve Goldsmith writes here about "the...
The dog days of August are upon us, and everybody, including President Obama, is on vacation.
But government never stops working--sort of. Both Chicago and...
New York's HHS-Connect: IT Crosses Boundaries in a Shared-Mission World
A new initiative is underway in New York City that will boldly, literally, go where...
The idea first arose during the days of $4-a-gallon gasoline in the summer of 2008. But now, even with energy prices way down from their peak,...
Even before California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger began issuing IOU's in July, some pundits (Michael Maiello, for one) were calling on President Obama to bail out...
In the final stretch of his campaign, President Obama, speaking at a forum on national service at Columbia University, said he wanted to "make government...
In honor of Labor Day, we are happy to share with readers a column from Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union....
The latest article by Lynn Scarlett highlights something everybody can love -- an innovation that is not only good for the environment but saves money...
Across the nation, cities, counties and water districts want clean water, but they face a dilemma. Regulatory mechanisms and permits, usually directed at geographic governing...
Without innovation there is stagnation. While much of the media focus belongs to those public endeavors that belly-flop, the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and...
Anyone looking for inspiration would have found it at the Innovations in American Government Awards dinner, held tonight in Washington DC.
I wish I could...
"Light at the mouth of the cave," a senior state food safety executive murmured.
He was watching Tim Wormus, an evangelist for Tibco/Spotfire's visualization...
Last week, Harvard Kennedy School through its Innovations in American Government Awards Program recognized a group of government programs for their contribution to the public...
The notion of organizing government services around customer needs has been around for a long time--but mostly in the form of a hoped for goal...
Government reformers for years have been talking about creating citizen-centric services, organized around citizen needs, not around the convenience of bureaucrats.
For years, it has...
Since August 2008, Utah state employees have been working just four days a week and it doesn't look like the three day weekends are going to...
Reduced hours for public employees as a money-saving tool is all the rage. But is it effective? We recently ran an article on Atlanta's experiment...
When you buy a ticket from JetBlue, it costs you an extra $15 to book a flight over the phone compared to doing it yourself over...
The situation was dire. In the fall of 2008, King County Washington, the state's most populous county which includes the city of Seattle, was facing an...
Arizona's general revenue spending currently is about $3.3 billion more than its ongoing revenues. Money-saving strategies are a must. But reducing spending need not mean cutting...
Like many states, the Grand Canyon state is facing some tough choices. An article below from the Goldwater Institute offers their ideas for some reforms...
NIEM is making its move. The National Information Exchange Model is fast emerging as a key to the domain of cross-boundary information sharing. Having gained...
In its next budgeting biennium, 2011-2012, Minnesota faces a projected $6-7 billion structural budget deficit. That problem can no longer be solved through the old...
A few years ago Harvard Kennedy School recognized the Department of Justice Global HTML project that simply by defining data protocols dramatically improved the ability...
Jonathan Walters of Governing magazine has been writing about state and local innovation for more than 20 years. He recently sat down with John O'Leary, executive...
All public managers are aware of the Washington Monument ploy--where the agency faced with a deficit threatens to close an iconic or critical public activity...
Like many states, the North Star State is facing tough times. The state's Department of Management and Budget says spending has been reduced in real...
Massachusetts has a big budget gap but tax hikes and service cuts shouldn't be the only approach. We must also change practices to help close...
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick recently announced plans to lay off up to 2,000 state workers, as the Bay State joins the growing list of states in...
The best public administration occurs when the public sector takes direction from political leaders, but doesn't allow politics to stand in the way of performance....
If you outsourced your angels, would more of them dance on the head of a pin?
It's a nonsense question, of course. Here's another: What...
Organizations - even Federal bureaucracies - are only information and people. The more information becomes mobile, the less people need to be. A December 2008 report...
A major complaint in many government agencies is information overload. How do you make sense out of all the data coming in, and then use...
If the data is buried in a computer, it doesn't do much good. Only when data is "mined" can actionable information emerge. In their article,...
In LA, the city has just signed a contract with Google to handle email for 30,000 city employees, a $7.25 million deal that is the largest of...
Public employee pensions can be huge budget busters, as a previous article explored. In today's column, Bill Eggers explores ways to dig out from the...
How can governments escape the ?scal black hole some already have entered and others are on the verge of falling into? Unfortunately, there is no...
What if they held an election and nobody came? That pretty much happened in New York City in September. According to the New York Times, "...
In Atlanta and Houston, mayoral races failed to produce a candidate with a majority, meaning both cities will have to conduct costly "runoff" elections between...
News stories from many national reporters suggest the 2009 elections amount to a statement about the Obama presidency. Maybe, but in mayor and governor races local...
David Letterman is not the only one with a Top Ten list! We've put one together as well, based on what we've heard from a...
Veterans Day provides an opportunity to consider ways to serve those who have served their country.
Two newly announced federal initiatives can produce opportunities for...
Michigan is home to the nation's highest unemployment, and faces a gaping $2.8 billion budget hole. Northwood University's Keith Pretty and Timothy Nash offer five policy...
As of October, 2009, Michigan had a projected budget shortfall of $2.8 billion for the current fiscal year. In recent history, the governor and Michigan legislature have...
Hurricane Katrina is the reigning poster child for government failure. In the days and weeks that followed, pundits and politicians rushed to fix blame on...
When Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels took office, he inherited a social services department that had distinguished itself only in bad ways. The state's Family and...
William D. Eggers and our own John O'Leary have just come out with a new book looking at how government handles large undertakings. "If We...
In my article below, I look at the recent decision by Indiana to cancel a major contract with IBM. The problem wasn't the shift from...
Just when you thought it was safe to go in the open gov waters, suddenly there are a couple of sharks swimming in the implementation...
Collaboration, governing-by-network, public-private partnerships, shared authority--whatever you call it, it's a hot topic in government circles.
Renowned public administration expert Donald Kettl in his book "...
How can different levels of government and a variety of public agencies work together effectively? That's a challenge with implications for crime, health, and a...
The movement toward open government is well underway, with the Obama administration leading the charge. The effort is praiseworthy, but the implementation is proving dicey....
Locating parents who are negligent on their child support payments just got a little easier with an innovative approach used by Virginia's Division of Child...
The problem of child support enforcement is a big one. This column highlights Virginia, which found a creative idea that uses a relatively low-tech approach...
Given the day-to-day demands of political leadership, it is hard to focus on innovation. In his article, John O'Leary highlights how the city of Detroit...
A city official once compared managing in City Hall to driving a bus, with one difference. "Every seat is equipped with a brake, so lots...
Would you be willing to pay for your administrative services if you are already receiving them for "free?" But what if, by making a shift...
In a market economy, prices communicate information, helping to shift resources to more efficient uses. Government can take advantage of this through a shared services...
Wilmington had a problem. Sanitation-related complaints were flooding its Division of Licenses & Inspections (L&I), as neighborhoods were being dragged down by trash left outside...
When government wants to discourage something, the instinct is to criminalize that behavior. But small infractions often get lost by prosecutors and courts that have...
The recent tragedy in Washington state has focused attention on sharing information about criminals between states. As Professor Goldsmith points out in his article, data...
Just weeks ago, career criminal Maurice Clemmons walked into a Lakewood, Washington, coffee shop and gunned down four police officers. Although this particular crime could...
Writing recently in the National Journal's Transportation blog, we observed that the new Obama-proposed job stimulus might dim the prospects for an early enactment of...
We've seen what happens when risk isn't accounted for properly. The mortage meltdown has prompted government to address enterprise risk in a more systematic way....
Failure happens. Risk is omnipresent. The traditional approach to risk has been to minimize losses and make sure you have enough insurance coverage.
But now...
The problem of homelessness has proven vexing for a long time. There were homeless people before that couple in a stable, and there still are...
When it comes to spreading an innovative practice, it helps to be able to tell a good story. This interview with Sandford Borins, a Professor...
In the good old days, economic slumps were followed by recoveries. To survive lean times, governments tightened their belts, maybe raised some taxes, and life...
California's finances are a fiasco. The current budget, passed months after the start of the fiscal year, was over $6 billion upside down within two months...
The writer Edward Albey noted: "There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California."
The ongoing problems of...
There is no magic formula for public sector innovation, but there are tools and techniques that can help governments find ways to do things better,...
