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Alan Ehrenhalt

Alan Ehrenhalt

Contributing Editor

Alan Ehrenhalt served for 19 years as executive editor of Governing Magazine, and is currently one of its contributing editors. He has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review and op-ed page, the Washington Post Book World, New Republic and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of four books: The United States of Ambition, The Lost City, Democracy in the Mirror, and The Great Inversion. He was also the creator and editor of the first four editions of Politics in America, a biennial reference book profiling all 535 members of Congress. Alan Ehrenhalt is a 1968 graduate of Brandeis University and holds an MS in journalism from Columbia. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard from 1977-1978; a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987-1988; a Regents’ Lecturer at UCLA in 2006; an adjunct faculty member at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, at the University of Richmond, from 2004 through 2008; and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland Graduate School of Public Policy in 2009. In 2000 he received the American Political Science Association’s McWilliams award for distinguished contributions to the field of political science by a journalist. He is married, has two daughters, and lives in Arlington, Virginia.

He can be reached at ehrenhalt@yahoo.com.

A lot of what we think we know about it turns out to be wrong.
With falling ridership and scrapped expansion projects, urban transit faces an uncertain future.
Well-run governments must have clear lines of leadership. Just ask Pueblo, Colo.
They take mixed-use development to an extreme with buildings that residents may never need to leave.
For the most part, it’s a bad idea for governments to copy private-sector trends. But there may be one exception.
There are plenty of theories about how they will reshape urban areas. But it’s anybody’s guess.
Behavioral economics is a powerful tool to encourage people to make certain decisions, but governments need to use it with caution.
There’s still plenty of coverage of governors and legislatures. But the void of newspaper reporters has been filled with partisan-slanted bloggers.
Politicians say they want citizens to be involved. But it can make things harder to achieve.
The ascent of cities is real, though things may not be as rosy as some suggest.