Internet Explorer 11 is not supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.
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.

In 1994, Seattle won praise from urbanist thinkers nationwide with its 20-year plan for population and economic growth.
Over the past few decades, it’s become easier to convict public officials for corruption but harder to know who’s really guilty of it.
Some worry the benefits of a better education don’t outweigh the new problems it brings.
Some say Democrats suffered big blows in November because they’ve become a party of urban elitists.
It’s hard to define, but it's dramatically changing the urban landscape and bringing a host of new challenges to local leaders.
The midterm elections marked the return of divided government, with more than a third of states in split-power situations.
Inspired by an idea that originated in 1970s Brazil, urban planners in America are increasingly thinking small scale to solve big problems.
After a fight led by liquor stores, the state will keep decisions about whether or not to sell alcohol at the county level.
The longtime mayor of Boston was an unconventional politician, and that's why he was one of the most successful urban leaders of his generation.
More than 80 years after Prohibition ended at the national level, Arkansas voters will decide in November whether to keep their state dry.