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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.

Some legislatures have been banning reporters from their lawmaking chambers. But given how statehouse coverage has changed in recent decades, the reality is that we've simply traded one flawed system for another.
Turning storefronts into online-commerce fulfillment centers or pop-up spaces for artists isn't likely to bring downtowns back. But even remote workers need places to go when they take a break from their keyboards.
The job of a legislator is for most a time-consuming one with little chance to shape policy, and the pay isn't great. So why do so many of them run for re-election over and over?
They’ve been around a lot longer than you might think. They keep changing, but they still run on loyalty, as they always have.
From sports teams to high schools, we’re in turmoil about what we consider a deserving name. But we shouldn’t rewrite history as a byproduct of ignorance.
Too much of the space in our downtowns is taken up by parked cars, and requiring developers to provide so many parking slots inflates the cost of housing. It’s becoming clear that those mandates are irrational.
It’s gospel among economists that regulating rents is a bad idea. But there’s evidence that the burdens it imposes might be an acceptable price for society to pay.
We’ve tried taxing drinkers, smokers and soda-guzzlers. Sometimes it helps, improving the public’s health, even if it doesn’t produce a lot of revenue. But it still raises equity and moral issues.
Edward Glaeser got a lot of attention with his argument that cities succeed in a deregulated environment. His new book embraces a broader role for government.
It’s tempting for a mayor or a governor to swing for the fences, promising to solve every intractable societal problem. But leaders who go for what's realistically achievable are more likely to succeed.