Governing: State and local government news and analysis
A statue long considered a Renaissance masterpiece in Florence (and the world over) has now been deemed pornographic in Florida. Such a stark contrast in points of view — here or there — has a long history.
It's worked before. During a 10-year prohibition, researchers calculated that the risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70 percent lower during the period in which the assault weapons ban was active.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline received more than 371,000 calls, texts and chats in December 2022. New funding has meant more calls are getting answered. Better tech could make it more accessible.
Decades of underinvestment in streetcar, bus and train service coupled with an increase in public funding and planning priorities to make roads fast, smooth and far-reaching, help explain today's transit situation.
Accidents like the one that spilled toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, are all too common. It’s time to update rail infrastructure and safety technology while bringing stronger regulation to bear.
Nearly half of all state and local public health employees left their jobs between 2017 and 2021. An additional 80,000 workers are needed to provide a minimum set of public health services to citizens.
It’s hard to imagine a worse time to roll back restrictions on when, where and how long children can work. But several states are moving in that direction.
Green energy may one day depend on the state’s vast reserves of lignite and oil drilling waste, and the rare earth minerals they contain.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning is preparing a series of recommendations to address the transit fiscal cliff and governance challenges. State lawmakers told them to "be bold."
They have to maintain finances as they try to avoid damaging service cuts and, at the same time, push for new bus and train lines. That will require new ideas, because the old ways aren’t going to work.
Local-government officials are sometimes overwhelmed by new and improved digital tools. But they need to be open to technology that can help residents and public employees deliver critical services.
Letting all depositors off the hook creates a moral hazard, but taxpayer money should be protected. If Congress won’t extend full insurance to states and localities, banks should be required to protect those deposits with their own collateral.
A cloud of misinformation has led a half-dozen states to abandon the most powerful tool available to combat voter fraud across state lines.
State and local leaders will face implementation challenges of scale, complexity and accountability. To mitigate those and maximize the benefits of new federal programs, they need to have the right strategies in place.
The forgotten legacy of President Benjamin Harrison, who paved the way for Teddy Roosevelt. His tenure was marked by a mix of contributions to civil rights and conservation even while making a naked grab on Indigenous land.
But practitioners must remember there's a high bar and rigor required to making human-centric design work correctly. Simply saying a product was created using the practice won’t cut it.
The 2022 stock market plunge has taken a toll on some of the nation’s largest state and municipal pension funds, making it harder to pay for future retirement benefits to millions of K-12 teachers and other public employees.
Record rain and snowfall are easing drought pressures, but California can’t overcome long-term water challenges if infrastructure is neglected.
If Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas wins, he may owe it all to his law-and-order message. Meanwhile, the North Carolina Supreme Court and promoting partisan gerrymandering, Doug La Follette steps down and more.
Kansas City tenants have formed a power base and are seeking equal footing with the forces that have traditionally defined how the city is governed.
Fecklessness with limited water. Big land hustles. A lack of rootedness. The state has long been a geography of personal reinvention, ambitious schemes and glowing hype.
Newcomers from liberal states don’t always tilt their new homes to the left. It’s the reason why migration politics is more complex than people give it credit for.
The Army Corps of Engineers has proposed building 12 separate storm surge gates across the mouths of canals and waterways of the city's harbor. But environmentalist Tracy Brown questions the soundness of the plan.
An alliance of state lawmakers deserves credit for a collective effort to fight disenfranchisement of minority and Democratic voters. But they will need a lot more support to win the fight to protect the sacred right to vote.
Some center cities are coming back from the pandemic, with residential populations increasing even as many continue to work from home. While restaurants and retail are still suffering, it seems fair to speculate that something meaningful is happening.
Louisiana's comprehensive 50-year master plan for mitigating the impact of extreme weather on vulnerable coastal communities can provide guiding principles for every region.
The Housing Choice Voucher program helps 2.3 million households pay rent. Biden has called for small increases to the program, while GOP leaders are eyeing cuts that will hit some states especially hard.
An initiative to help policymakers use evidence to inform spending is coming to a close after more than a decade, but it should be just the beginning of state governments’ efforts to bring analytical tools to bear to produce better outcomes.
An initiative in Orange County, Calif., is taking an innovative approach to reducing social determinants of poor health. Screenings are vital, but social and environmental factors set the stage for the problems they detect.
Our resident humanities scholar laments that we thought we were immune to the human condition. We were wrong.
