If local journalism and civic information are truly public goods, their survival will require bold public interventions. It’s beginning to happen.
Some Global South cities are using escalators and cable cars to connect their hill slums with city centers, showcasing how imaginative infrastructure can improve life for residents in isolated areas.
Inflation punished Wall Street and Main Street, and public financiers who ignored it squandered billions. Congress passed two bills important to states and localities. And pensions took a hit, but taxpayers won’t feel that pain for years.
A trash truck or a streetlight has a basic function, but in a digital age they can be so much more, adding value outside of their core purposes.
We need to move toward a lower-energy future, but we can’t present it as a punishment.
Georgia’s efforts to discourage voters had an impact in the state’s Senate runoff. Fairness and justice still won out, but we should be making it easier — not harder — for people to register and vote.
Public-sector technology work is a force multiplier for improving the lives of residents nationwide. That's important to keep in mind, especially in the face of news like unrelenting cyber attacks and workforce woes.
Excess-mortality statistics show that the U.S. fared worse than other wealthy countries, and that places with low vaccination rates were hit the hardest. There could be 465,747 more Americans alive today if we’d done as well as New Zealand.
The old buildings that housed multiple sellers under a single roof were more than just places to shop. They were community-making institutions.
Federal legislation requiring machine-readable reporting has its critics, but it would go a long way toward modernizing how data is collected, used and shared. It also could lower borrowing costs for states and localities.
Too often, our policy responses are guided by fear rather than evidence.
Inflation is pressuring state and local employers to grant big cost-of-living increases. But they’ll need to keep in mind the prospect of diminishing revenues in coming fiscal years.
The path to delivering government services in accessible and efficient ways is through human-centered design and technology. Some programs are showing the way.
Some are advocating bringing it back. But it doesn’t get many guns off the streets, it exacts a heavy toll on those who are stopped, and it corrodes trust in police.
It’s not just about the dollars but about spending the money effectively. The focus should be on reducing costs for the private companies that provide most of the investment, rather than propping up sickly projects.
A museum and memorial in a onetime Confederate capital preserve the memories of slavery, lynching and Jim Crow. Yet too much of that past is still around us.
Most Read
