Blogs

Today, history will be made. Rod Blagojevich is going to jail in Littleton, Colorado.  read more »

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has intervened in the Honolulu Mayor's race against challenger and former Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano. Governor Cayetano and Mayor Peter Carlisle are locked in a bitter contest that could determine whether the proposed $5.1 billion rail line is built. Mayor Carlisle is a strong supporter of the rail line. Challenger Cayetano has promised to "pull the plug" on the rail system. Recent polls show that the project's former thin majority support among Honolulu residents has now turned to opposition.  read more »

I love the Omaha World Herald – I read papers all over the world and this one is the best local paper I’ve seen. The bias is largely limited to the Opinion pages and they do original research on local topics. For national and world news, they have reporters outside the Omaha metro, but they also include the best of the news wire articles. The paper is a readable length, yet it contains enough stories that you know what’s going on but not so many that it’s a repeat of the nightly news from the national broadcast networks.  read more »

Newgeography.com lost a one of its first columnists, a regular contributor and good friend with the passing of Owen McShane.

Owen McShane (Robert Ivan Owen McShane) was born in 1941 and died on March 6, 2012. His long and successful career in public policy was built on a strong academic foundation.  read more »

Veteran Chicago journalist Ben Joravsky explains why Chicago’s better off without the G-8 summit:

One, we're not equipped to handle it. Two, we can't afford it. And, three, it has the potential to give the Republicans great campaign material for the coming election.  read more »

“To understand cities, we have to deal outright with combinations or mixtures of uses, not separate uses, as the essential phenomena.”

“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.” -Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities  read more »

A new strategy is beginning to emerge toward California’s embattled high-speed rail venture. The strategy is designed to rescue the project from a possible defeat at the hands of the state legislature, gain friends and supporters among local transportation agencies, win converts among independent analysts and turn around a largely skeptical public.  read more »

Throughout history, architecture served as the primary communication device of common cultural values. Whether inspiring religious awe or displaying the power of an empire, great works of architecture went beyond mere utility to reflect the shared expression of time and place.  Modern architecture, with its right angles and smooth surfaces devoid of ornamentation expressed the early 20th Century zeitgeist of efficiency and mass production.  read more »

The Administration's $476 billion six-year transportation reauthorization proposal ---included as part of its FY 2013 budget submission ---has met with indifference if not outright skepticism in the transportation community. For one thing, the proposal comes at a time when both houses of Congress have already developed and are actively pursuing their own versions of reauthorization legislation.  read more »

One of the great failures in studying the politics of American cities has been the assumptions political scientists have used. Many academics assume that politicians work toward serving the public interest. In this naïve or dishonest world, an informed public (aided by a vigilant press) votes for candidates that rise above petty self interest to promote the common good. Recently, The University of Illinois-Chicago Political Science department released an impressive empirical study on corruption.  read more »