Forum on Local Government

What's Happening on our Blog:

Rich Florida vs. David Brooks: Who’s Right?: How the economic crash will impact cities and where we want to live… http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/me… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/opinio… -SL
To Save the Planet, Build More…Skyscrapers?: Hey all you Green Cities-types. It’s not every day you encounter an article called “Green Cities, Brown Suburbs”, so I just had to pass it along. This interesting article builds off of a study economists Edward Glaeser from Harvard and Matthew Kahn from UCLA have done trying to quantify how to be good to the [...]
Mayors Do the Darndest Things: Mexico City Kiss-In (photo by AP) Somehow Mexico City appears to be a big focus for me on the FLoG Blog this year, and so I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to highlight an article in Friday’s NY Times. With midterm elections coming up in July, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has starting focusing on [...]
A New Tower for Midtown: Yesterday the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (a delightfully powerful and complex bi-state authority) announced the selection of the architecture firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners to design an office tower on top of the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Manhattan’s west side. The design team, formerly known as Richard Rogers [...]
Friday Night Fun: Cory Booker, Cities, and CNN: Join Mayor Cory Booker tomorrow evening at 8:00 p.m. on CNN’s Campbell Brown as they discuss the election and the future of America’s cities.
Blight in Buffalo: Buffalo, NY has a lot bigger challenges than finding a way to keep the Bills (or for that matter finding a way for the Bills to win a game against a divisional rival). An estimated 30% of Buffalonians live in poverty, and a huge chunk of the housing stock is vacant while there is also a dearth [...]
Muni Bonds: There’s obviously been some huge news today on the federal government front. Over here at the FLOG blog we’re still pretty interested in seeing what sort of urban policy President-Elect Obama will push in his administration. (see post below on Obama as a “metropolitan president”). An indirect influence that Obama’s election may have on cities is that it [...]
Schools and School Choice in NYC: Two interesting articles on public school options and parental choice vis a vis zoning and charter schools in New York City: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/nyregi… http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/educat…
Election Day Special: Charter Revisions: Happy Election Day, everyone. As people across the country head to the polls, we know what will be on their minds: proposed revisions to municipal charters. Will Baltimore create a Department of General Services? Will the Commissioners of Miami-Dade County get an $85,000 raise? Will Philadelphia combine its Parks and Recreation departments into one? Esoteric though the questions [...]
El Gridlock?: Traffic in Mexico City For a little international perspective, last week I was traveling in Mexico City and got to experience firsthand the joys and challenges of navigating that city’s roadways. Having done some thinking about how cities can regulate their traffic problems in my home town of New York, I was interested to see the [...]

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