My latest column is online at Governing. It is about America's distributed governance system, and how it has many strengths as well as the weaknesses we like to bemoan. Here is an excerpt: If there's one level of government that's most frequently touted as obsolete and an obstacle to progress, it's state government. Yet it's those much maligned states that have received the most praise during the crisis. In New York, it's been Gov. Andrew Cuomo who has received far more kudos than New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Legendary New York Mayor … [Read more...]

I was a columnist in the print edition of Governing magazine for about five years. Sadly, the publication closed last year. But the company who owned it has relaunched Governing as an online only publication focused on the intersection of technology and public policy. I'm delighted to be able to contribute to this new platform. My first column is online and is about how cities lost control of the urban tech movement. In I trace three generations of "smart cities," and how while the government was in the drivers seat in the first two, they … [Read more...]

Procurement in any context sounds dull and has the reputation of being a painful task you are forced to go through in order to buy something you need. Sascha Haselmayer of CityMart believes there's a different way. He joins me on the podcast to talk about cities using procurement as a problem solving process and engine of government transformation, including radically improving supplier diversity. If the audio player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on … [Read more...]

Universities and health care, "eds and meds", have been in a huge growth cycle over the last few decades. Many communities have been pinning their hopes on anchor institutions like a university or research hospital to retool their economies for the 21st century. Yet the higher education industry is facing a convergence of several trends and forces that are threaten their future. At a minimum, schools need to be figuring out how to navigate these choppy waters ahead. Here are six forces converging on colleges today and in the near … [Read more...]

My post about how colleges are diverging into winners and losers drew a ton of excellent comments you should read. phelmon64 led off by saying: It’s becoming clear that the distance between the various higher education tiers is getting wider. Ivies at the top, Ivy-equivalent private schools next, followed by public elites, small private liberal arts schools, big public/land grant schools — and then the rest. At some point states can (and must) do their share to help the public elites and land grant types, but I’m concerned about the future for … [Read more...]

Josh Yates at the University of Virginia is the director of a project there called "Thriving Cities." One if the interesting things they did is put together an analysis of city indicators that people use to measure their success. They linked it to popularity, level of academic support, and other items. It's a cool project they call the Indicator Explorer. Here's a screen shot: I sat down with Josh recently and chatted with him about the project for the podcast. If the audio player doesn't display for you, click over to listen on … [Read more...]