What power do US mayors really have?
Author and legal scholar Richard Schragger says the US's big-city mayors focus on policies far outside their control and lose sight of the ways they can actually effect change.
Jake Blumgart
Staff writer
Jake Blumgart is a staff writer for City Monitor. He lives in Philadelphia and previously covered development, housing, and politics for WHYY, the local public radio station. His writing has also appeared in Slate, CityLab, Next City, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia magazine, and the American Planning Association's magazine.
Articles by Jake Blumgart
This time could be different: Governments have alternatives to austerity
State and local officials in the US are faced with a lot of bad options, but they don't have to cut jobs and services.
The pandemic is flipping the script on funding local government
Relying on targeted taxes and fees has proved troublesome this year, while property taxes look like a relatively safe bet.
The economic risks of slashing local government jobs
As cities and states across the US face stark budget decisions, recent history in Wisconsin provides an object lesson in what can happen when a public-sector workforce shrinks.
Can basic income really work? Cities’ experiments may hold clues
The idea is to address economic pain by giving people money, no strings attached. A few places are testing it out to see what happens.
Absent aid, few US cities will be able to avoid austerity
Congress appears unlikely to help with the looming Covid-related budget disaster that nearly every local government in America now faces. And cuts in the public sector will only worsen the recession.
Why do wealthy cities have a housing shortage?
Economies and populations have concentrated in a handful of cities, while homes have gotten more expensive and harder to build. A growing movement is calling for change.
How land banks are supposed to work
Land banks let local governments acquire and revitalise abandoned and vacant property – that is, if they can resist the temptation to give elected officials too much power over the process.
How the rise of anti-crime politics caused lasting harm to Black Americans
Law professor James Forman Jr discusses the dangers of overreacting to an uptick in violent crime.
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