All articles by jake blumgart
jake blumgart
Cleveland is still suffering from the last recession. It can’t afford another.
Austerity feeds on the US’s unique form of urban decline. To understand how, just look to Northeast Ohio.
How winner-take-all elections keep urban voters at a disadvantage
It’s not just the US: left-wing parties suffer in many countries because their voters are heavily concentrated in urban areas.
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.
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 the pandemic is magnifying structural problems in America’s housing market
Golden Gates author Conor Dougherty discusses why it’s so hard for so many to keep a roof over their heads.