Alice Rivlin, who passed away earlier this month, was best known as a federal policy trailblazer — inaugural director of the Congressional Budget Office, first female director of the Office
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Jamie Boex and Sonja Walti While the number of women elected to the U.S. Congress and state assemblies is on the rise, there continues to be a clear gender gap
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Cities are the right frame for tackling many of our most important problems, from concentrated poverty to housing affordability, from economic opportunity to more sustainable living. But enamored as we
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Over the past few years, new research and major political and business events have combined to make Americans more attentive to how place shapes economic and social outcomes. Back in
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Government fragmentation has long been torn between two competing interests. On one hand, many officials argue consolidation boosts efficiency and makes coordination easier. Citizens, though, remain attached to their local
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Last fall, voters in Washington state approved a package of firearms restrictions, generally called I-1639. It raises the minimum age for buying semi-automatic rifles, tightens background checks and makes it
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Power is shifting in the world: downward from national governments and states to cities and metropolitan communities; horizontally from the public sector to networks of public, private and civic actors;
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The U.S. political system is beset by a high degree of polarization and a low sense of common purpose. Should we blame democracy itself, or should we blame ourselves for
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Local government is the hidden leviathan of American politics: it accounts for nearly a tenth of gross domestic product, it collects nearly as much in taxes as the federal government,
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It is difficult to conceptually measure the degree of “local democracy” in any state or country. It is even harder to measure local government representation in the United States in
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A federal appeals court handed workers in Birmingham, Alabama, a significant win this week as the city is in a battle against state lawmakers over whether it has the right
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Most state constitutions require that counties have an elected sheriff who serves as the county’s chief law enforcement officer. The sheriff’s office is over a thousand years old and today
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