Some of my colleagues have been talking about this for years, but it takes time for the data to reflect what people intuitively perceive: that the return to the city by wealthier residents, driven by many factors, has driven out poorer residents to the suburbs. Suburbs are in many cases less equipped to deal with…
Category: Cities
New York City’s libraries: open less than Detroit’s!
It’s no secret that libraries are getting squeezed by repeated budget crises (threatened cuts, then partially restored funding, over several years adds up to libraries that spend more and more time closed). New York City’s proposed budget is yet again threatening big cuts to library funding, in a city where already 30% of libraries are…
Bill Seeks to Tie Municipal Borrowing to Public Pension Disclosure – NYTimes.com
There are many policies floating around to reform the muck that is municipal finance these days. A group of U.S. representatives from California are pushing a bill in Congress that would require states and cities to disclose the “true cost” of their pension plans, and whether they can pay those costs. California, of course, is…
Court to Decide on Pensions in Stockton, Calif., Bankruptcy – NYTimes.com
Wall Street is taking America’s biggest pension fund to court this week, for a long-awaited battle over who takes the losses when a city goes bust — workers and retirees, municipal bondholders, or both. California is being closely watched as battles in San Bernardino and Stockton look to reshape how pensions are treated…
Transparency and budget cuts: a winning combination?
There has been a lot of talk about making public data more readily available, and of involving the public (most obviously in the participatory budgeting movement). These two strategies sit in curious counterpoint to the equally popular trend of treating municipal finances as increasingly complex and needing expert (i.e. private sector) intervention. Anyway, here’s a…