government

What happens when business leaders swap boardrooms for the halls of government?  read more »

On this episode of Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by Ross Elliott, Chairman of the Urban Land Institute of Australia, and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, Professor of Psychiatry at UC Irvine. This show covers the psychological impact of COVID-19 and how governments are managing it.  read more »

Alex Chisholm, chief operating officer of the United Kingdom civil service and permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office, said that the new-found ability of officials to vary working patterns was a “huge positive,” according to The Times of London. He told the House of Commons public accounts committee that “letting people work flexibly would also allow the civil service to shrink its footprint on Whitehall  read more »

On today's episode of Feudal Future hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky welcome Jay Garner. Jay is CEO of Garner Economics as well as the Chair of the Site Selectors Guild. This episode explores the topic of site selection and how companies are choosing sites for their expansions. The group talks about how these types of decisions have been affected by the pandemic.  read more »

We are reading a lot about the windfall coming to consumers due to falling gas prices now that oil is under $50/barrel. But cheap energy also represents a windfall for governments, including governments who are hard pressed for cash.  read more »

The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data Smart Governance

by Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford

Technology, and especially the use of data and analytics, has been transforming the way cities manage service delivery. Former Indianapolis mayor New York City deputy mayor Steve Goldsmith, and his colleague at Harvard Susan Crawford, recently wrote a book called “The Responsive City” looking at this technology revolution.  read more »

Letting the nation’s roads and bridges deteriorate may worsen traffic congestion and add to our commuting woes, but when water and sewer systems begin to fail our very civilization is at risk. That is the message of a recent story in The Washington Post drawing attention to the alarming state of the nation’s water and sewer infrastructure. The story looks at the Washington D.C. system as a poster child for neglected and dilapidated municipal utilities. The average age of the District water pipes is 77 years and a great many were laid in the 19th century, notes the Post article.  read more »

During my college days, I had the opportunity to interview a local government official tasked with conducting various disaster response programs. North Dakota had, at the time, been dealing with severe flood issues for nearly a decade, and the interviewee had vast experience dealing with the ins and outs of working within the system to find mitigation solutions. Asked about the challenges of having to deal with a multitude of state and federal agencies, he informed me that the most vital contacts he had were at the federal level.  read more »

On November 18, President Obama signed into law a bundle of appropriation bills for FY 2012  including appropriations  for the U.S. Department of Transportation. The measure had been passed earlier in the House by a vote of 298-121 and in  the Senate by a vote of 70-30.   read more »

The Martin Prosperity Institute recently released the map below, which compares the GDP of several US metropolitan areas to the size of national economies. For instance, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metropolitan statistical area (MSA) has a GDP of $311.3 billion dollars. If it were a country, it would be the 40th biggest national economy on earth, ahead of countries such as Denmark ($310.1) and Greece ($303.4).  read more »