Happy June 30th, & more importantly happy New (Fiscal) Year’s Eve! As you scramble to account for every last tax dollar, read about how Miami may have found a solution for gentrification, maybe, where electric vehicles create more pollution than gas-fueled vehicles, & how some students in Philly broke through adversity by using peace in the face of violence.
Right Now with Katie Babits
What I’m Listening To – Houndmouth Radio
What I’m Watching – The Reluctant Fundamentalist
What I’m Reading – The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
What I’m Doing – Mourning the burning of Civic Stadium in Eugene
We’re Buzzin
How Miami Fought Gentrification and Won (for Now) – Can growing cities avoid gentrification simply by building skyscrapers? Harvard economist Edward Glaeser thinks so. In his 2012 book Triumph of the City, he famously argues that in order to address housing shortages, cities need to build up. If they don’t, he warns, wealthy people who would buy high-rise units will instead buy older housing and displace longtime residents and businesses. Glaeser’s theory has mostly gone untested as the nation’s most gentrifying cities — such as New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — still heavily control building heights.But an area around downtown Miami might finally offer some support to Glaeser’s premise.
Where Electric Vehicles Actually Cause More Pollution Than Gas Cars – The idea that gasoline cars might cause less environmental harm than electric vehicles seems impossibly backwards. But consider the following thought experiment before you dismiss it out of hand. A view from the tailpipe gives EVs a clear edge: no emissions, no pollution, no problem. Shift the view to that of a smokestack, though, and we get a much different picture.
Youth as a Force for Peace – On December 3, 2009, about 30 students at South Philadelphia High School were brutally attacked by their classmates during school. About 13 were sent to the emergency room. The victims were all Asian, many of them recent immigrants from China. The attackers were mostly black. According to a detailed account of the day’s violence from Philadelphia Magazine, the attackers were organized, and unrestrained.
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06.29.2015
What I Am with Stacy Schweikhart, City of Kettering, OH
#13Percent: Leading Out Loud
The Denver Evening Buzz with CPBB and The Novak Consulting Group
Northwest Passage with Ryan Adams, City of Irving, TX
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50 Nifty
The Least Diverse Jobs in America – Earlier this year, Deborah Rhode, a professor at Stanford Law School, lamented the state of diversity in the legal profession. Rhodes wrote that despite what it looks like from the outside, statistics show that there are few lawyers who aren’t white. Data from the U.S. Census supports this claim, showing that 81 percent of lawyers are white, down from 89 percent in 2000. Further, only 7 percent of partners at law firms are blacks, Hispanics, Asians, or Native Americans. Rhodes attributes the problem partly to the lack of diversity at law schools, but also to unconscious bias and lack of access to networks.
Condo wars: How a water leak turned into a $30 million lawsuit – It started with a leak, just a little water on a hallway floor. That led to questions about bathtub installation, then sprinkler issues and finally allegations of improper fireproofing. Now, all the residents of 3303 Water Street have to pack up their multimillion-dollar condominiums this summer and move out for repairs. Cue the world’s smallest violin as the One Percent escape to their country homes — or to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where many are staying during the rehabilitation.
If we were honest about the gender pay gap, this is what the $10 bill would look like – Inspired by the new $10 bill campaign which will include the face of a woman on the bill, a video by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) reimagines Alexander Hamilton’s bust as that of a Caucasian, African American, and Latina woman, including their average pay as compared to a white man’s.
Supreme Court temporarily blocks Texas abortion law – The Supreme Court barred Texas on Monday from implementing a law that would have forced more than half the state’s 19 abortion clinics to close their doors later this week. The law, which was to take effect Wednesday, would require clinics to adhere to strict new physical standards and the doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.
Will Baby Boomers Change the Meaning of Retirement? – Roughly 44 million people in the United States are now 65 years or older. By 2050, the Census Bureau expects that figure to double, as the largest generation in American history lives longer than any before it. The generation of Baby Boomers has drawn criticism—from themselves, among others—for holding overly high expectations for their lives and for pushing too hard to meet them. These are qualities, however, that could serve them nicely as they strive to grow older with some comfort and purpose.
These Photos Show How Hard It Is To Live On Less Than $1 A Day – Fifteen years after the world made the goal to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty by 2015—one of the U.N.’s eight Millennium Development Goals—one in six people still survives on a dollar a day. Or less. A book called Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor, timed to come out just before the U.N. figures out what to do next, shares photos of this daily life on four continents.
The Problem With Ds – Getting an F typically requires some combination of compulsive truancy, a keen distaste for holding a pen, and problems outside of school. An F leads to summer school or an online course, and unrepentant F students tend to drop out or head to an alternative school before long. Fs are a serious problem in education. D students, however, often stick around and cause another serious problem: They may pass, but they learn close to nothing along the way.
The Senate’s Bathroom-Stall Index – Women now account for 47 percent of the American workforce, 52 percent of professional and management employees, and 57 percent of new bachelor’s degrees. But even after gains in the 2012 election, they remain just 20 percent of the Senate. That, however, was enough to create a “traffic jam” in the women’s restroom reserved for senators, which had just two stalls, recalled Senator Amy Klobuchar.
What If the Oceans Were National Parks? – Next year will mark the centennial of the U.S. National Park Service. In the 100 years since it was established, the national parks have become one of America’s most popular federal programs. Now, marine scientists and conservationists want to do for the oceans what the National Park Service did for the land.
How Much Are You Willing to Pay to Live in America’s Best Neighborhoods? – Location, location, location. When choosing where to live, we all make choices and tradeoffs between housing costs, commutes, and the kinds of amenities we need and want from communities—from better schools, safer streets, and warmer climates, to access to mountains or waterfronts, restaurants, and bars. Just how much are we willing to pay for a better quality of life, and for the amenities and public services we believe will bring us that?
Local Gov Confidential
Could Ping Pong And Foosball Revive Seattle’s Westlake Park? – Westlake Park in downtown Seattle has a lot going on. Besides the café tables, the foosball tables and the park rangers, you’ll find free classes almost every day. On Monday at 10 a.m., kids will be building stomp rockets out of paper. Tuesday evening there’s a Yoga class. But the park is better known for drug dealing than downward dog.
Tree removal for Walmart development criticized by Savannah alderman – Anyone commuting through the southside along Abercorn Street is likely to notice the cleared landscape where homes and trees recently stood at Wilshire Boulevard. The removal this month of 50 trees, including six live oaks, to make way for a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market has drawn the ire of at least one Savannah City Council member and some residents.
After gator attack, park to prohibit swimming at Chambers County pond – Swimming at Cedar Hill Park in Chambers County will be prohibited, officials said Monday, a day after a 13-year-old boy and his father were attacked by an alligator.