Furlough 'Consistency and Fairness'
Innovation in Government Dips
TSP Funds Stay Positive in April
5 Agencies with the Most Disconnected Leadership
No Bonuses for VA Benefits Execs
Will You Be Furloughed?
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Do Long Commutes Discourage Married Women From Working?
April 24, 2013 It's easy to reduce commuting to a simple measure of getting to and from work, but its residual impact on our personal lives is becoming clearer every day. Commuting causes us stress and general displeasure, which no doubt sours many a mood and stirs up many a marital argument, though ...
Why Driverless Cars Are 'Probably' Legal
March 28, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
We've said it before and we'll say it again: a world with driverless cars isn't that far off. Europeans have been exploring driverless platoons called "road trains" as the future of car commuting. Computer scientists are thinking about how to reconfigure intersections and traffic lights to make driverless city driving ...
The End of Federal Transportation Funding as We Know It
March 12, 2013 This month marks 120 years since the federal government got involved in funding road transportation. (Strange as it sounds, bicycle advocates did the bulk of the lobbying.) The original Office of Road Inquiry — today, the Federal Highway Administration — was a line item with a budget of $10,000. That ...
Open Data Has Been a Boon for City Governments
March 8, 2013
FROM NEXTGOV
The recent push from cities to release open data is great for residents, but it can be a boon for municipal governments, too. Take the case of billboards in Chicago. Many of the city's commercial real estate owners have skipped the lengthy procedure of obtaining a billboard permit and just ...
City Life Changes How Our Brains Deal With Distractions
January 30, 2013 City life requires a lot of attention. Navigating a busy sidewalk while processing loud storefronts and avoiding rogue pigeons may feel like second-nature at times, but it's actually quite a bit of work for the human brain. Psychologists do know that quick walks through the park can restore our focus, ...
Would we leave disaster-prone cities in the absence of FEMA?
November 9, 2012 Hurricane Sandy highlighted a number of problems that U.S. cities face in the era of climate change. Development has pushed up to the coastline in a way that strikes some as "foolish."Plans for sea walls and storm protections have been met with a lack of urgency. A push for urban ...
Seeing the train as a 'mobile office'
July 23, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
If you're evaluating a commute or an intercity work trip on travel time alone, the train doesn't always look so great. Annoying as traffic can be, driving is usually quicker from home door to office desk. And while it can take a while to reach an airport, once you're en ...
Surveillance cameras could make us better people
June 25, 2012
FROM NEXTGOV
Exhibit A for the "cities are mean" thesis is the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens. Two weeks after the killing, The New York Times ran a story called "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police," suggesting that dozens of witnesses did nothing to stop the gruesome event. ...
