Op-Ed: The Birth of a Public-Private Boondoggle
by Craig Ladwig An exchange during a meeting this week of an Indiana city council says all you will ever need to know about those public-private “partnerships.” It is between a skeptical councilman and two prospective developers regarding a huge downtown renovation project. The participants make clear that the elements of a “successful” public-private partnership Read the full article…
McCarthy: Potholes, Priorities, Let’s Fix Them Both
by Fred McCarthy This morning’s paper uses approximately three-quarters of a page with text and pictures bemoaning the “pothole” problem. The fourth paragraph contains this quote from our mayor: “The plain truth is also that the financial condition of our city from the past few decades has been deplorable, and it has simply not had Read the full article…
Morris: The Strange Politics of ‘Supplemental’ Food
by Leo Morris When I was growing up in Kentucky, my parents were eligible for the federal government’s commodities program, the forerunner of food stamps and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). I remember a few of the things they received, including powdered milk, which was just awful, and big blocks of orange-ish cheese, which was Read the full article…
Backgrounder: The Obama Presidential Center
by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. As controversy swirls about the forthcoming Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, its builders cite jobs associated with the center as benefits. According to the Obama Foundation, there will be 5,000 jobs during the Center’s construction and 2,500 after it opens. Whatever the job figures turn out to be, they Read the full article…
Schansberg: A Return to ‘Bobos in Paradise’
by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. In his book “Bobos in Paradise” from 2000, David Brooks describes key members of American culture in the 1990s. He combines two “bo’s” to get “Bobo” — “the bourgeois world of capitalism” and “the bohemian subculture.” Since Bobos are still quite influential, it’s worth a look back at Brooks’ study to help us Read the full article…
Op-Ed: Rust Belt Redux?
by Mark Franke Growing up in Fort Wayne in the 1950s, even a youngster like me realized that this was an industrial town. The east end industries employed tens of thousands of workers, General Electric (where my father worked) had three large plants, and there was a strip of heavy industry along Taylor Street on Read the full article…
