Should housing really come first? The idea is deceptively simple: how do you solve homelessness? By giving people homes. That is the essence of a recently developed approach to homelessness called Housing First, which inverts the traditional shelter-based approach by first providing the homeless with apartments, and then working on issues like drug addiction and … Read more
Former Secretary of Labor on the future of the work force Elaine Chao is the former United States Secretary of Labor. She served in President George W. Bush’s cabinet for both of his terms in office. The first Chinese-American person appointed to a president’s cabinet, Chao worked to improve worker protection and training during her … Read more
The importance of community-based responses to gang violence Gang violence devastates American urban life. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2000 there were over 24,000 gangs and over 700,000 gang members nationwide. The Child Trends Databank reports that almost three-quarters of teen deaths resulted from gang violence in 2002. These statistics bespeak the … Read more
Russia’s campaign against missile defense in Europe Ballistic missile defense — once derided as “Star Wars” by critics — is finally coming into its own as a major component of the geopolitical landscape in Europe. The extreme difficulty of hitting an intercontinental ballistic missile traveling at Mach 25 with a counter-missile, which experts say is … Read more
The future of urban transportation While Washington debates the economic mayhem surrounding bailouts and foreclosures, a more mundane phenomenon quietly imposes tremendous economic costs on America’s urban areas: traffic jams. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that urban traffic congestion causes a $78 billion annual drain on the economy, in the form of 4.2 billion lost … Read more
Have the FARC finally met their match? A recent string of defeats for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Latin America’s oldest, largest, and most dangerous rebel group, signals perhaps the best chance Colombia has had for peace in 44 years of armed struggle. During much of the 1990s, a drug-fueled civil war between … Read more
Anticipating a new era of engagement with Cuba When President Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill into law on March 11, he took a small step towards what many hope will be a new era in U.S.-Cuban relations. Embedded in the bill were three clauses that loosened sanctions on family travel and remittances, a … Read more
How long-term factors drive municipal economies In May 2008, the city of Vallejo, Calif. became the first urban victim of the global financial crisis when it filed for Chapter Nine bankruptcy, the first Californian city ever to do so. Defending this decision, Vallejo’s mayor argued that a weak economy caused by the bursting of the … Read more
George Friedman’s geopolitical prophecy The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century is a book that admits it will not get everything right. The author George Friedman, founder of the private intelligence firm STRATFOR, takes up the prophet’s mantle and tells us what the 21st century might look like. His contentions seem, at … Read more
How much have Texan oilmen shaped America? Reporter Brian Burrough follows his last corporate epic, Barbarians at the Gate, with a new book, The Big Rich, replacing skyscrapers and three piece suits with oil wells and Stetson hats. It is a sprawling story set across several continents, chronicling gumption, love, betrayal, politics, family squabbles, and … Read more