Archive for May, 2007
A More Nuanced Concept of Inequality
I know Richard Florida is going to see things through his creative class lens, but I think he’s making some weak arguments here: But there’s two issues that are worth adding. The first is the role of personality and skills that go beyond formal learning. Some are simply more ambitious and talented, especially at mobilizing [...]
Demographics
There are a couple of things I want to say about this news story, regarding Census data showing migration in and out of the District by race, among other things. First, Census almost always undercounts the black population. The Bureau showed an overall decrease in the District population in its 2006 estimate, and I bet the [...]
Metro Workshop
So, I went to see the plans and hear the presentation, as well as a short question and answer session, but I didn’t stay for the small group workshop portion. Still, it was an enlightening experience. Thoughts: 1) It’s really exciting to see the proposed concepts; they all involve dense development around the Metro station [...]
From the Department of Hating the Wrong Things
Ezra is really tearing into economists at his site today (and why shouldn’t he? the commenters love it!). He’s letting fly with the passion, but he’s not making a ton of sense. For instance, he notes: This isn’t, incidentally, the fault of any individual economists; it’s more the outsized respect we accord the profession… Then [...]
Feeling Argumentative
I don’t know if I am or not. Either way, I’m attending tonight’s community meeting for the Brookland/CUA Metro development plan (although I haven’t RSVPed, and my wife, who notices these things, said I was supposed to). It will be interesting to see how the crowd at the event is divided, even if it’s not [...]
Meanwhile, at the bedside of the Attorney General…
I believe this is what you call a gripping news story.
On Transit Networks*
The fact that I’m an ardent supporter of mass transit doesn’t blind me to the advantages of automobile travel. People choose to drive even when they have decent transit systems, and they wouldn’t do that if there weren’t some good reasons. One of the major ones is the completeness of the road network. While going [...]
Sports
There was obviuosly no way we were going to sit around for two hours on Saturday night, waiting for the downpour to pass so we could get on with the Nats game, but I still felt just a twinge of frustration when I learned that the Washington Ryans had hit an inside-the-park homer and a [...]
“They’re coming in to rape our [expletive] neighborhood…”
This Washington Post story is hard, hard, hard for me to read. It just goes to show how difficult it is to get residents to take a broader perspective and to understand the issues involved. Ultimately, it’s up to the District government to be able to say, look, we understand your concerns, but the good [...]
Post!
Dani Rodrik is blogging! Which is fantastic. But today it’s also a little perplexing. He links to a paper by Frank Levy and Peter Temin on the institutional roots of growing inequality. Here’s the abstract: We provide a comprehensive view of widening income inequality in the United States contrasting conditions since 1980 with those in [...]