April 3, 2024
The Fearless Fund, DEI, and Attacks on Philanthropic Freedom
Anyone who believes foundations have the right to decide who and what they fund should be concerned about the lawsuit brought against the Fearless Fund, and its associated foundation, over a grant contest exclusively for Black women. That includes those of us who don’t support race-specific policies and programs. The organization behind the litigation currently winding its way…
March 31, 2024
Can Local Journalism Be Saved?
American local journalism is withering away. Between 2004 and 2019, reports Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, the country lost more than 2,000 newspapers, with the total number falling by about one-fourth, from 9,000 to 6,700. The decline bodes ill for democracy. Americans rely on local governments to provide basic public services, on voters to hold…
March 30, 2024
Preventing Weed Smoking — Not More Weed Shops — Is What NYC Needs Now
There’s no getting around the fact that New York’s retail cannabis rollout has been a mess. A few dozen legal weed shops have been swamped, per the most recent count, by at least 2,000 illegal competitors — the unsurprising result of legalizing pot more than a year before the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) issued…
March 21, 2024
It’s Not Just Minority Neighborhoods—NYC’s Entire Property-Tax System Needs Reform
There is good reason to conclude, as the state Court of Appeals did Tuesday, that New York City’s property-tax system leads to disproportionately high tax bills for minority homeowners. But those high taxes aren’t the result of discrimination; they’re just one example of a dysfunctional tax-assessment system that burdens homeowners and discourages new housing construction —…
March 14, 2024
A Crucial Fix For Rent Regulation
Housing legislation has moved to center stage in Albany, with proposals to provide aid for everything from granny flats to new, subsidized construction on the table. But one especially surprising, common-sense change in the state’s rent regulation appears to be attracting bipartisan support. A state Senate plan would permit up to 6% rent increases following major capital…
March 7, 2024
Jamaal Bowman’s Voting Rights Hypocrisy
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, best known for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol, has made voting rights a signature issue. A member of the uber-progressive “Squad” led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman has even engaged in a hunger strike and been arrested while protesting the Senate’s failure to suspend the filibuster rule to…
March 6, 2024
Caitlin Clark and Civil Society
When Larry Bird won his first National Basketball Association championship with the Boston Celtics in 1982, he made one of the best locker room interview comments ever. Between puffs of a victory cigar, he said, “This one’s for Terre Haute.” He was literally referring to the Indiana city which had supported his Indiana State college team—but…
February 23, 2024
After Milton’s MBTA Housing Defeat, The Way Forward Is With Persuasion, Not Mandates
It’s difficult to avoid seeing Milton’s referendum defeat of a proposed zoning law to permit higher-density housing construction as a signal setback for the state’s effort to pressure towns to make housing more affordable. There’s no getting around the importance of that effort. High housing prices not only burden current Bay State residents but act as a…
February 15, 2024
Harvard (Mis)Leading Housing Study
Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies is back with its annual State of the Nation’s Housing report—and once again it reaches a bleak conclusion based on a loaded and leading question designed to sound an alarm for more federal housing subsidies. Its key metric is what it calls “cost-burdened renters”—those spending more than a third…
February 7, 2024
To Save Local Journalism, Update The Public Broadcasting Act
During his time as the U.S. ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson wrote that if he faced a choice between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Jefferson would be disappointed with today’s trends. Increasingly, we are seeing government without newspapers, especially at the local level, where…