Podcasts about taubman center

Danielle Allen and Mark Fagan say that when tested, thoughtfully deployed, and regulated AI actually can help governments serve citizens better. Sure, there is no shortage of horror stories these days about the intersection of AI and government—from a municipal chatbot that told restaurant owners it was OK to serve food that had been gnawed by rodents to artificial intelligence police tools that misidentify suspects through faulty facial recognition. And now the Trump administration and Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE say they are fast-tracking the use of AI to root out government waste and fraud, while making public virtually no details about what tools they are using or how they'll be deployed. But Allen and Fagan, say that while careless deployment creates risks like opening security holes, exacerbating inefficiencies, and automating flawed decision-making, AI done the right way can help administrators and policymakers make better and smarter decisions, and can make governments more accessible and responsive to the citizens they serve. They also say we need to reorient our thinking from AI being a replacement for human judgement to a partnership model, where each brings its strengths to the table. Danielle Allen is an HKS professor and the founder of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. Mark Fagan is a lecturer in public policy and faculty chair of the Delivering Public Services section of the Executive Education Program at HKS. They join PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli to explain the guidelines, guardrails, and principles that can help government get AI right. Policy Recommendations:Danielle Allen's Policy Recommendations:* Support the "people's bid" for TikTok and generally promote an alternative, pro-social model for social media platforms.* Establish AI offices in state governments: Create offices that use AI to enhance openness, accountability, and transparency in government.Mark Fagan's Policy Recommendations:* Implement "sandbox" spaces for regulatory experimentation that allow organizations to test different policy ideas in a controlled environment to see what works.* Adopt a risk-based regulatory approach similar to the EU that categorize AI regulations based on risk levels, with clear guidelines on high-risk activities where AI use is prohibited versus those where experimentation is allowed. Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy and director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. She is also a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, national voice on AI and tech ethics, and author. A past chair of the Mellon Foundation and Pulitzer Prize Board, and former dean of humanities at the University of Chicago, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Philosophical Society. Her many books include the widely acclaimed Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v Board of Education;  Our Declaration: a reading of the Declaration of Independence in defense of equality; Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.; Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus; and Justice by Means of Democracy. She writes a column on constitutional democracy for the Washington Post. Outside the University, she is a co-chair for the Our Common Purpose Commission and Founder and President for Partners in Democracy, where she advocates for democracy reform to create greater voice and access in our democracy, and to drive progress towards a new social contract that serves and includes us all. She holds Ph.Ds from Harvard University in government and from King's College, University of Cambridge, in classics; master's degrees from Harvard University in government and King's College, University of Cambridge in classics; and an AB from Princeton in classics.Mark Fagan is a lecturer in public policy and former senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. He teaches Operations Management, Service Delivery via Systems Thinking and Supply Chain Management, and Policy Design and Delivery in the degree program. In executive education, he is the faculty chair for Delivering Public Services: Efficiency, Equity and Quality. In another program, he teaches strategy and cross boundary collaboration. The focus of his research is on the role of regulation in competitive markets. He is presently spearheading an initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government that examines the policy and associated regulatory impacts of autonomous vehicles. He leads efforts to catalyze policy making through Autonomous Vehicle Policy Scrums, cross sector policy design sessions hosted by governments from Boston to Buenos Aries to Toronto. Fagan earned a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning at Harvard University and a BA at Bucknell University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an BA in political science from UCLA and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.Scheduling and logistical support for PolicyCast is provided by Lilian Wainaina. Design and graphics support is provided by Laura King and the OCPA Design Team. Web design and social media promotion support is provided by Catherine Santrock and Natalie Montaner of the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney and Robert O'Neill of the OCPA Editorial Team.

On Monday, January 20, Donald Trump was once again sworn in as President of the United States. The ceremony was moved indoors due to the cold, where Trump declared in his inaugural address that no president has ever been tested like he has, and that “the new golden age for America starts now.” However, it wasn't all speeches and ceremonies on Monday — Trump also signed dozens of executive orders, affecting U.S. policies on a range of issues, including climate change, public health, immigration and transgender rights. And while his administration is only days old, last week, we also saw the beginning of confirmation hearings in Congress for his cabinet nominations. On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with political scientist Wendy Schiller about what these early moves in Trump-world can tell us about what's to come in a second Trump administration and how Trump will operate in a country that seems more open to his brand of politics now than it was in 2016.Transcript soon coming to our websiteGuests on this episode:Wendy Schiller is a political scientist and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at the Watson Institute. She is also the interim director of the Watson Institute.

Dr. Resa E. Lewiss takes a look back at a year of transformative conversations and storytelling on The Visible Voices Podcast. In this episode she reflects on a few conversations highlighting healthcare leadership, healthcare design, equity, innovation, and action.  You'll hear excerpts from:Wendy Dean (Episode 170): Physician, host of 43cc podcast, Moral Matters podcast, author of If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It's So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First and founder of Moral Injury in Healthcare.  Wendy Schiller (Episode 160): Brown University's Interim Director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, and co-author of Inequality Across State Lines  Joanna McClinton (Episode 164): Attorney, politician and 143rd Speaker of the House of Representatives for the State of Pennsylvania Rob Gore (Episode 173): Physician, author ofTreating Violence: An Emergency Room Doctor Takes on a Deadly American Epidemic, and founder of KAVI the Kings Against Violence Initiative Thea James (Episode 133): Physician, Vice President of Mission and Associate Chief Medical Officer at Boston Medical Center, featured in Faces of Medicine docuseries by Khama Ennis. Pooja Kumar (Episode 169): Physician and senior partner McKinsey & Company and leader in the McKinsey Health Institute.   Joe Saul-Sehy (Episode 141): Personal finance expert, co-author of Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management, and host of Stacking Benjamins Show Valerie Jarrett (Episode 136): CEO of The Obama Foundation, and author of Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward.  Graham Walker (Episode 175): Physician, HealthTech visionary, co founder of MDCalc, the NNT, the Physicians' Charter for Responsible AI, and OffCall, and host of How I Doctor podcast Here's to amplifying voices and creating meaningful change in 2025! If you enjoy the show, please leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating or review on Apple or YouTube and subscribe via the Website.

On November 5, all eyes will be on the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump for the White House. But no matter who wins the presidency, there's another close competition that will have a huge impact on U.S. politics: the fight for control of Congress. In fact, next year's Congress will play a role in our politics even before the next president is sworn in; they'll be responsible for certifying election results on January 6, 2025. Republicans appear very likely to regain control of the Senate, while control of the House of Representatives is up for grabs. To make sense of this crucial battleground within the 2024 election, Dan Richards spoke with Olivia Beavers, a congressional reporter for Politico who focuses on House Republicans and the GOP leadership. They discuss why so many House races are so close this year, how control of Congress will affect the next presidential administration and the role House Republicans would play if Trump decides to contest the results of this November's election. Link to Olivia Beavers' talk at the Watson Institute's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy coming soonTranscript coming soon to our website.

While the spotlight remains on the presidential race, the upcoming congressional elections will play a pivotal role in determining which policies the next president can successfully pass. Majority party control in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate is up for grabs. Join University of Minnesota Associate Professor and congressional scholar, Kathryn Pearson, alongside congressional expert Professor Wendy J. Schiller, director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University, as they explore the high-stakes battle for control of Congress and what we can expect in the upcoming elections.

While no one knows how this November's election is going to go in the U.S., there's one thing most experts agree on: It's likely going to be close. Very close. Poll after poll suggests that, especially in a few key states, support for the two candidates is evenly split in a way we haven't seen in decades. So, with just about four weeks to go before election day, Dan Richards spoke with two experts about the key factors shaping this race. They discuss why neither Biden's winning coalition in 2020 nor Trump's coalition in 2016 seem likely to re-form and what this all means for American politics beyond November 5. Guests on this episode: Wendy Schiller is a political science professor and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. She is also the interim director of the Watson Institute. Katherine Tate is a professor of political science at Brown University and an expert on public opinion and Black politics in the U.S. Learn more about the Watson Institute's other podcastsLearn more about Watson's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy Transcript coming soon to our website.

America is in the grip of a severe housing crisis. Tenants have seen rents rise 26 percent while home prices have soared by 47 percent since early 2020. Before the pandemic, there were 20 US states considered affordable for housing. Now there are none. And 21 million households—including half of all renters—pay more than one-third of their income on housing. Harvard Kennedy School Associate Professor Justin de Benedictis-Kessner and former Burlington, Vermont Mayor Miro Weinberger say that's because homebuilding hasn't kept up with demand. They say housing production is mired in a thicket of restrictive zoning regulations and local politics, a “veto-cracy” that allows established homeowners—sometimes even a single disgruntled neighbor—to block and stall new housing projects for years. Weinberger, a research fellow at the Taubman Institute for State and Local Politics, and de Benedictis-Kessner, whose research focuses on urban policy, say even well-intentioned ideas like so-called “inclusionary zoning” laws that encourage mixed-income housing development may also be contributing to the problem. They join PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli to discuss how housing became a affordability nightmare for millions of people. During this episode, they offer policy ideas on how streamline the inefficient and often subjective ways home building projects are regulated and how to level the democratic playing field between established homeowners and people who need the housing that has yet to be built.Miro Weinberger's policy pecommendations:Remove subjective standards such as “neighborhood character” from housing approval processes in favor of objective, measurable ones.Loosen zoning restrictions that enforce suburban-style housing development in favor of creating denser, more urban environments that historically provided more housing and are popular today.Encourage leaders of municipal governments to take an active role in housing development, seeing themselves as developers taking an active role in more housing being built.Justin de Benedictis-Kessner's policy recommendations:Integrate housing policy with other related policies including transportation and economic development in a holistic way that drives across-the-board progress.Transfer approval power currently exercised by appointed boards and elected city councils to municipal housing and planning staff experts and empower them with objective standards. Justin de Benedictis-Kessner is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His current research focuses on some of the most important policy areas that concern local governments, such as housing, transportation, policing, and economic development. His research also examines how citizens hold elected officials accountable, how representation translates the public's interests into policy via elections, and how people's policy opinions are formed and swayed.He also leads courses on urban politics and policy, including an experiential field lab that partners student teams with cities and towns to work on applied urban policy problems. His work has received the Clarence Stone Emerging Scholar Award and the Norton Long Young Scholar Award from the American Political Science Association. He earned his PhD from the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his B.A. in Government and Psychology from the College of William & Mary.Miro Weinberger MPP ‘98 served as the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, from 2012 to 2024. The longest-serving mayor in the city's history, Weinberger led significant initiatives that transformed Burlington, earning recognition for his leadership in sustainability, economic development, and public health. Under his stewardship Burlington became the first city in the United States to achieve 100 percent renewable energy status. His housing reforms quadrupled the rate of housing production, and his proactive approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic helped keep Burlington's infection and death rates among the lowest in the country. Prior to becoming mayor, Weinberger co-founded The Hartland Group, a real estate development and consulting firm based in Burlington, Vermont, and completed $40 million in development projects, creating more than 200 homes across Vermont and New Hampshire. He holds a Master's in Public Policy and Urban Planning from HKS and an AB in American Studies and Environmental Studies from Yale University. Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Design and graphics support is provided by Laura King, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial assistance is provided by Nora Delaney and Robert O'Neill of the OCPA Editorial Team. 

Jon Hartley and Edward Glaeser discuss the latter's seminal work on urban economics, zoning, land use regulation, and economic growth. They also discuss industrial policy, the important role of human capital and education in economic growth, as well as why crime has rebounded in recent years. Recorded on August 26, 2024. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Edward L. Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught economic theory and urban economics since 1992. He also leads the Urban Economics Working Group at the National Bureau of Economics Research, co-leads the Cities Programme of the International Growth Centre, and co-edits the Journal of Urban Economics. He has written hundreds of papers on cities, infrastructure and other topics, and has written, co-written and co-edited many books including Triumph of the City, Survival of the City (with David Cutler) and Fighting Poverty in the U.S. and Europe: A World of Difference (with Alberto Alesina). Ed has served as director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and chair of Harvard's Economics Department. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the Econometric Society. He received the Albert O. Hirschman prize from the Social Science Research Council. He earned his A.B. from Princeton University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1992.    Jon Hartley is a Research Associate at the Hoover Institution and an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, where he specializes in finance, labor economics, and macroeconomics. He is also currently a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) and a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jon is also a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and serves as chair of the Economic Club of Miami. Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as well as in various policy roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, US Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.  Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC, and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. ABOUT THE SERIES: Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics. For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/ RELATED RESOURCES: Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward Glaeser  Survival of the City: The Future of Urban Life In An Age of Isolation by Edward Glaeser and David Cutler 

Bloomberg's Tom Keene and David Gura get reaction to the attempted assassination attempt of former President Donald Tump. They speak with: Hadriana Lowenkron, Bloomberg News reporter Terry Haines, Pangea Policy founder Jordan Fabian, Bloomberg News white house correspondent Wendy Schiller, Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, Brown University Henrietta Treyz, Veda Partners managing partner Rick Davis, Bloomberg politics contributor and partner at Stone Court Capital Joe Mathieu, host of Bloomberg Balance of Power Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, Bloomberg politics contributor and Iona University political science professor Nancy Cook, Bloomberg News Senior national political correspondent Greg Valliere, AGF Investments Chief U.S. Policy Strategist Mick Mulroy, Lobo Institute co-founder Jack Devine, Arkin Group President   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this insightful episode of the Green Female Voices season on the Sustainable Living Podcast, we sit down with Ioana Petrescu, President of the NGO Pur și Simplu Verde and European Climate Pact Ambassador. Ioana brings a wealth of experience in sustainability and public policy, making her an influential voice in the field. About the Guest: Ioana Petrescu is a distinguished Romanian economist and public policy scholar. She currently leads the Center for Leadership and Innovation at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA) in Bucharest, focusing on the space industry and AI regulatory policy. Ioana is the President of Pur și Simplu Verde, supporting local governments in transitioning to a greener economy, and serves as Romania's European Climate Pact Ambassador. Previously, Ioana was Romania's first female Finance Minister and later joined Harvard Kennedy School as a researcher, with appointments at the Ash Center, Mosavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, and Taubman Center for State and Local Government. She has also served as an expert for the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels. Ioana holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and has taught at the University of Maryland. Her publications include the 2017 book Essays on Taxation and International Relations and the forthcoming Adolescent Democracies: A Former Finance Minister's Guide to Policy-Making. Join us for an engaging conversation on how Ioana Petrescu combines her passions for politics, economics, and the space industry to drive sustainability and equitable development, aiming for a brighter future globally. About Sustainable Living Podcast: The Sustainable Living Podcast (SLP) is proud to announce the launch of Season 7: FEMALE GREEN VOICES: THE CHANGEMAKERS. This season, we are spotlighting the voices of female sustainability leaders who are forging pathways to a greener and more equitable future. SLP is not just a podcast; it's a global platform for impactful conversations about sustainability. We are privileged to announce that the Swedish Embassy is not only a founding partner but also a supporter of the Sustainable Living Podcast for this season. This support underscores their commitment to advancing sustainability and promoting women's leadership. For more information and to listen to the latest episodes, visit https://www.sustainableliving.ro/ Website: www.sustainableliving.ro Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3rI4agY YouTube: https://bit.ly/2QWCPuB Facebook: www.facebook.com/SustainableLiving.ro Instagram: www.instagram.com/SustainableLiving.ro #sustainablelivingpodcast #sustainability #sustainableliving  #circulareconomy #circularity #sustainablebusiness #nicoletatalpes  #ioanapetrescu  

About this Episode In this episode of the Econ Dev Show Podcast (https://podcast.econdevshow.com), Dane Carlson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danecarlson/) sits down with Lara Gale (https://www.linkedin.com/in/laragale/), Economic Development Program Manager for the Taubman Center of State and Local Government at Harvard Kennedy School (https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/taubman), and Alison Turner (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amturnr/), Senior Economic Development Researcher at Argonne National Laboratory (https://www.anl.gov). Lara Gale and Alison Turner bring their extensive expertise and passion for economic development to the discussion, sharing their unique perspectives and strategic visions. They delve into innovative approaches to fostering growth and sustainability, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning and collaboration with various stakeholders. Lara provides insights into her role at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she manages economic development programs and supports state and local governments through research and practical solutions. She highlights key projects and initiatives that have contributed to economic successes, including infrastructure development and community engagement strategies. Alison discusses her work at Argonne National Laboratory, focusing on research-driven economic development. She explores the role of technology and data in shaping economic development strategies, sharing examples of how data-driven decision-making can identify trends, optimize resources, and create business-friendly environments. Together, Lara and Alison address the unique challenges and opportunities in managing economic development in diverse contexts. They emphasize the significance of community engagement and partnerships in driving economic growth, highlighting the importance of building strong relationships with local businesses, educational institutions, and community organizations for a holistic approach to development. This episode showcases the innovative work being done by Lara Gale and Alison Turner, providing valuable insights and practical strategies for economic developers and community leaders looking to drive positive change in their regions. Like this show? Please leave us a review here (https://econdevshow.com/rate-this-podcast/) — even one sentence helps! Actionable Takeaways for Economic Developers Leverage Academic Partnerships: Collaborate with academic institutions to access cutting-edge research and resources. This can provide valuable insights and innovative solutions for economic development challenges. Utilize Data-Driven Decision Making: Emphasize the importance of data in shaping economic strategies. Use data to identify trends, optimize resource allocation, and create a business-friendly environment. Foster Community Engagement: Build strong relationships with local businesses, educational institutions, and community organizations. Engaging the community can lead to more holistic and sustainable economic development. Focus on Infrastructure Development: Prioritize infrastructure projects that support long-term economic growth. This includes transportation, utilities, and technological infrastructure that can attract and retain businesses. Encourage Strategic Planning: Develop comprehensive strategic plans that outline clear goals, strategies, and metrics for success. Ensure these plans are adaptable to changing economic conditions. Promote Sustainability: Integrate sustainability into economic development strategies. This includes promoting green technologies, energy efficiency, and sustainable business practices. Enhance Workforce Development: Invest in workforce development programs that align with the needs of local industries. This can include training, education, and partnerships with local educational institutions. Diversify the Economic Base: Focus on attracting a diverse range of industries to reduce dependency on a single economic sector. This can make the local economy more resilient to market fluctuations. Implement Technology Solutions: Adopt technology solutions that streamline operations and enhance service delivery. This can include digital platforms for business support, economic forecasting tools, and more. Evaluate and Adapt: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of economic development initiatives. Use feedback and data to make informed adjustments to strategies and programs. Other Sponsors

As our discourse and our politics have become both more polarized and paralyzed, Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Erica Chenoweth and Julia Minson say we need to refocus on listening to understand, instead of talking to win. In mid-2022, the School launched the Candid and Constructive Conversations initiative, based on the idea that frank yet productive discussions over differences are not only vital to democracy and a functioning society, but that the ability to have them was also an essential skill for students, staff, and faculty in the Harvard community and beyond to learn. The effort—which uses techniques and principles based on surveys and decision science—took on even greater urgency after the recent events in Israel and Gaza and their fallout in the U.S., including at Harvard and other universities. Erica Chenoweth is the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and the academic dean for faculty Engagement at HKS, as well as one of the world's leading authorities on conflict and alternatives to political violence. Associate Professor of Public Policy Julia Minson is a decision scientist who studies the psychology of disagreement, and has developed research-based, practical methods that nearly anyone can use to make difficult conversations into productive ones.Policy Recommendations:Erica Chenoweth's Policy Recommendations:Have local governments invest more in creating opportunities for bridging divides in civil societyMaking election day a national holiday and supporting activities that are about participating in the political process and so it feels like something we all do togetherUse the Chatham House Rule and other tools to create conversational spaces that encourage open and inclusive dialogue.Julia Minson's Policy Recommendations:Create a curriculum for teenagers to learn the skills of constructive conversation across differencesTeach HEAR and other easy-to-understand conversational receptiveness training methods widely to enable candid and constructive conversations between individuals.Erica Chenoweth is the Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Dean at Pforzheimer House at Harvard College, and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. They study political violence and its alternatives. At Harvard, Chenoweth directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation. Chenoweth has authored or edited nine books on mass movements, nonviolent resistance, terrorism, political violence, revolutions, and state repression. Their recent book, “Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know,” explores what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, how violence and repression affect it, and the long-term impacts of such resistance. Their next book with HKS Lecturer in Public Policy Zoe Marks, “Bread and Roses: Women on the Frontlines of Revolution,” investigates the impact of women's participation on revolutionary outcomes and democratization. Chenoweth maintains the NAVCO Data Project, one of the world's leading datasets on historical and contemporary mass mobilizations around the globe. Along with Jeremy Pressman, Chenoweth also co-directs the Crowd Counting Consortium, a public interest and scholarly project that documents political mobilization in the U.S. since January 2017.Associate Professor of Public Policy Julia Minson is a decision scientist with research interests in conflict, negotiations and judgment and decision making. Her primary line of research addresses the “psychology of disagreement” – How do people engage with opinions, judgments and decisions that are different from their own? She is particularly interested in simple, scalable interventions to help people be more receptive to views and opinions they strongly oppose. Much of Julia's research is conducted in collaboration with the graduate and post-doctoral members of MC² – the Minson Conflict and Collaboration Lab. At the Kennedy School Julia is affiliated with the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, the Center for Public Leadership, and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Julia teaches courses on negotiations and decision-making as part of the Management, Leadership and Decision Science area, as well as through HKS Executive Education. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, Julia served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where she taught Negotiations at both the MBA and the undergraduate levels. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford University and her BA in Psychology from Harvard University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney. Design and graphics support is provided by Delane Meadows, Laura King, and the OCPA Design Team. 

Should we be able to go 100MPH? Should we have speed limiters, walkable cities, bike in the winter, or even be allowed to buy certain cars? All that and more on this podcast with David Zipper.David is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between transportation policy, technology, and society. https://www.davidzipper.com/https://slate.com/business/2023/12/cars-trucks-suv-sales-electric-safety-risk.htmlhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-19/the-inflexible-problem-with-flexible-microtransiRecorded January 4, 2023 Let CrowdHealth help with your healthcare needs. You can get started today for just $99 per month for the first three months if you use code TIRE to get the healthcare you deserve.  CrowdHealth is not insurance. Learn more at joincrowdhealth.com.  Are you still using the same belt from 2004? Now is the time to update your belt game with Groove Life. Head to GrooveLife.com/TIRE20 for 20% off ALL Groove Life products! Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to https://www.offtherecord.com/TST Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Tweet at us!https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman Want your question answered? Want to watch the live stream, get ad-free podcasts, or exclusive podcasts? Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesmokingtirepodcast Use Off The Record! and ALWAYS fight your tickets! Enter code TST10 for a 10% discount on your first case on the Off The Record app, or go to http://www.offtherecord.com/TST. Watch our car reviews: https://www.youtube.com/thesmokingtire Tweet at us!https://www.Twitter.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Twitter.com/zackklapman Instagram:https://www.Instagram.com/thesmokingtirehttps://www.Instagram.com/therealzackklapman

In this episode Harry speaks with David Zipper. David Zipper is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center, focusing on the intersection of urban policy and new mobility technologies. He has extensive experience in urban development, having worked in city hall, as a venture capitalist, and as a policy researcher. David is a Contributing Writer at Bloomberg CityLab and has held influential roles in Washington DC and New York City, promoting entrepreneurship and economic development. 0:00 Intro 7:47 Why did David want to write an article about robotaxis/rideshare? 9:48 How does David define sustainability? 11:55 What will be the biggest impact of robotaxis? 19:25 Why does public transit struggle to compete with rideshare? 22:21 What do robotaxi companies claim? 26:38 Why does the claim of better safety fail? 30:00 What will the robotaxi business model be? 36:46 Will the trade offs with robotaxis be worth it? 39:27 Where can you find more from David? David's website https://www.davidzipper.com David's Twitter https://twitter.com/DavidZipper?ref src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwqr%5Eaut hor David's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-zipper-6833006/ David's Article in The Verge https://www.theverge.com/23948675/uber-lyft-cruise-robotaxi-pollution-autonomous-vehicles David's previous RSG podcast: RSG159: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2h3HZVYub7DXfClhL4VztW?si=3a49179f562f452d

Neil Dutta, US Economic Research Head, Renaissance Macro Research says the Fed shouldn't signal rate cuts in 2024. Katy Kaminski, AlphaSimplex Chief Research Strategist sees higher yields for a little longer. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics & Policy Director at Brown University discusses the latest Wall Street Journal presidential poll.David Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group, Co-Founder & "Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein" Host talks about his interview with legendary investor Jeremey Grantham for "Bloomberg Wealth".Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Julian Emanuel, Evercore ISI Chief Equity & Quantitative Strategist, says this is not an end of a bull market run, this is just a correction. Amanda Lynam, BlackRock Head of Macro Credit Research, says we are in the early stages of the distress cycle. William Lee, Milken Institute Chief Economist, says China may need to install a social safety net for their economy. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics Policy Director at Brown University, says Gov. Ron DeSantis has the most to gain and the most to lose at the first GOP debate, as President Trump continues to lead in polls. Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On August 23, at least 5 GOP hopefuls for the party's presidential nomination will take to the stage in Milwaukee for their first primary debate. In other words, the 2024 election is about to get real.In this episode, Dan Richards talks with Wendy Schiller, professor of political science at Brown University and director of the Watson Institute's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, about where the race stands now, and what to expect in the coming months. They discuss why efforts to unseat Trump as the Republican frontrunner seem destined to backfire, and what it means for our country that a historically high percentage of American voters want neither Trump nor Biden to be president in 2024. In the second half of the show, Dan speaks with Othniel Harris, program manager of the Taubman Center, about a disturbing trend in U.S. politics that could have major implications for 2024 and beyond: the rash of restrictive voting laws passed in recent years in swing states around the country. Learn more about the Taubman Center research project “Democracy's Price Tag”Learn more about other podcasts from the Watson InstituteTranscript coming soon to our website

                                                          Rod Miller  is an President, CEO, Founder and Strategics. He explains why we should “Put people first”, how “Everyone is the CEO of their job” why we should “Suck it up and drive on” and much more. Hosted by Siebe Van Der Zee. About Rod Miller Rodrick Miller has emerged as one of the nation's foremost economic development leaders respected globally for his ability to maneuver in complex political and business environments, and craft strategies and structure deals to provide long-term value to communities and investors. Over the course of his career, he has brought more than $6B in private investment and 50,000 new jobs to communities where he has worked. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Miami-Dade County's official economic development organization, Miller is focused on attracting and retaining companies that create high-value jobs and actively invest in the community. Miller champions Miami's unique advantages as a diverse, global business destination, collaborating with key stakeholders in both the private and public sectors to leverage the strengths of the market's target industries, deliver workforce solutions, and create opportunities that drive long-term economic prosperity and inclusive growth for both residents and businesses. Experienced in leading economic recovery efforts in challenged markets across the country, Miller has launched or turned public-private development agencies around in New Orleans, Detroit and, most recently, Puerto Rico, where he served as Chief Executive Officer of Invest Puerto Rico.  Prior to those positions, Miller served as the Executive Vice President of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Vice President of International Economic Development for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) and held several other positions in the public and private sectors. He began his career in the private sector in management consulting and infrastructure finance, is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese. Miller is also Founder and CEO of Ascendant Global, a boutique economic development firm focused on providing bold growth solutions to help economies sustain themselves, gaining jobs and private investment.  Ascendant Global has led diverse economic initiatives for a range of clients including Living Cities, the Kellogg Foundation, The Fund for our Economic Future, and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Miller holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor of Science in International Business from St. Augustine's College. He also gained a Graduate Diploma in Finance from the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Mexico as a Fulbright Fellow. A scholar practitioner, he has been a featured speaker to organizations such as Google, AIG, and the World Bank, and has lectured at Harvard University, Arizona State University, The University of Michigan and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has written extensively in scholarly and trade publications on the future of work, inclusive economic development, and market competitiveness. Miller is currently a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University's Taubman Center for State and Local Government where he is building a community of practice to rethink how economic development should be more inclusive and sustainable, training the next generation of economic development leaders, and researching diverse economic development topics including inclusive economic growth, incentives, and the Build Back Better program. Miller is a board member of the New Growth Innovation Network, the Harvard Kennedy School Alumni Board, New Corp (CDFI), and St. Augustine's University. He is a former board member of the International Economic Development Council and completed a term membership with the Council on Foreign Relations. He has advised various federal agencies on economic policy including the Federal Reserve Board, the Economic Development Administration, and the White House. Miller has received numerous accolades including Young Economic Developer of the Year (2013), Michigan Man of Excellence (2016), the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Harvard Kennedy School Black Student Union (2018), and various others. He enjoys playing the piano, reading, and spending time with his family. Episode Notes Lesson 1: Put people first.   06:25 Lesson 2: Remember, the arc of time is long. 10:04 Lesson 3: You don't know how much capacity one has until you put it to the test. 11:11 Lesson 4: Everyone is the CEO of their job. Take initiative and lead. Results matter.  Everything else is noise.  17:35 Lesson 5: Be interesting. Try something new. 21:14 Lesson 6: Suck it up and drive on. 23:49 Lesson 7: One's character is demonstrated when one's faced with adversity.  26:46 Lesson 8: No one is completely self-made. Everyone has had some help. 28:41 Lesson 9: The world is a large place.  Follow the news and travel.  33:53 Lesson 10: We'll all have to die one day; make time for the people you love. 36:39  

Jeff Rosenberg, BlackRock Portfolio Manager of the Systematic Multi-Strategy Fund says we are seeing normalization in the labor market. Ed Yardeni, Yardeni Research President says we're in a rolling recovery, but the second half of the year could be challenging. Tom Forte, DA Davidson Senior Research Analyst, says Amazon's cost cuts could impact customers going forward. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy Director at Brown University says the Trump indictment emboldens his base.Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Palandjian is Chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, an SEC-registered real estate investment manager with a portfolio of over 36 million square feet across 155 properties, over 15,000 multifamily units and current NAV of $10 billion+ and GAV $14 billion+. Peter oversees the affiliated Intercontinental operating companies, with primary responsibility for strategic planning and direction of all company activities. Intercontinental's sole strategy it its flagship vehicle, United States Real Estate Investment Fund (“U.S. REIF”), currently the 7th-largest member of the NCREIF ODCE fund index (Open-Ended Diversified Core Equity). Prior to joining Intercontinental in 1993, Mr. Palandjian worked as the assistant to the CEO of Staples, Inc. and as an Associate Consultant with Bain & Company. Mr. Palandjian holds memberships with the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA); the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP); and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers (NAREIM). Mr. Palandjian has also been active on a number of corporate and not-for-profit boards, presently serving as a board member of several institutions including: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, O'Neill & Associates, Leader Bank, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (“LAANE”), Mikva Challenge, Harvard's Varsity Club, the Taubman Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and the Purple Heart Service Foundation. Mr. Palandjian is also Trustee Emeritus at The Fessenden School and works on behalf of Harvard University as a volunteer undergraduate admissions interviewer. Peter earned his B.A. from Harvard University and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and was a two-time Harvard tennis Captain and world ranked player on the ATP tour. Our conversation with Peter begins with a discussion about his family, including his Armenian-Irish heritage and upbringing in Belmont, Mass. The family business, then known as Continental Construction, was started by his father who emigrated from Armenia with an accordion and $500 in his pocket. We pressed Peter on his illustrious tennis career, which he humbly described as a “journeyman” career but from which he took the tenets of resilience and rigorous effort into the real estate industry. Peter shares with us his time at Bain & Company, Staples Inc. and Harvard Business School, as well his entry into the real estate business alongside his father, who had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. A leadership transition occurred ahead of schedule, as Petros A. Palandjian's health deteriorated and his cancer became terminal, and Peter was thrust into a tumultuous chapter involving numerous partnerships to unwind in a difficult market. We then dive into the tremendous growth of Intercontinental, with a focus on the evolution of its core business from fully integrated services and investment partnerships to private equity real estate, structured in fund-based investment management services. In 1999, Intercontinental became an SEC-registered Investment Advisor, clearing the path for a prolific but disciplined rise as a manager of institutional capital. Peter shares with us lessons learned along the way, including the early days of raising institutional money and the firm's leadership in both private and public pension fund capital management. While Intercontinental is a household name in New England real estate circles, its national prominence is perhaps lesser known to Boston market participants. Peter was refreshingly candid, speaking openly about a few “bloopers”, life and deal lessons along the way, the importance of culture and teamwork at Intercontinental, and much more. He defers credit to his teammates and more than once references the “family” at Intercontinental. Of course, we also take Peter's...

How is artificial intelligence impacting economies, political environments, financial markets and misinformation? In this podcast, Julian Jacobs, senior economist, OMFIF, interviews Darrell West, senior fellow, the Brookings Institution, to discuss the promises and perils that may emerge as countries embrace AI. What are the policy challenges and how can governments work to counter them? This podcast will discuss the implications of AI on economic inequality, productivity growth, central banking, financial stability and misinformation amid the rise of large language models. Darrell West is a senior fellow for Brookings' Center for Technology Innovation within the Governance Studies program and a co-editor-in-chief of TechTank. West is the former vice-president and director of Governance Studies. His current research focuses on artificial intelligence, robotics and the future of work. West is also director of the John Hazen White Manufacturing Initiative. Prior to joining Brookings, he was the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University.

Abby Joseph Cohen, Columbia Business School Professor & Retired Goldman Sachs Partner, says there's a divergence between investors and commentators on economic data. Sarah House, Wells Fargo Senior Economist, discusses the US May CPI print. Jacob J. Lew, Former US Treasury Secretary, says we're not yet done with seeing the impacts of higher interest rates. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics & Policy Director at Brown University, says the Trump indictment is a development for democracy and that Presidents "should be held accountable."Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite cutting exposure to tech last year, Seema Shah, Principal Asset Management Chief Global Strategist, remains a long-term believer in the sector. Marilyn Watson, BlackRock Head of Global Fundamental Fixed Income Strategy, sees the Fed staying higher for longer. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics & Policy Director at Brown University, discusses Pence, Christie entering the '24 presidential race. Alberto Gallo, Andromeda Capital Management Co-Founder & CIO, says if we have a persistently hawkish central bank, and if the long end goes up, then the consequences for markets are pretty heavy. Clare Lombardelli, OECD Chief Economist, says the world faces slow growth, not recession.Get the Bloomberg Surveillance newsletter, delivered every weekday. Sign up now: https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/surveillance See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg Washington Correspondent Joe Mathieu delivers insight and analysis on the latest headlines from the White House and Capitol Hill, including conversations with influential lawmakers and key figures in politics and policy.On this edition, Joe speaks with: Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat from Wisconsin on where House Democrats might be willing to compromise on spending Nancy Cook, Bloomberg White House and Politics reporter on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially launching Presidential bid Bloomberg Politics Contributors Jeanne Sheehan Zaino and Rick Davis about DeSantis and the growing GOP 2024 field and debt limit talks Plus, Joe, along with co-host Kailey Leinz, speak with: Wendy Schiller, Professor of Political Science, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University about the political fallout of debt limit talks and Ron DeSantis Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican from Louisiana on his "big idea" to tamp down on spending See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Every minute, roughly 20 people in America (mostly women and children) become victims of domestic violence. The effects of these crimes ripple out to families and communities in every corner of the United States. Yet, despite this, policymakers have failed to address domestic violence in a consistently meaningful way. In this episode, political scientists Wendy Schiller and Kaitlin Sidorsky – authors of the new book "Inequality Across State Lines" - explain how the government fails to protect victims of domestic violence in the U.S. Specifically, they explore how different states have approached (or ignored) the issue and what these test cases can teach us about how to address the crisis going forward. In looking at the policy failures around domestic violence, as well as possible solutions to the crisis, they also make clear: this issue affects us all, whether we know it or not. Kaitlin Sidorsky is an associate professor of political science at Coastal Carolina University. Wendy Schiller is a professor of political science and Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Watson. Learn more about and purchase their book Inequality Across State Lines: How Policymakers Have Failed Domestic Violence Victims in the United StatesLearn more about the Watson Institute's other podcasts.

Every minute, roughly 20 people in America (mostly women and children) become victims of domestic violence. The effects of these crimes ripple out to families and communities in every corner of the United States. Yet, despite this, policymakers have failed to address domestic violence in a consistently meaningful way. In this episode, political scientists Wendy Schiller and Kaitlin Sidorsky – authors of the new book "Inequality Across State Lines" - explain how the government fails to protect victims of domestic violence in the U.S. Specifically, they explore how different states have approached (or ignored) the issue and what these test cases can teach us about how to address the crisis going forward. In looking at the policy failures around domestic violence, as well as possible solutions to the crisis, they also make clear: this issue affects us all, whether we know it or not. Kaitlin Sidorsky is an associate professor of political science at Coastal Carolina University. Wendy Schiller is a professor of political science and Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Watson. Learn more about and purchase their book Inequality Across State Lines: How Policymakers Have Failed Domestic Violence Victims in the United StatesLearn more about the Watson Institute's other podcasts. Transcript coming soon to our website.

Tom Michaud, KBW CEO, says the banking crisis is behind us, "barring any other major shocks." Ed Al-Hussainy, Columbia Threadneedle Investments Senior Interest Rates Strategist, says the Fed will prioritize inflation. Geoffrey Yu, BNY Mellon Senior Market Strategist, says central banks will keep rates higher for longer. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy Director at Brown University, discusses the hearings on the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank. David Rubenstein, "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations" Host and Carlyle Group Co-Chairman & Co-Founder, says the banking system is in "reasonably good shape."  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosts Jim Maher and Gayle Knutson speak with David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government on what's going right and wrong in America's attempted conversion to electric vehicles (6:00), and Laurie Schneider of the Pollinator Friendly Alliance with a progress report on pollinators (26:00). Gayle also has a roundup of local news (47:00). Matt Quast is technical director.This Week's Guests   David Zipper, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLaurie Schneider, Pollinator Friendly AllianceGovernment Links: City of Marine on St. CroixCity of ScandiaMay TownshipWashington CountyEntertainment Links Ted Lasso Dart Scene   Ted Lasso Season 3 Trailer  Events Jim & Gayle Biking Presentation Replay  Marine Documentary NightJohn Gorka Concert for Marine Community LibraryBusiness/Organization Links:Marine Community Library Marine Village SchoolMarine Fan Supporter & Booster Facebook PageMarine Mills Folk School

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-driving cars and robotaxis are starting to appear on the streets of San Francisco. While we have a whole regulatory system in place for drivers, who's making sure these new cars are safe? Guest: David Zipper, Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paris Marx is joined by David Zipper to discuss how Silicon Valley pitched new technologies as the fix for a whole range of transport problems, and how that really just distracted us from solutions while allowing issues like  road deaths, emissions, and traffic to get even worse.David Zipper is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government and a contributing writer at Bloomberg CityLab. You can find his articles and sign up for his newsletter at DavidZipper.com and follow him on Twitter at @DavidZipper.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, support the show on Patreon, and sign up for the weekly newsletter.The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.Also mentioned in this episode:David wrote about why traffic safety is getting worse in the US, and compared it to Canada, Finland, France, and Japan. He also wrote about the history of self-driving cars, the danger posed to pedestrians on the roads, the problem with infotainment systems, and what's wrong with positioning car tech as the solution to our problems.Paris wrote about how Elon Musk designed the Hyperloop to try to get California's high-speed line canceled.AAA puts the annual cost of car ownership in the US at over $10,000 a year in 2022. In Canada, CAA put it at $8600 to $13,000 a year in 2017 — a number that is surely even higher now.Peter Norton wrote about how the auto industry took over US roads in the early 1900s in Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.Support the show

Alan Ruskin, Deutsche Bank Chief International Strategist, discusses outlook and market implications if the US midterms yield a divided government. Wendy Schiller, Taubman Center for American Politics & Policy Director at Brown University, says Democrats have more to do on messaging to voters. Daniel Ives, Wedbush Senior Equity Research Analyst, says Apple is facing a supply issue, not a demand issue. Nela Richardson, ADP Research Institute Co-Head & Chief Economist, expects inflation to be more persistent. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg Daybreak with John Tucker and Nathan Hager. Wendy Schiller, director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University, talks about Federal investigators raidinge Florida residence of Donald Trump with Bloomberg's John TuckerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 1973, the Supreme Court made abortion a constitutional right in its Roe v. Wade decision. This June, in a 6-to-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Supreme Court undid that right.  The decision set off shockwaves across the country, and brought up questions not only about reproductive rights, but about the relationship between the Supreme Court and US politics at large.  Dobbs vs. Jackson was only one of several wide-ranging, polarizing decisions of this Supreme Court term. On this episode of Trending Globally, Wendy Schiller, professor of political science and the director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Watson, helps explain this term's monumental decisions, and ground them in American politics and history.  At a moment when the reach of the court seems to extend further than ever and its opinions fall on an increasingly divided nation, there's never been a more important time to assess how our judicial system works – and how it doesn't.  https://watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts (Learn more about the Watson Institute's other podcasts) Transcript coming soon

El 9 de diciembre de 2021, la Fundación Rafael del Pino organizó la conferencia magistral “Sobrevivir a las ciudades. Vivir y prosperar en la era del aislamiento”, impartida por Edward I. Glaeser, catedrático de Economía en Harvard donde dirige el Taubman Center for State and Local Government y el Rappaport Institute for Great Boston.

El 9 de diciembre de 2021, la Fundación Rafael del Pino organizó la conferencia magistral “Sobrevivir a las ciudades. Vivir y prosperar en la era del aislamiento”, impartida por Edward I. Glaeser, catedrático de Economía en Harvard donde dirige el Taubman Center for State and Local Government y el Rappaport Institute for Great Boston.

On November 16, a $1 trillion infrastructure bill was signed into law by President Biden, marking the biggest investment in the country's infrastructure in decades. At the same time, an even larger social spending bill sits in a state of limbo in Congress, with no resolution in sight.   What happens in the US Congress over the next few months should matter to everyone, not just the political hobbyists. With proposed government spending on everything from fighting climate change to supporting new industries in the US, the success or failure of President Biden's legislative agenda will have a huge effect not just in America, but around the world.  On this episode Sarah Baldwin '87 and Dan Richards talk with two experts to get a sense of how President Biden's agenda has been making its way through Congress, and how the process fits into the bigger picture of US electoral politics.  Guests: Carrie Nordlund is assistant dean for undergraduate programs at Brown University, and co-host, with Mark Blyth, of the (aptly titled) podcast, Mark and Carrie.  Wendy Schiller is a professor of political science at Brown and director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, which is housed at the Watson Institute.  https://watson.brown.edu/taubman/ (Learn more about the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy.)   https://watson.brown.edu/news/podcasts (Learn more about Watson's other podcasts, including Mark and Carrie.) 

Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much—and, generally speaking, they don't agree on health care policy.  But Robert Hackey and Todd Olszewski tell us that there is a rich history and potential for actual cooperation on policies intended to keep Americans healthy and the nation strong. Bob Hackey is a Professor of Health Policy and Management at Providence College and an Affiliate of the Taubman Center for American Politics & Policy at Brown University.  He is the author of two university press books on state health care regulation and the rhetoric of health care reform, and co-edited two other volumes on health care reform.  Hackey's research on health care professions, health care in popular culture, state health planning, and the regulation of medical providers has appeared in more than 20 peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of the American Academy of PAs, and the Journal of Popular Culture, among others.  In 2018, he served as a guest editor for the Rhode Island Medical Journal‘s special issue on the PA profession.  For more than a decade, his research has focused on how Americans talk about health care and health care reform.  He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Brown University in 1992. Todd Olszewski is an associate professor of health policy and management at Providence College, where he also serves as associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence.  He was previously a Stetten Fellow in the History of the Biomedical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.  He has published on the history of heart disease and clinical research in Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, and the Rhode Island Medical Journal.  Olszewski's research focuses on how medical research and public health institutions—like the NIH—translate scientific discoveries into clinical practice, technological innovation, and public policy.  He earned his Ph.D. in history with a concentration in the history of medicine from Yale University in 2008. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of “Keen On”, Andrew is joined by Edward Glaeser, the author of “Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation”, to discuss how cities are changing in the face of existential threats that have only been accelerated by the pandemic. Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught microeconomic theory, and occasionally urban and public economics, since 1992. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992. Visit our website: https://lithub.com/story-type/keen-on/ Email Andrew: a.keen@me.com Watch the show live on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajkeen Watch the show live on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankeen/ Watch the show live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lithub Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiteraryHub/videos Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter: https://andrew2ec.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Not only was our healthcare system failing us in its job of keeping us healthy for as little dollar and resource costs as possible, now we know it's also failing in its ability to keep us safe from pandemic." Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and David Cutler join the show for a discussion centered around their new book Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. The two argue that while city life will survive, individual cities face major risks. What happens when offices don't fill back up? How comfortable are companies with employees working from home? What will distinguish between cities that flourish and those that do not? Also addressed: the major inequities in healthcare and our deeply flawed health system, and how in a city, just like the world, our health is all interconnected. Support Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk. Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught microeconomic theory, and occasionally urban and public economics, since 1992. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992. David Cutler has developed an impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. He served as Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University from 1991 to 1995, was named John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1995, and received tenure in 1997. He is currently the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics and was named Harvard College Professor in 2014 until 2019. Professor Cutler holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. Professor Cutler was associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences from 2003-2008.

Christine Heenan serves as Flagship's senior partner and chief communications officer, overseeing communications, external affairs, brand and marketing for Flagship and its enterprise companies. She also serves as an advisor to the dozens of Flagship-founded companies in its broader ecosystem. She is the founder and former president of Clarendon Group, a consulting firm focused on social impact, communications, advocacy, and leadership voice. While at Clarendon she advised clients including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Institute, the Whitehead Institute, the Social Science Research Council, CARE USA, University of Miami, the Rockefeller Family Office, philanthropist Donald Sussman, and other notable organizations, leaders, and philanthropists. She served as Senior Vice President for Global Policy & Advocacy at The Rockefeller Foundation, where she led the Foundation's policy, program influence, partnerships, and communications teams, as well as its regional teams in Asia, Africa and Italy. She also oversaw the Bellagio and Fellows unit.  While at Rockefeller, she led the creation of #Solvable, a global platform for highlighting the UN Sustainable Development Goals featuring more than 45 mini-films, an acclaimed podcast, and an award-winning documentary film. She also helped conceive and launch the “Without Mom” campaign, a multi-country effort to raise awareness for preventable maternal mortality launched during Mom Congress on Capitol Hill in 2019. From 2008 to 2015, Heenan was Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications for Harvard University, overseeing its communications, government relations, and digital strategy teams in Cambridge, Boston, and Washington, DC. During the Clinton Administration she served in the White House as a Senior Policy Analyst and speechwriter, focused primarily on health care policy, women's issues, and other areas of domestic policy. Heenan was an adjunct assistant professor of public policy at the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and a Freshman Seminar instructor at Harvard College, teaching on communications in policy making. In 2010, Heenan was awarded a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center at Harvard. She was previously a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, and now serves as Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where she is part of the teaching team for a new and highly participatory class at HBS called “Conversations on Leadership.” Heenan began her career in business strategy consulting for Telesis and SJS – spinoffs of Boston Consulting Group – working on business process analysis, cost analysis, market strategy, and strategic planning for national and international corporations including Corning, Rubbermaid, Ahlstrom, and IKEA. She has served on a number of boards focused on child development, education, and economic policy, and now serves on the boards of the David Rockefeller Fund and the University of Rhode Island. She and her family live in New York and Rhode Island. Don't forget to check out my book that inspired this podcast series, The Caring Economy: How to Win With Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toby-usnik/support

David Zipper, repeat RSG guest, is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. Connect with him at DavidZipper.com

On this episode, guest host Rich Arenberg talks with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island about some of the most pressing issues in American politics. Rich is the Interim Director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Watson, and spent decades staffing some of the most influential Congress people of the 20th century. Senator Whitehouse is a leading voice on many issues in Congress, including climate change, campaign finance reform, and judicial appointments. In this conversation, they give an insider’s view on everything from the Supreme Court battle to the presidential election, to the newest evolution of dark money in our politics. You can learn more about the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy here: [https://watson.brown.edu/taubman/] This conversation was recorded on October 7, 2020. We'll put a link here to the full version on YouTube as soon as it's available. You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yoooWII9QBCJr9CN5PSDDAMyvDZJh3ab/view?usp=sharing]

  ACEC welcomes David Zipper onto the show to discuss the future of infrastructure funding in a post COVID economy and the future of Mobility as a Service (MOS).  David Zipper is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. David’s perspective on urban development is rooted in his experience working within city hall as well as being a venture capitalist, policy researcher, and startup advocate. He has consulted with numerous startups and public officials about regulatory strategy. David’s articles about urban innovation have been published in The Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, and Car and Driver. His 2018 article in Fast Company was the first to apply the the “walled garden” framework to urban mobility. David has spoken at events including the Consumer Electronics Show, SXSW, and the FIA Conference. He focuses on topics including Mobility-as-a-Service, the uses of transportation data, the future of micromobility, and linkages between public transit, city regulations, and private shared vehicles.From 2013 to 2017 David was the Managing Director for Smart Cities and Mobility at 1776, a global entrepreneurial hub with over 1,300 member startups. At 1776 David connected hundreds of entrepreneurs to urban leaders eager to deploy their solutions, and he closed millions of dollars in partnerships with cities and corporations worldwide. He continues to be a Partner in the 1776 Seed Fund.David previously served as the Director of Business Development and Strategy under two mayors in Washington DC, where his responsibilities included attracting businesses to the city, promoting entrepreneurship, and overseeing economic development strategy. David led support to Washington’s first startup incubators and guided the city's response to the emergence of ride hail services. Before moving to Washington David served as Executive Director of NYC Business Solutions in New York City under Mayor Bloomberg. David holds an MBA with Highest Honors from Harvard Business School, an M.Phil in Land Economy (Urban Planning) from Cambridge University, and a BA with High Honors from Swarthmore College. He has been selected as a Truman Scholar, a Gates Scholar, and a Baker Scholar. Transcript: Host:Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. I am pleased today to welcome David zipper onto the program. David is a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies. David's perspective on urban development is rooted in his experience working within city hall, as well as being a venture capitalist, a policy researcher, and a startup advocate. He has consulted with numerous startups and public officials about regulatory strategy. David is a published article appearing in Wired, The Atlantic, Slate, and Car and Driver. He's spoken to groups such as the consumer electronics show South by Southwest, and focuses on topics such as mobility as a service and micro mobility and the linkages between public transit city regulations and private shared vehicles. David was also one of the panelists on the ACEC Research Institute's most recent round table discussion on the future of engineering focused on the future of funding in a post COVID-19 environment. And David welcome onto the show. Really great to have you. David Zipper :Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be with you. Host:So that was an interesting panel. I listened to it a couple of times and I would imagine, I guess it's safe to say there was a universal agreement that the recovery is going to be gradual at best. After COVID-19 with your perspective from working in city hall and having that local political experience, how do you see this playing out where really the rubber meets the road? You know, you're talking about metropolitan transit agencies, you're talking about, you know, people get trying to get to and from work. How do you think COVID-19 is going to impact cities? David Zipper :That's a big question. And there's lots of different ways to answer it. And frankly, the answers are going to be different based on the, the nature of a transit agency versus a county government or a city government. But I can certainly maybe I can offer some, some overall thoughts up front and we can go into whatever detail that you like. But but yeah, in the short term you've seen transit agencies and local governments and state governments really just scrambling to keep the lights on as it were. Adjusting transit routes. Sometimes bringing up capital projects to do, to go faster because there's fewer people on the roads and there's fewer people flying at airports. So you can do airport expansions all faster. There's fewer trains running. So you might be able to more easily do capital projects. David Zipper:But that's really like a, a sort of a short term band-aid because the money's running out fast. We're already just, just today, actually, as we're recording this, there's been news about a $20 billion plus budget gap over the next couple of years in New York City's MTA, that's going to have to get closed. And the biggest transit agencies are feeling the pain first because they are really using their farebox revenue. The fairs that we all pay when we take transit they've used what they, that they collected yesterday to pay today's operating expenses. And in the big cities, that's a big chunk of their revenue, transit revenue. Transit ridership has fallen through the floor because people are uncomfortable on transit, even though it's the data suggests it's relatively safe, as long as people wear masks, but you've already seen, for example, in San Francisco, Muni, the transit service, there is consolidated routes really in a huge way, Caltrain in the Bay area, its future is up in the air there's discussion of whether to do a new tax to save it. David Zipper :And the transit agencies are going to feel the pain a little bit later because most of their revenue comes from state and federal governments that, you know, their budget is already allocated for this year, before the coronavirus hit. But there'll be a rolling impact there. And then for, for, for states and cities to, to you know, state the obvious they can't print money, they have to meet their, their - they have to make their budgets align so they can have a deficit. So what that means is that you're seeing some projects postponed, you're seeing layoffs and the Cares Act at the federal level. It gave a bit of a lifeline a few months ago when the coronavirus first hit there's discussion. Like again, as we're recording this there's discussions on Capitol Hill about a new federal investment program, it's unclear if that's going to have money for states, cities, deities, and for transit agencies, if it doesn't, I expect we're going to see pretty intense contractions and layoffs and pull back on capital projects and all of those levels. Host:It's been in my experience, you know, formerly on Capitol Hill and, and, and, and just watching this from time to time with all the surface bills that kind of come on, you always have that partisan divide when it comes down to the usual argument is that, you know, Republicans want to have the move towards devolution, but it was always that argument that, okay, we're going to Republicans would fight against Democrats who wanted to have bike trails or greenways or things of that nature, rails to trails, things like that. And then the Republicans were always going to fight against transit because they just wanted to make sure that that highway trust fund was kind of boxed in for roads. Host:Given the fact that we're in this new environment now, we're, it seems the federal government is more willing to provide aid, to deal with, to soften the blow for COVID-19. Do you think that any of those old entrenched arguments might shift, just because of the willingness to put money on the table to actually create assistance programs, do you think this might be an opportunity to break the paradigm and potentially have that money going to, you know, state and local transit agencies more freely? David Zipper :I wish I could say yes. I can't because there's a, I think unfortunately the you know, we used to say decades ago that transportation is a nonpartisan issue is simply not true anymore. The, the there's a professor at UC Santa Barbara named Clayton Nall. He wrote a book called the Road to Inequality. And in which he writes about how in the last 50 years transportation funding and particular transit funding has become remarkably partisan. David Zipper :Even to the point that if you live in a Democratic area, like say the Bay area or the New York area, even if you never take transit, you're more likely to vote in favor of referendums, referenda in favor of transit than, than any those who who'd be elsewhere, that doesn't apply in other parts of the country. So transit has become a democratic issue, which to me is unfortunate because frankly, the more people who are riding transit, the less congested roads are including those roads that are being used by some exerbs and suburbanites who are more likely to be Republican. So I would love to, to hear to, for your hypothesis to be held, to be the whole true. But from everything I've seen, like, for example, with the Cares Act you know, Schumer and the Senate and its allies had to hold out longer to be able to get a few billion dollars more for transit, it seems like it was done despite Republican opposition, as opposed to a sort of like heralding, a new breakthrough, which I wish it would on a nonpartisan bias. Host:That's something that was kind of brought up a little bit on the panel, but it wasn't really delve deep really more, more than just a couple of questions and just comments on it. But the push pull between of course, the large metropolitan areas in, on the coasts and your larger cities in the interior, but then you have those swaths of, let's say, you know, like I said, exurban or rural areas, how do you think the funding's going to be effected for projects in those smaller cities or, or areas between the two coasts? David Zipper :Well, a lot of it, right, it's going to depend on, on one, what happened to the budgets of state DOTs, and that's what, that's what those small cities and rural areas are really relying on. And this is a point that was made by Jeff Davis on the, on the panel. David Zipper :You know, even if there is stimulus money from the federal government is provided with a very generous match for highway projects for small towns. And for rural areas would say, I don't know, four to one federal match or whatever it is. There's still a one in five, 1 dollar of every five has to be put up by the local and state governments that at a time when income taxes are collapsing and tax revenue from hotels and restaurants, it's just drying up. It's not clear the extent to which States and local governments can even meet very modest matches. So if I were an official at a, in a small city or small town or a rural county, that's what I would really be worried about is to say, look, if I get a generous program with a low match, can I even meet that? I may just be grants. Yeah. Host:And that, that kind of goes into the segway to the idea of the integrated mobility or the mobility as a, and where the private sector might be able to in some way, step in. I mean, it's the few - Consumer Technology Association and CES. I've been out to a couple of their shows and seen kind of the idea of, you know, mobility as a service. The idea that you know, you might be able to have - deleverage maybe transit. And so in some way where you can actually then have vehicles, which are not so much owned, but private shared vehicles or some kind of autonomous systems, some, some cities are starting to try to get pilot programs on the road already for autonomous buses and things of that nature, which are private public partnerships. That's all nascent a little, you know, it's not fully developed. Where do you think the opportunity is for some of these technology companies that are, that are focused on mobility, and that's a big change. I mean, just the change between transportation to the concept of mobility is not so much what you own or what you have, but how do you get from point a to point B? Host:Do you think It's an opportunity for the private sector kind of enter and, and treat this as a, as a business opportunity? David Zipper :Maybe, maybe I wrote an article in Slate two months ago that noted how truly unusual this moment is, and that you know, ordinarily, there's a lot of research that shows it takes a lot to get you or me or anybody to change how they travel. We're creatures of habit when it comes to commuting, right? We have a given route we take to get to go to work or to the grocery store, to the gym or to the school. And if we're biking or if we're taking a bus, or if we're driving, we're probably going to stick to that. It takes a lot to get us to change. Just inviting you to change or me to change is probably not going to do much. David Zipper :It's really hard. What does get people to change and individual change is if you have a shock, like a like you have a new child born, and your habits have you have to move around, or let's change, maybe you change where you live, you move where you get a new job. That's an individual shock though, or a household shock. What we're undergoing now because of COVID is a society wide shock where everybody is rethinking how they travel, because they may not be going to work anymore at all. And they, if they took public transit, they may not be comfortable doing that. Now they may not be comfortable at being in ride hail the way they used to. There's lots of trips, millions of trips up for grabs in terms of how, what the new mode might be. And frankly, this is sort of a rationale for the cities to quickly put up bike lanes and, and new infrastructure that it can, can encourage people to not default to driving, which can feel like the safest route. David Zipper :It's just not sustainable at scale for cities. So the question becomes to get to your point of like, what's the role of the private sector in this? I would say that there is potentially a role for private sector actors, whether it's operators like scooter companies to step in and be able to provide, for example, a lower priced options for the short term, or maybe monthly rentals, which companies like Spin and I believe Lime have moved toward providing now as sort of a product that fits the market right now to encourage people who are not going to be, who might otherwise default to driving, to take another mode. That's more environmentally friendly, it takes up less space. And then you get into mobility as a service, which for those who aren't familiar, I would assume that everyone knows about MOS. Maybe I should define it really quick, because I don't know if all of our listeners are engaged in that. I Know some of the larger players in the engineering space are, but... David Zipper :Yeah, it's still a new field. It's a lot of people are excited about it and transportation planning and policy and technology, but it's still in its early days. The idea behind mobility as a service is to say that if we can sort of take all of these various options to get around a city for those who don't drive and knit all those options together. So you've got transit in there and scooters and ride hail and car share and bike share, and whatever else, put them all on one platform that MOS platform, it lets people choose how to get from point a to point B on all of those collective options and purchase their ticket, or a ticket that's a combination of modes on that platform. You can actually take away some of the friction, the annoyance factor of having to jump between apps and figure out which is the best service to get you from point A to point B. David Zipper :This is a need, MOS advocates claim, that really didn't exist 20 years ago when we had a very sort of fixed number for decades, really of a number of ways to get around town. You walk, bike, taxi, drive transit, but now we've got these other new modes and MOS can make a little bit simpler to navigate. So, and there's a bunch of companies that provide this now, like City Mapper and transit and so forth. And so on Google Maps, you could argue as a MOS provider in some ways. So the, the role of MOS in this particular moment that we're in is potentially a powerful one because lots of people are again, figuring out how to travel because they're breaking their old habits about how to get from point A to point B and MOS platforms can inform those decisions. David Zipper :And perhaps if the government gets involved, especially could nudge some of those decisions to be, to be resulting in a trip that's other than driving and potentially other than transit, cause people are just uneasy with it right now, for reasons that are in a lot of ways. Understandable. So is this a moment for MOS? Maybe? I would argue that these platforms are really reliant on the underlying quality and comfort of the services that they knit together. So you need to be able to provide comfortable biking and scooter lanes in a city to make people consider those options. You need to be able to provide reliable transit, to get people, to consider that which is, you know, sometimes a problem in American cities. But I do think this is a moment where MOS could be an interesting area of exploration Host:Or at least an area a time where federal policymakers can start looking at this and integrating it into, you know, long-term, you know, policy that, cause I know that, you know, Uber for example, was, was very active on the Hill talking about their fully integrated model where it's, you know, it was the combination when, you know, Uber taxi was kind of first coming out and they were talking about, we'll take an Uber to they're there, I guess, hanger or whatever they're going to consider, you know, get on an Uber taxi that will fly you to the next facility where you can go and take an Uber for your final destination. And you know, that kind of a kind of integrated, you know, closed loop system. David Zipper :Yeah, I mean, that's a little that's going to suit Uber's needs. I'm not sure cities are going to be that excited about everybody jumping into helicopters. Host:Exactly. David Zipper :I think that the high speed rail argument of saying, okay, you can take a high speed rail route to, let's say Washington DC to New York, but after you get off the train, then what? David Zipper :Correct. Host:It's how do you, how do you connect a route and how do you connect that high speed rail line termination to all the different options you can get to get to your final destination without having to get a car or, or, or reliant on one form of transportation over another. David Zipper :Yeah, I think the idea is if you're choosing between driving, flying or taking the train wouldn't it be nice if you could basically with one tap, be able to purchase your train ticket and know that there will be a, just for example, a Lyft car waiting for you because that, that car was summoned knowing that your train is running seven minutes late and it's pulling up just two minutes after the train gets into the station and you're, you've got a seamless sort of transfer from the train to ride hail onto your destination. That's the idea behind MOS, that's an inner city vision of MOS. Usually to be honest, MOS advocates are thinking more about travel within the city. So maybe the argument there would be, you know, I want to go to the place in Fairfax County, I'm in DC and to get to Fairfax County, Virginia, I need to do a combination of transit to ride hail or transit to scooter. David Zipper :And I can in one fell swoop purchase, determine my route, purchase the ticket and know that I'll have a seamless transfer when I get, when I pop out of the Metro station in Fairfax. Host:And then again, you know, a lot of this has been on the tech side because of developing the technology to allow that seamless integration of different mobility solutions. But on the engineering side, the people who are designing the infrastructure to actually enable this to happen. And that's really, you know, our core constituency from an engineer's perspective. What do you think the top, what do you think maybe a few of the, the main things that they should be looking at, or they should be paying attention to? If, they see opportunity to, you know, design the infrastructure to support systems like this. David Zipper :Yeah, I'll mention a couple of things. You know, one is the, again, the topic I wrote about a month ago I feel like there's a lot of people live in cities who suddenly have a new appreciation for their sidewalks, you know, as we're all stuck at home, trying to get exercise, to avoid going stir crazy. You realize that a lot of our urban neighborhoods have terrible sidewalks and some don't have any at all, especially in the South and the West. And I I think we've got, there's a good chance and I frankly, am hopeful that there is going to be a window of opportunity to consider sidewalk products - and sidewalk infrastructure is real infrastructure. It's less expensive than building a tunnel, but for those of your the engineers that are members of the organization that are trying to think of how can I really tap into what public leaders are thinking about now, if you can incorporate high quality wide, well lit, accessible sidewalks into your proposals for renovating a given district or into a new project. David Zipper :I think that this is a time when that's going to be thought of a little bit more directly and more constructively. I think that that also these new bike lanes and, and that are being developed, I don't see them going away. I frankly think that's also opened the door to considerations of some new technologies that will also have infrastructure needs. And I'll give one example that I'm really interested in, which is, which is parcel delivery. There's an argument that the coronavirus is a great catalyst or an accelerator of trends that are already underway. I think everybody knows that people are buying more stuff online than we used to. Now it's even more stuff than we did a few months ago. And there's been moments of sort of bullishness for sidewalk drones. I personally think that's going to take a while. David Zipper :Partly because our sidewalks think like we were talking about earlier, but the other option is is something I am actually kind of bullish on, which is e-cargo bikes, or electric cargo bikes, which for those of the audience who've been to Europe, they're widespread in Germany and other European countries. And they could be, they can utilize the existing infrastructure in cities. And most of it, at least the city of Boston is, but not an RFI today. July 21st, I think is today's date to basically invite suggestions from the private sector about what sort of infrastructure upgrades might be necessary in terms of depots to collect parcels and various neighborhoods as distribution nodes, things like that. And I, this is an area where I'm bullish in cities for the next five years. I think cities are gonna recognize that they can reduce congestion, improve neighborhood quality of life and, and utilization of existing infrastructure. David Zipper :If they shift some of these UPS, DHL, USPS trucks that they take up space and double park and can be pollutants instead utilize E cargo bikes, Europeans can do it. And I think we can too. And a lot of our cities. Host:Those are really two good points. He and I, and I, it's always kind of sad when I see a drone and Fairfax or one of the, you know, robot parcel delivery or package delivery drones get caught up on a stump or something on the, on the sidewalk and Fairfax city. It's kind of sad. David Zipper :But it happened. There was a viral video and Friendship Heights, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Washington over the weekend where you see the sidewalk drone got stuck because the sidewalk got too narrow. And I myself tweeted about him saying, because the guy who saw I was like, Oh, this I helped a little guy. David Zipper:It's kind of cute. I'm like this, isn't cute. If it's a person in a wheelchair, like we've really blown it with our urban sidewalks. And this should be a moment when we should be really investing in them. That's a very good point. Host:Well, David, I do appreciate you coming on the show. There's a lot to talk about here. I'd love to have you back on the show so we can talk about really these mobility issues when it comes to, you know, the interconnection of technology and mobility, how it all kind of ties together. You know, it's something that we'd like to explore a little bit more. Because I think our members are always looking for what, you know, what is the next thing what's going to be the next area that we might be able to invest in. And I think that, that these issues are going to be top of mind. Host:And yeah, and I do appreciate your time. And you mentioned that article. I mean, what else do you have coming out? Where should people be looking for the the article that you're writing now? David Zipper :Yeah, I'm actually, I've got a couple articles coming out in the next week or two. I write a lot about new forms of urban mobility and new technologies, and also about sort of the interplay between local policy, especially around transportation and automobiles and transit. So, so those who are in, if you're interested, you can always reach me on Twitter. I post all my articles there people can send me DMs. If they've got a question it's easy, it's a zipper, just my name at David Zipper. And then for my articles I actually have a website where I put them together. Cause I do write across a number of platforms and that's just as easy again www.davidzipper.com and you can find all the articles there. And I even have a little newsletter. I put out once a month with the stuff I've been writing and thinking about in these topics, because especially in the current environment, so much is changing so quickly. So I appreciate the opportunity to come join you and talk about some of these changes. Host:It was great to have you on and again, follow David and David's zipper and look out for his upcoming pieces. And we'd love to have you back on. So David have a great rest of the week stay as cool as possible when this heat wave and stay healthy. David Zipper:I'll go for a socially distance bike ride. Host:There you go. There you go. David Zipper :Thanks a lot. It's great to be here. Host:And you've been listening to Engineering Influence brought to you by ACEC. 

  On July 16, 2020 the ACEC Research Institute held the last roundtable in its "Future of Engineering" series.  The event brought together some of the most respected thought leaders in the infrastructure space to discuss the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of funding for infrastructure projectsPanelists included:• Rosemarie Andolino, Former Chairman of MAG USA and CEO of International Development, Manchester Airport Group• Anirban Basu, Chairman and CEO, Sage Policy Group• Jeff Davis, Senior Fellow, Eno Center for Transportation• David Zipper, Visiting Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government• Moderator: Joseph Bates, ACEC Research InstituteTranscript:Daphne Bryant:On behalf of the ACEC Research Institute's, Board of Directors, welcome to our third round table in the series, the future of engineering. A big thank you to our donors who have made this session possible. We have a great group of thought leaders here today. As you can see on your screen, they're going to share their insights and expertise with us on the future of funding in our new normal. Now without further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce two of my colleagues from the ACEC Research Institute, Joe Bates, who will serve as our moderator for today's session, and Kevin McMahon who will be monitoring the chat box and fielding your questions during the session, Joe, it's all yours.Joe Bates:Great. Thank you, Daphne, and thank you all for joining us today. First, I'd like to introduce you to our panelists that we have with us first there's Rosemarie Andolino, Former Chairman of MAG USA and CEO of International Development, Manchester Airport Group in the UK, where she oversaw the development of MAG's North American and global airport services business. She currently serves as an independent board member and advisor to various for-profit and not for profit organizations. And previously she served as the Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Aviation, where she oversaw the management and operations of one of the world's busiest airport systems that comprise of O'Hare and Midway International Airports. Rosemarie, welcome today. I'd also like to welcome Anirban Basu. Anirban is Chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group an economic and policy consulting firm. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland with an office in Indonesia, the firm provides strategic analytical services to energy suppliers, law firms, medical systems, government agencies, and real estate developers among others.Joe Bates:In 2014, Maryland governor Larry Hogan appointed Anirban Chair of the Maryland Economic Development Commission. He also serves as the Chairman of the Baltimore County Economic Advisory Committee. Welcome Anirban. Next I'd like to introduce Jeff Davis. Jeff is a senior fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation and is also the editor of the Eno Transportation. Weekly. Jeff has worked on Capitol Hill working on various legislative budget process oversight and parliamentary procedure issues. He also worked extensively on the FAA, Amtrak and surface transportation reauthorization laws in the late 1990s. His current work focuses on analysis of the federal budget, federal transportation budget, and his longterm trends in transportation, funding, and policy. Finally, I'd like to welcome David Zipper. David is a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government, where he examines the interplay between urban policy and new mobility technologies.Joe Bates:David's perspectives are rooted in his experience working within city hall, as well as being a venture capitalist policy researcher and startup advocate. He has consulted with numerous startups and public officials about regulatory strategy. So thank you all for joining us today and welcome.Joe Bates:I'd like to go ahead and get started and jump right in to get a, sort of a feel of what's going on with the economy. As everybody knows, the US economy, as well as the engineering profession was hit quite hard by the pandemic and the last business impact survey that ACEC conducted showed that over 80% of firms said, they felt that the economy was in worse shape today than it was on March 1st before the pandemic really took hold. So clearly there's a lot of pain going on out there. There's a lot of stimulus efforts that have happened, but Anirban, I'd like to turn to you and ask you to give us an overview of what's happening with the economy right now and where you think it's going in the next five years or so.Anirban Basu:Yeah, well look, the recession is dated to have begun in February. According to the national Bureau of economic research is Business Cycle Dating Committee. I think by late April, it was over in late April. That was the nadir for mobility of Americans based on cell phone and other data. You know, Governor Kemp in Georgia started opening up the economy on April 20th. And there was a lot of cash that had been built up in the economy and the household sector because of those $1,200 checks for $600 in federal subsidies for unemployment insurance benefits. So the household savings rate went from 8% pre-crisis to 33% by April. The economy opens up in May guess what? We get job growth, 2.7 million jobs added in may. We followed up in June 4.8 million. That's not consistent with recession. And so it felt pretty good. Didn't it?Anirban Basu:Retail sales surging 17.7% in may then again, bouncing back in June felt really good. And then what happens Florida? It's always Florida. For some reason, Florida, Arizona, Texas, Georgia Governor of Oklahoma is now COVID-19 positive. So the surgeon reinfection has put the entire economic recovery in doubt. And we can see that some of these reopenings have been postponed. Some of them have been reversed. We've got the initial jobless claims today at 8:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. And they were somewhat disappointing the market's down today. So I was looking forward to a third and fourth quarter. That was very robust in terms of the economic expansion. It might still happen because people don't seem to care that there is this viral spread. They're just going about their lives. I'm in Ocean City, Maryland today. No one out there on the beach is wearing a mask. I can tell you, and they're not social distancing. They're just going about life. As, as if it's normal, you would know that there was a pandemic. So for right now, the economic outlook is very uncertain. I just think that the economic expansion will continue through the end of the year, but it won't be nearly as dramatic as I had hoped up until about a month ago.Joe Bates:How long do you think Anirban that the overhang will stay with us? You know, there's bound to be a vaccine in the early part of next year think pretty much everybody is banking on that right now. So let's say we get a vaccine, you know, things return back to normal in terms of how society functions sometime next year, what's the longer term outlook are we gonna, is this like 2009? Are we going to be sort of suffering for a while? Or do you think it's going to be a lot shorter than that?Anirban Basu:Oh no. I think it would be longer than that. And I'll tell you why, you know, after 2009, you know, the economy sort of came back to life, you know, I mean, we pumped a lot of money into the economy. We recapitalize the banks, the federal reserve increases balance sheet from $800 billion. Pre-Crisis the four and a half trillion dollars during and after the crisis. So, you know, the money disappeared as the housing market collapsed. You know, that's what caused, you know, 2008, 2009, we put money back into the system, bam LinkedIn's economic expansion, American history, and very little inflation, booming stock market. It was fabulous. And we entered with that momentum in January and February of 2020. And in February we added more than a quarter million jobs this time. What do we have? We have shattered government finances, state, and local. We have a commercial real estate sector that is in deep recession and will take years to recover, right?Anirban Basu:Empty storefront, shuttered restaurants, vacated office suites. And so that weakness lingers, we've got lots of debt on various balance sheets, household balance sheets, corporate balance sheets. And of course, governmental balance sheets and especially the federal government, right, which in June ran nearly a $900 billion deficit for one month, you know, $64 billion dollars. So you put all that together. I think it is possible to talk about a double the procession. And in fact, it is conceivable that we'll have that double dip this year. If, you know, if you agree with my proposition that we were in recession, we came out of recession. We could go in back into recession this year. And then at some point in the future, once this new, next round of stimulus works its way through the economy, you can get another recession thereafter. So there's, you know, a w and then another V on top of that, it's a really risky moment in economic history and the policymakers have to get this right. And those are political outcomes they have to get right. And political outcomes are rarely, right. So, I mean, that's where we are right now, very uncertain place.Joe Bates:Great. Okay. Anirban, thank you for that perspective. I'd next like to focus on a question for Jeff as as some of you probably know who, who have looked at the ACEC business impact study that we conducted 90%, nine zero, 90% of firms reported obtaining a PPP loan to bridge the summer and spring trough that many expected. The question here is, will clients start new projects once we get through the summer, or are we gonna continue to struggle through next year? Jeff, what do you think?Jeff Davis:In terms of the regular the regular federal infrastructure programs, the federal side of the spending hasn't been affected yet by any of this coronavirus? The, the, the question is always really the degree to which the level of the government that can print its own money. The federal government is going to step in temporarily and assist the levels of government that can't print their own money, state and local. And so you saw a little bit like $150 billion of aid to state and local governance was in the last traunch coronavirus relief the S the house back zone wishlist bill about a month ago, three and a half trillion dollars in one bill that was going to have like $500 billion from state governments. None of that set aside directly for state DOTs, but that's the fundamental question you gotta answer is if you're going to provide a, to state and local governments, does the federal government single out transportation as being privileged and give it a special carve out of money and leave everything else up to state local politicians to determine the priorities, or do they make transportation aid subject to state and local decisions in place that you know, weighing it against the needs for education, budgets of corrections budgets of all the other things that state governments do.Jeff Davis:There is zero consensus right now in Congress of whether state DOTs in particular should receive a special targeted round of assistance. That's not subject to state and local governments determining where to best allocate the resource. The Senate Majority Leader McConnell is going to introduce his own coronavirus bill next week. They've got a July 31st deadline for leaving town, at least the house for five weeks, and also unemployment insurance rent. So extended unemployment's going to be in that bill at some rate. We're not sure if the special $600 bonus will be in there or any kind of bonus at what level McConnell wants to put at least $75 billion in dangling a carrot financial aid and school systems that open on time in late August, September. And the only other thing I know about that bill is that he's determined to keep the price tag below $1 trillion.Speaker 4:So you're going to have you have a House bill, a three and a half trillion, the Senate trying to max out at 1 trillion, and they're going to have between middle of next week and July 31st to figure out what that goes. So, because it doesn't do any good, the federal government putting out money at 80% federal share for highways, if the state or local DOT can't afford its own 20%, or is uncertain, whether they're going to have the dedicated revenues over the next X number of months to cover their 20%. So that's the basic issue is the uncertainty of government tax receipts at the state and local level is going to start tampering all this.Joe Bates:So, so if I can press you on this just a little bit, Jeff, and I'd also like to get David's thoughts on this. You're saying the federal money is there. So are projects going to be effected. And if so, in what way?Jeff Davis:Cash going out the door for federal infrastructure programs has not really been affected at all yet by coronavirus, but for the big highway and transit programs, those are reimbursable dollars. The government signs a contract upfront only after the state government pays the contractor do they come to the US Department of Transportation and get reimbursed. So the dollars leaving the door and the treasury is a lagging indicator. Unfortunately, it's the most up to date indicator we have as far as monthly basis. We'll find out next week, hopefully on the obligation to the grant agreements actually signed between the federal government and state local government for infrastructure we'll hopefully have enough later quarterly total on that. And they're about to move to monthly reporting on that. So we can finally get something other than anecdotal evidence, you know, from States, state DOT here, or city transit agency there on how much they're curtailing their future spending plans in light of the coronavirus revenue uncertainty, but at the federal level, we don't quite have the data yet on just the degree to which the federal governments, local and state government infrastructure partners are rolling back activity, looking to the future yet.David Zipper:Yeah. And can I follow on, on that? Is that.Joe Bates:Yeah, go ahead, David.David Zipper:Yeah. And, and just cause I do a lot of work in particular with urban transportation, like the transit agency is I can sort of speak from that perspective and everything that Jeff is saying is, is I think true and the lack of certainty, the lack of clarity at the federal level sort of filters down to transit agencies, being very concerned or cities being very concerned about future cash support, which leads them to make decisions now about future planning. And I can give a few examples of that. You can see that that very simply some of the groups that are hit the hardest by this right now, it would be the transit agencies that live off of their farebox revenue. They're using the farebox revenue from last week to pay their bills from this week.David Zipper:So just this week, there's been a big controversy in the Bay area where CalTrans may or may not get the funding. It would need through a special sales tax to be able to continue. And there's it's kind of incredible for his affluent areas, the Bay Area, serious conversation about CalTrans ceasing service. And if that happens that actually, and I want to make this clear since given the audience here, it's not like you can just turn off a transit agency and then turn it back on. You're losing mechanics, you're losing specialized knowledge about the technology and the vehicles that it's very difficult to emulate. And you look over New York with the MTA saying that they're going to have money to get through August. And they're the, the, the director was saying yesterday that she's being forced to go through the whole org chart, to lay people off and then sort of compounding these problems.David Zipper :You've got, especially in New York, for those who may be there, you've got the Trump administration are sitting on decongestion pricing, which would have otherwise provided a $15 billion cash infusion into MTA at a time that really needs it. So, there's plenty more examples I could cite, but I would simply say, you know, this is a time when in the urban transportation side, which I would imagine is of interest to many in the audience. You're seeing a lot of leaders being forced to assume the worst, because there's just no clarity from the federal government about whether there'd be a secondary infusion like there was with the cares act, which is forcing them to hunker down and, and make some really difficult decisions.Jeff Davis:And at the state level, most States operate under constitutions or laws prohibiting them from running a deficit. So the deficits are cash in cash out. So they've got to arrange their, their future spending commitments based on anticipate the latest anticipated future tax revenues. And that's why they have to particularly curtail slow spending capital programs early and upfront to try to make sure that they don't run a deficit six or eight, six or 12 months down the line when the bills are coming due and being paid.Joe Bates:Rosemarie, I want to get you in the conversation here is what else how do you see since we're talking about the public sector here in public funding, how is the public funding going to affect the airlines? The airports, obviously the airlines got a little bit of assistance in the last month or so maybe not as much as they wanted, but what's your take on the public funding and how that's gonna affect the airline sector?Rosemarie Andolino:Well, I think you've seen two things, right? Not only did the airlines get some money, but airports did as well. Right now I think everybody is in a cost constraining mode, right? No spending, looking at ways to actually conserve money and continue the projects that have been funded or continue moving along. The things that have you know, make sense, but, longterm projects, new terminal developments, where if they haven't already again, been funded are going to be placed in a whole holding pattern right now, due to the fact that we need to see where the world's going. We need to see what type of demand there will be. I think this aligns, however, with large capital projects needing time to plan things out in order to before construction. But what will the future look like? That's going to be the challenge that we face.Rosemarie Andolino:And I think that's where we need to focus. Our time and energy right now is looking at what are going to be the needed things that our ports are going to need to put in place. If you think about 9/11 and what occurred after 9/11 TSA, we have all these check-in facilities. Now, you know, you have the meter greeter halls that now have all these security measures in place in places like Chicago's airports, older facilities, most U S airports weren't built to handle that type of impact in our terminal facilities. However, now what you see is going to be another layer of potential demands or needs of policy changes, which we won't even know for a while yet what's going to happen. So I think at the moment, airport directors, airlines are still trying to understand what is going to need to happen for, you know, the issue we're dealing with today, the pandemic we're dealing with today, but what then does the future bring, what do we have to plan for for the next phase of the next? What is?Rosemarie Andolino:The one thing I will say about our industry is, you know, the aviation sector has always been an indicator in the economy, right? It kind of leads because of the fact that you have to book your travel in advance. You start seeing where the spending is going. You start seeing what the airlines are putting in place, whether the demand is for the next three months, what's going to be happening in the fall. So this is going to be a time now where we're going to see the booking. So what's going to be booked by carriers and what the demand's going to be. You know, as cities are kind of hunkering down again, putting in more restrictions of travel, what's that next phase going to be, and what are those impacts going to be? And that's just phase one. We're not even into our fall phase two yet of what could happen.Rosemarie Andolino:But on the positive note is the aviation industry has always recovered stronger than where it was before. So ideally, you know, we could see these trends, you know, and recovery happened quickly. However, we're still out three to five years in that recovery. And what we'll come back first will be that domestic travel, right? The leisure travel, domestic travel, what's still on hold right now, which is kind of the bread and butter of the industry is business travel. And that is a key importance to the success of the entire, not only aviation industry, but hospitality industry as well. We talked about, you know, the entire economy at the opening of restaurants, et cetera, that all feeds from travel aviation and business.Joe Bates:So I want to ask a couple of followups here, Rosemarie, you talked about the short term and then the long term. So let's break that down in terms of funding, how are the airports and the airlines going to do the things they need to do in the short term? Where are they going to get the money from for that?Rosemarie Andolino:Well, again, I think there's been, there's been some money that has been passed around recently. I think everybody's looking at what's going to be the next phase. Is there going to be another CARES Act two? Or is it going to be the HR 2 and there will be, will there be provisions in that for and again, we'll the neck, there'll be another round of care act funding, right? So those two things are going to be extremely important. I think right now, in terms of where they get the money is again, what they've already issued. So airports are reliant on garbs right? General airport revenue, back bonds that have already perhaps been issued for key projects or AIP money that has come from the federal government and airports have, are they, they are longterm, they plan three, five years out. So projects I've already been planned designed, perhaps they're going through the bidding stage now for construction, you know, depending on what part of the world you're in. So that's work is going to continue. What the question will be is major, you know, terminal redevelopments, right? Major projects. When you have additional capacity right now in the, in, in the market, the question really is, are you going to retrofit your facilities, use that money to retrofit your facilities, to perhaps close down some concourses to consolidate the operations. You know, it's impacted everybody from the cleaning people that are, you know, the cleaning crews and cleaning these large facilities to the operations of concessions. You talked about the airlines, you know, the airports, there's so many jobs and activities that are part of aviation. So many behind the scenes that you don't realize that are, again, especially with key facilities like that are huge. Cargo has continued, you know, the demand for cargo high value cargo.Rosemarie Andolino:So a lot of retrofitting for those aircraft have been carrying cargo. Passenger carriers have been carrying cargo now more, even in, not only in the belly of the plane, but they've converted, you know, the passenger seating to carry cargo as well. So, you know, that has been growing and has been stable. But in terms of getting revenue, collecting money from what the normal revenue creations would be like, you know, the Passenger Facility Charge the concessionaires, all of that has basically come to a halt. It's just trickling it. And so that's where the focus will be on O&M, right? In terms of the maintenance of your facilities, I think to take advantage. Well, when I was at O'Hare, we were in a decline. It was the recession when we were building the $8 billion expansion program. And Kevin will remember this many airports were actually closing down their programs because of what was ahead.Rosemarie Andolino:We were actually moving forward because of the down in traffic, gave us the ability to actually build those runways, the infrastructure that normally has to be, you know, that's normally impacted with high volumes of operations, give you a little bit more flexibility in that construction of those major impacting projects. So for airports like Utah, who have said, we're going to continue to go forward, you know, they're continuing to build their facilities to get it done, save money on delivering it faster, right. And build, you know, it's, it's in that stage of what it needs to be complete. But for most airports, it's really going to be functional improvements that they're going to be needing to make with the money they have. And you, you know, reprioritizing, perhaps fundings of projects already out to actually move that money to do functional improvements for current environment.Joe Bates:Okay. So it sounds like, you know, things there for the moment in our airport space, the projects are continuing, but the question is a bit more longterm than this....Rosemarie Andolino:Major projects, yeah. Major change projects, I think are just pulling, are going slower. It hasn't completely, unless it's like a hotel development or certain things of that nature, and depending on where the stages and they are on their development. But if they're in the preconstruction, I think they're starting to go a little slower before they put the shovel in the ground in order to manage the future. Right. Because this is a three to five year recovery. It takes usually three to five years to build some major projects.Joe Bates:Sure. Anirban what are your thoughts about the airline industry and in particular, as you look at the sort of the macro economic movements here?Anirban Basu:Oh, I think there'll be a rapid bounce back. You know, you said it earlier, we're going to get a vaccine at some point, right? Come on Pfizer, come on, Maderna, come on, Berry, jeez. You know, Regeneron, Gilliad, somebody, you know, start up your computer, get some test tubes out and do this because that's, what's going to solve this problem. That's the only thing that can do it. It's not going to be a cause of our good behavior and our mask wearing. We don't seem capable of that. And so you can see the pent up demand out there. You can see that people want to travel right when Disney opens up. But I think the best example of this was when the Las Vegas casinos opened up and the long lines to try to get into those places. People want to live like that. They want to go to professional sports games.Anirban Basu:They want to do all of those things and allow that requires travel. And so once we get a vaccine and you know, obviously people are talking about how long they'll take to get people actually vaccinated. It's not just discovering the vaccine, but actually operationalizing it. But once that happens, I think you'll see tremendous traffic increases at some point in 2021 itself. I really believe that business travel is going to come back. I love these Zoom meetings. I really like this. This is fun, but there's nothing like that coffee break after a long speech, getting ready for the next speech and shaking the hands with sponsors and others. And so I think that comes back pretty, pretty, pretty quickly. I think, I think it comes back more quickly than most economists wouldRosemarie Andolino:On antibiotic. I think right now, if I could add, you touched on the fact of the what's happening, right? This is the leisure market, right? These airlines are offering right now, very discounted prices, just kind of fairs for travel. A lot of packages out there. You've got your choice, right? Because, but the reality is you can't social distance on a plane, right? You can wear your mask. But there are some challenges associated with that and where the risk is not being taken as in the business community, right. Business companies don't want to take that risk. And again, that's a key driver for the changes in the airline economy is that business traveler.David Zipper:I think we all agree. We need a vaccine. I might just connect actually the airport question with issues of a broader ones about transportation projects. I may a glimmer of hope for the airlines. Other not for transit is that for the foreseeable future, people are not comfortable taking transit. Ridership is down around 50% and ride hail trips are way down too. So what that suggests to a lot of people, myself included, is that one source of revenue for airports, meaning parking facilities, make it a bit of a boost, which is something that has not been the way it's going for a while. You disagree with that?Rosemarie Andolino:Yeah. Parking facilities have been consolidated again. There's really, there's no demand for parking right now. There's excess, you know, there's plenty of supply in terms of parking close proximity to your terminal if you're departing at the moment. So parking at airports is challenging. I mean, look at the rental car industry as well. You've seen Hertz in bankruptcy. You're going to see consolidation there. Yeah.David Zipper:Yeah there's no question of that, I guess for the next year though, I think I would expect, I find to make a bet. I would put more money on people on parking revenue for airports to come back faster than transit ridership.Jeff Davis:And over the next month or the next year or so, the data we have indicates that the best infrastructure performing there's going to be are hot lanes because what's going to be slow is to come back to, we get a vaccine is carpooling particularly with this DC, the DC area, and a couple other places had a thing called slug line where complete strangers would line up in certain places in the suburbs could be picked up by other complete strangers and share their air and their car for 15 minutes. So to go downtown, to be able to use the, the, the express lanes, that's going to be the last thing that comes back in all transportation and so hot lanes where you can pay extra money to use the carpool lane.Jeff Davis:If you think to getting there is important, or if, if, if the lanes are being congestion managed at all times, like the new I-66 is here what we've seen Transurban reported the lanes they run in China, and there are a bunch of them now actually have more ridership as a month ago than they did before Coronavirus. So at least in the time being, not, not longterm and until we get a vaccine, single occupancy ridership, and the toll lanes that that make revenue directly from people who are willing to pay our may even do better in the interim than were doing before.Joe Bates:So now Jeff, that's assuming that we have traffic like we had previously, right? If, if people aren't going into the office, then maybe we're not going to have the same level of congestion. I don't know. What, what do you think about that?Jeff Davis:That's true. Okay. We're going to, I anticipate sort of slow quasi reopenings and I forget, how, how, why did this spread out? Some of the places that went to a, to a terminal congestion can kind of congestion pricing anyway, like Interstate 66, Northern Virginia is now told all morning that those, the congestion based set by computer where that you know, the toll varies minute by minute to try to keep traffic at 45 miles an hour, wherever I think it is. So things like that once I unfortunately if we're, if we're like, if a vaccine takes two years there, there, there has to be significantly more reopening than we have in urban cores to get through the two years. You can't have two years of shut down. So to the extent that there's going to be some kind of reopening vaccine or not single occupancy cars or cars occupied by immediate family members only are going to be where it's at in that short term. And then it's a question of once we do get a vaccine of digging out of those habits and trying to get back to the changes in, in using different modes that we were trying to get to before the coronavirus.Joe Bates:Okay. So I want to go back and talk just a little bit more about the public sector. And before we turn to the private sector, in terms of projects and Anirban, I want to direct this one to you, how are the States and localities going to make up for the revenue shortfalls they're seeing, you know, the, the tax revenues are way down, people aren't spending as much. How are they, how are they gonna survive and continue to fund their portion of these public projects?Anirban Basu:I mean, there's only one way isn't that, right? They have to have a system called the federal government. I mean, that's, it mean it had been pointed out by Jeff. I believe state local governments have to balance a budget every year, but the federal government doesn't and the federal government right now is looking at a 10 year Treasury yield of 0.615%. There's actually a really good time for the federal government to borrow. I know the national debt is 26 and a half trillion dollars. I get that at some point, we have to start paying some of that back. I understand that, but we're in the midst of a pandemic crisis and state local governments have already laid off 1.5 million workers in recent months. If that continues, then that will really stifle the economic recovery we all want for this country. And so that's, that's it.Anirban Basu:I mean, how else are you going to make a billions of billions of dollars of lost revenue? If you try to increase taxes, if you're in New York or Connecticut or New Jersey, guess what happens? People move to Florida, you know, so there's a limit to what you can do in terms of revenue enhancement. Now you can, you know, told more roads and so on and so forth. There's some of that, there's no, there's less elasticity there. So customers have to use those roads to get to wherever they're going. And so maybe that makes sense, but otherwise it's really the federal government. And that I think you're going to see this month is some kind of stimulus package with monies for state and local governments. That's going to help a lot on the capital side and on the operating side.Joe Bates:Okay. David, anything else to add on that subject?David Zipper:Yeah, I mean, in the absence of federal funding, I, the only other options I see are, would be new tax revenue at the local level. And Audubon's right, that there's a cap to what you can do there. And as we saw in San Francisco earlier this week, even there, in a particularly affluent city, they didn't want to do a very small sales tax raise to fund Caltrain. So what you end up with are, I'm just not just talking about transit. You know, recently he was looking to push out the purchase of a bunch of electric buses for a couple of years, and there was a $15 billion program up in Boston to convert commuter rail, to be a regional rail with 15 minute headways and being all electric. That's now a little bit on ice so that they won't say that explicitly.David Zipper:I mean, this stuff is just going to get postponed unless there's an infusion of federal dollars. Cause I tend to agree with Anirban that there, there might be bits and pieces of additional revenue. You could get it at the state and local level through tax raises, but it's not, it's not anything close to enough.Joe Bates:Okay. I want to take a second to remind the audience that we do have the Q and A chat for, for questions and also the chat box. At the moment we don't have any questions or, Oh, Kevin. Okay, go ahead, Kevin.Kevin McMahon:We just got one. The question is the panel is painted a very good picture of demands in aviation and transit, particularly being in down short term major infrastructure clients, or feeling the uncertainty of commitment from the federal government on funding. What would you advise most of our listeners who are running engineering firms in terms of, of their employee base, should they be looking to you know, really be frugal in terms of hiring plans over the next year? Or do you see any type of demands that would encourage folks to go out and hire additional people.Joe Bates:Who wants to take that one?Anirban Basu:No, I was going to say, you know, like I've been saying it to, you know, whether you're an engineering firm, CEO or whatever company that happens to be, what are we in right now? We're in cash preservation mode, that's it? You know, we're trying to hold on to liquidity. I mean, that's it, we're trying to make payroll now. You know, the other part of this is there will be an economic recovery. There was after 2008, 2009, there will be this time around. And so who do you want to be with you as that recovery begins? You want the best and the brightest engineers and your stars, your stars, your star engineers, whoever you really need to be part of the team. And so the, you know, you go down, you know, person, you know, person by person on your team and ask the question, do I need this person? And it's an unfortunate situation. We don't want to throw people out of work. That's not what this is about, but at the end of the day, if your enterprise doesn't survive, you're no good to anybody including yourself. And so I think that's the mode we're in right now. There's just too much uncertainty to be in any other mode,Jeff Davis:The goal of the federal aid right now is, and should be trying to hold things level to try to keep the amount of total amount of federal state, and local money going for infrastructure type projects to be the same as it was going to be had coronavirus not happen. And then you've got a separate question of the great, the great infrastructure backlog, but I think that's going to have to go on the, on the back burner shortly in terms of just trying to maintain temporary directed aid, whether it's to revenue replacement to state governments or whatever, trying to tread water until coronavirus is over it. And then next year try to do some kind of broader infrastructure boost above the current spending levels that we're, that state local governments are now struggling to maintain. So it was a bad, it turned that it was a bad time to bring up infrastructure bills this year because of the focus is much more on preserving the funding that we've already got going at the state local level versus trying to build significant new dollar amounts of new capacity above that, which I think is going to have to wait till next year.Joe Bates:Rosemary were you wanting to add something to that?Rosemarie Andolino:I was going to add onto what Anirban said was the fact that, you know, do you have the right people is really the question, because I think again, as airports look to look to the future, airlines are looking to what is going to be necessary to make their customers feel safe and to continue to facilitate travel. What are the things that that, that are going to be needed at airports? And I think we need to look to engineers and others to help us understand what types of technologies, right, whether it's cleaning and sanitation, if it's technology for contactless opportunities to service customers better, and it contactless sweat, what are the types of things that need to be brought into place again, to create functional enhancements of the facility today for better service that customers can rely on and feel, you know, again, give them the comfort and safety for their travel journey.Rosemarie Andolino:So I think, and for the future. So I think that is a key important component. I think also part of what's been discussed in Congress as well. And Jeff, you could probably add more to this, but the Congress is looking at, if we are going to make investments, we want those investments then to put our infrastructure in a better place, right. To make it better than it was. Many airports are older facilities and are retrofitted. How do you take those facilities that you have today and whatever investments you make make it so that they're better for the future sustainable green, you know, less energy in terms of technology. Those, I think are some of the things that can be worked on now. And again, you know, do you have to UV light, you know, baggage as it's going through baggage systems, you know, what is going to be the future? And I think getting the bright, you know, engineering groups that are out there, the people, the right talent to help think these things through and come up with solutions and ideas are going to be extremely important again, how do you minimize costs and investment, but come up with great solution,Joe Bates:Kevin, it looks like we've got some more questions in there.Kevin McMahon:Thank you, Joe. There's, there's a couple of questions. One I'll ask the panel right now is, conventionally, infrastructure has been seen as a, as a great type of stimulus funding mechanism to get people back to work. It seems like nowadays more of the stimulus is funding. Those aren't just giving laid off employees cash versus creating jobs. Ins't this the perfect environment to create an infrastructure bill that would think big and get people back to work. Why is that not as robust in the discussion as some of our panelists, some of our listeners think it should be?Joe Bates:Jeff, do you want to start us off on that one?Jeff Davis:Yeah. well, first of all, your aid needs to be targeted and what your problem is. And immediately, you know, as of June 30th, the number of people employed in heavy and civil engineering construction seasonally adjusted was down 8% from February.Speaker 4:...Seasonally adjusted is pivotally important in outdoor activities like construction, but that 8% is 85,000 jobs. I'm not sure that that should be the prime focus of federal recovery when you've got 5 million people out of work just in the hospitality and restaurant sectors alone, but not to mention, you know, the million or so state, federal, state, local government employees you know, 400,000 people in transportation. You know, the infrastructure everyday of automation of complication means that infrastructure spending as a way of just providing jobs as stimulus is a little less effective than it was back in the good old days. So even though, you know, we definitely, as a country need to be spending more money on infrastructure, focusing on infrastructure as a job creator is probably not the right answer when all of the jobs, the majority of job losses are not from people who were probably going to want to retrain to go work in construction.Rosemarie Andolino:You know what though, Jeff, I think on top of that though, is the benefit of with low traffic, right? With low utilization of our infrastructure today because people are staying at home still to get minimized impacts, right? Greenhouse gas impacts, minimize congestion impacts all of the things that also come when you actually do more with a, you know, kind of a respite here where there aren't as many constraints on your current infrastructure, can you, it's easier to close down lanes and to, you know, to build more. The challenges we have, let's say the Myrtle Beach corridor. I know the Congressmen there had been struggling many, many years because it's a definite destination for the drive market. And, but the roads there are built for the local traffic not to handle the ingress and egress of the swells of people that come and drive into the marketplace.Rosemarie Andolino:So it causes major conduct congestion for those living there and for the, you know, the community at large, to make those investments today, while traffic is low, it will be a win win for again, when that traffic, when that curve starts, you know, that that color starts rocketing up again, to be able to accommodate them efficiently and to grow the market. Because with the delays that the experiencing last year, you know, they're going to start to lose, they would have lost start losing traffic. So if we could fix a tent to the problem today, so that it will, we're prepared for that future growth again would be ideal. And if it creates jobs and feeds families that's right.David Zipper:Yeah. Yeah. There's a variety of transit agencies are doing exact same thing of trying to do the capital investments on an expedited timeline now to take advantage of the fact that few people are riding, same thing goes, a few people are using a bridge, easier time to do repairs. It's less disruptive and that will provide some efficiency gains. The problem though, is that you know, capital budgets are different from operating budgets, certainly for transit agencies and for everybody else. And and it's the farebox revenue that's gone down 50% plus in many places it's coming back very slowly and there simply isn't enough money to keep the operating operator, to have the lights on effectively. That's where I worry. Although I think all the points Jeff made about recognizing that transportation is part of a much larger economy, which is where other parts have been hit even harder is a worthwhile thing to keep in mind so that we can maintain perspective.Joe Bates:Kevin, do you want to ask any other questions before we move on to the private sector?Kevin McMahon:Yeah. I'll just ask one question, Joe. And it relates to really, there's a few questions I'll try to collapse into one. Is there any chance that Congress will do anything before the election and you know, like suspend NEPA from, for the next six months or anything like that, or are we sort of in a really holding the Fenn vote until this whole election plays out?Jeff Davis:I don't think legally they can suspend NEPA the, with anything they did calling them the emergency would be, would be instantly drawn out in court. But the Trump Administration just yesterday released the final regulation on reforming all of the NEPA on amending all the NEPA regulations comprehensively. The first time since they were issued in 1978 and putting hard two year time limits on a lot of these process. So, like I said, the regulation was released yesterday. It should be officially printed in the Federal Register in the next couple of days and take effect 60 days after that, I'm sure the environmentalist are gonna Sue, but that was the combination of, of the entire Trump Administration NEPA regulatory agenda for last four years as it came about yesterday. So I'm not sure how much they're going to be able to do in in addition to that, between now and the end of the year.Joe Bates:All right, let's go ahead and move on to the topic of the private funding private projects, you know, this is sort of a whole other animal here what's going to happen with you know, apartment building, home, building a high rise construction. Are we going to see a credit crunch? And, you know, I saw a piece of information this morning. It said home builder sentiment is back to pre coronavirus levels, which really surprised me. So, David, what do you think is going to happen here in the private sector?David Zipper:I, well, people still need places to live. I'm not sure how much they're going to need places to, to work in the same way as we did before. So you know, I think I would look for resurgence coming from the residential side faster than I would expect to see it on the, the office development side, particularly in the dense cities like we're where I'm based in Washington, DC, where I've already heard murmurings about possible conversions from corporate into into residential. I think that's going to take some time to play out, but I would have every expectation that residential would come back before commercial. And then there is the next question of where is it going to be in a central city? Is it going to be in the suburban, is it going to be, is this the big moment for some of the like second tier cities like Denver and Boise and salt Lake city to suddenly suck some of the talent away from the big, expensive coastal megalopolises? I tend to be a little skeptical of that for a variety of reasons. But I will note just to say that there is something happening that the rents in San Francisco year over year are down over 12%, which is higher than any other market.David Zipper :So that does suggest at least that by the way, San Francisco has the highest rent in the whole country. So it does suggest there is some movement now, at least temporarily of people who can move and go live with family, or just relocate for a while that they are I think, and this is, I think it's a bit of a shaky time for, for a market like the Bay area. But you know, I always, my attitude is always, it's, it's easy to overestimate the duration and extent of a change when you're in the middle of it. So I wouldn't quite if I had the chance, I wouldn't sell off all my my buildings in Manhattan just yet, let's put it that way.New Speaker:And Anirban, what are we looking at in terms of a credit crunch? Are we, do we have anything to worry about there is the Fed providing sufficient liquidity in the markets and are the private projects going to have problems getting funded?Anirban Basu:Oh, I think the credit crunch has already begun. Third reserve can create as much money supplies at once. It can't force banks to lend, and there's nothing bankers like less than defaults and delinquencies, they hate it and ends careers and it destroys the quarterly financials. So yeah, it's already begun. And, you know, with respect to, you know, some of the comments David was making very good comments. I think this is the decade of the suburbs. The previous decade was the decade of the cities. Millennials turn into their twenties and large numbers, often renting very expensive apartments, driving density, but, and, and this was going to be the decade of the suburbs, even without COVID-19, but COVID-19 makes it even more so, so owner occupied part of the residential market is flying high - homes are flying off the shelves. Condos are selling freely in all markets, even in Connecticut.Anirban Basu:But I'd say that multifamily market will be much more challenging going forward. You're going to see a real surge in vacancy rates in multifamily America going forward. And of course, that's going to further perpetuate that credit crunch and then commercial real estate forget about it. It's already in crisis and will be in crisis for many years to come. Because again, of all those empty office suites, abandoned storefronts, shuttered restaurants on and so forth. So the suburbs will fare better than the cities, but commercial real estate generally will be in quite bad shape.Joe Bates:Rosemarie. Do you have any thoughts on this topic?Rosemarie Andolino:Well, again, living in an urban environment in Chicago, I would agree that you're starting to see, you know somebody joked about people moving to Florida, right? There's the, there's been a huge influx of people relocating. And I think you're seeing that from a lot of major cities. I mean, people whether it was the, you know, the COVID that hit New York and Chicago and other locations and people then relocating to what they thought were communities that were less exposed or had things under control, which has now basically inverted, right? So now those communities are challenged, but you've got distance, you've got, you know, more against, you're not as crunched in together, right? As in an urban environment, you have some more freedom. So to actually, you know, be outside and have space away from people. So I think there there's definitely that exodus happening and you know, with the change of offices and you know, some of the leading technology companies, right, that are out there are saying, don't come back. You know, we don't need you to come back to the office for a, you know, let's revisit it in a year or two years. So if that's where most of the key employment was, and if they can all work from home, you know, will they be buying them a nicer, more expensive home and spending their money there. If they're not moving around the country as much, either in travel.David Zipper:If I could, it was an interesting thing that just happened. I think it was today, if not today, yesterday, Airbnb, which I think is a really interesting company in the midst of all this, just announced that they're going to go, they're back to doing an IPO. And what's interesting is they got hammered hard. They had to raise a down round of capital because when the coronavirus hit people did the whole, like one night or two night business just disappeared. But now they've created this whole new market and the CEO, Brian, Brian Chesky talks about this of month to two month rentals, where people are going into a cabin here, there would have you. And it's true that some of the largest employers in the country, some of the tech companies in particular said, we're not going to require people to be back throughout 2020. It opens the door. And then Airbnb has really fast recovery with this creation of a new longterm rental market, which by the way, is driven not by urban locations. Does lead to me to the question. I think anyone who goes beyond asking the question is saying, they know more than they really do of whether some of these, some people are going to decide, you know, what, for the foreseeable future, I really don't need to live in a central city with my family anymore. How that plays out. I don't know, but it's interesting to watchRosemarie Andolino:Well, and if I can add to that, I think what the additional factors is going to be in the next few weeks, it's really going to show its head is if people, if school districts are not going to require kids to actually go to school, then parents can relocate anywhere and spend the next three months, six months, as you said, in different cities or different communities. You know, cause they can learn from anywhere they can work from anywhere and the children can learn from anywhere. So that's, I think is going to be a key factor coming up that hasn't actually shown itself yet.Speaker 5:Kevin, do we have any questions on the private sector side of things?Kevin McMahon:Yeah, there's there's one, one one quick comment that one of our Connecticut participants, Anirban, really liked your comment about wow, when people are moving to Connecticut, it's shocking. So you got some air airtime on that, but Joe, the question is about some private, some public ports in inland waterways. Is that really just dependent on the economy and freight movement? Or what does the panel think about that space?Joe Bates:Who'd like to take that one.Rosemarie Andolino:I think the cruise ship cruise industry in terms of passenger cruises is challenged right now. So I think in terms of ports, for the purpose of the hospitality industry, the travel industry, that's a longer term recovery than even aviation. You know, so you're looking more from, you know, four to seven years. It's just, how are they going to deal with those issues?Jeff Davis:The the, the big trillion dollar infrastructure bill, the House passed last on July 2nd, didn't really deal with ports and inland waterways and harbors that much because the bill that passed the house was a Democratic only messaging exercise. And they were very close to a bipartisan two year reauthorization bill for those programs that passed committee in the House yesterday, it's past committee in the Senate the month ago. And it's one of the few things that actually make an inaccurate law on its own before the end of the year. And in addition to authorizing a few new, large projects. They're also trying desperately. They found that they finally found a budget gimmick in the House. That'll work to unlock that nine and a half billion dollars. That's been collected over 30 years in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and not spent. So that may get an act of the law this year, finally separate from any other infrastructure package which would really open the flood Gates on a lot of much needed harbor dredging capacity improvements, et cetera.Joe Bates:We only have a few minutes left here. So I'd like to ask each of you to peer into your crystal ball. This is my final question, which I like asking on these, these round tables. And the question is, I'm going to start with you on a bond. One is a two part question one, and you've, you've gotten into this a little already, but how long will this recovery take for us to reach levels that were pre COVID and not only how long will it take, but what's, what are the, what's the critical thing that has to happen for the recovery to proceed?Anirban Basu:Oh, it'll take years to fully recover from this. I mean, I think the initial period of recovery has been sharp will be sharp going forward, even with some of these reopenings being postponed and some of them even being re reversed, but but it's going to take years. I mean, if I asked you the question, you know, back to you, how long did it take us to get to a 50 year low in unemployment? It took us 50 years. I mean, the economy was really shockingly good coming into this pre-crisis period. And we entered, as I say, 2020 with so much momentum. It's going to take a long time to put that back together again. And we in America, what's it going to take to really get back bipartisanship, right? The radical center re-emerging so we can work together so that something like a tip O'Neill and Ron Reagan on a Friday afternoon, going to a Georgetown pub to talk policy that could happen again in this country. And that's, what's going to take, cause we have unskilled immigration policy. We have unsettled infrastructure policy. We have global trade fragmenting and uncertain trade policy. And by the way, that relates to the port's outlook, as well as it turns out you put all that together. That's what we're going to need bipartisanship.Joe Bates:Okay. Rosemarie, what about you? How long will this recovery take? And what's the critical piece to proceeding?Rosemarie Andolino:I believe right now, I think it seemed when this whole hit, I should say we were at like the 19 North, the 1954 levels of, you know, in terms of aviation and travel. You know, after 9/11 we saw a 30% decline in travel, but it was one region right? Here, this is global. And in April we saw an 80% decline. And what really was moving was those that had to move, you know, whether it was medical professionals, meaning to move locations. You're seeing that come back with some leisure travel, but I think again, the business community is going to be key because that is the higher spend that the airlines and others need. And that is really the bigger indicator. I think you're looking at, I mean, 2022 really before you'll see kind of the comeback here, because I think we're at least a year out from a vaccine, because again, we talked about that that's going to be key for people to feel comfortable and safe. The one thing we have in the United States is short haul traffic and domestic traffic, right?Rosemarie Andolino:So you can travel essentially within the 50 States with less restrictions. So I think people, whether they travel by car, but by air they'll feel comfortable getting on the flight for an hour with their masks and, you know, better cleanliness the activities that have occurred on aircraft now. So you're going to continue to see that consolidation, I think will happen fairs for probably then, you know, start going up in that regard. But international traffic, we're still looking at probably 2024 before that really comes back. So, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna be a while. Ideally, you know, the industry itself there are things that need to be done right, to make travel better for everyone, whether it be the passenger, the airlines, or the airports, whether it's funding. We talked about NEPA and, you know, constructability of programs, et cetera, and implementation.Rosemarie Andolino:So I would hope that during this time Congress can take them and the leadership can come together from the different organizations to actually solve those solutions so that when traffic does come back, when we are earnestly building, you know, new programs, bigger projects, you know, building the terminals of the future for our airports that have not had those investments in many, many years, that we're able to do those with great technology with simplified processes and proper funding so that they can continue to be the economic engines that they have been for communities across the country.Joe Bates:Great. David, you next and we'll close it out with Jeff.David Zipper:Sure. I find this question. It would be a lot easier for me to answer if we were talking about Canada or about Holland, because there, you're talking about basically like the, the V I think, which is like, you basically have the virus come, you, you provide some, put some cash in people's pockets to make the economy be, be put it in a coma basically. And then you come back out and if we're talking about those countries, you can see that already at this point was made earlier that auto traffic is back up and it's already higher than the peak rush hour to auto traffic is higher than it was before t he virus in places like Longxeuver in China and, and Shengen. But we, we frankly blew our chance to do that in this country.David Zipper:And you know, and I actually worry about how bad I think things could actually get much worse in the next few months, as people start losing their homes, being foreclosed on as unemployment benefits run out. I don't think we realized that we are on the precipice of things, getting a lot worse with a lot of people in the middle class or lower middle class being unable to just survive and who knows what that's going to do. It, that that actually leads to political questions that go far beyond you know, the demand for certain types of engineering services. But I will say that it's going to take a long time before we're going to be, we need a vaccine. And even with the vaccine, I think it's going to take a long time in the United States to see a rebound in, in, in critical parts of the economy, especially for engineers, such as office construction. We're a long way away from that. I think we're a long way away from it with regards to to urban transportation. And to be honest, like, like the most important things to do now in my view is to be honest, to call your elected representatives and tell them we absolutely need more stimulus money in people's pockets. Now that's my personal view.Joe Bates:Great. Thanks, David. And Jeff, what about you? And then after your comments, Jeff, we're going to go to Daphne to close us out here.Jeff Davis:In terms of additional federal dollars for new infrastructure you know, new projects, new structures, new routes. I don't expect any action on that this year because Democrats, particularly in the House and Republicans are a light they're light years apart on the relative priorities, they believe should be given to highways versus transit and mass transit and Amtrak, the whole rural, urban divide. And every day, that gets closer to the election with the polls, where they are Democrats saying, why would I bother negotiating issues that fundamental with Republican Senate and Republican president when there's a 50, 50-ish or plus chance that starting in January, they could hope that Democrats get the trifecta and write a bill. They really want, instead of locking a compromise priorities in for five or six years next year is what it's all gonna be about. You know, the extensive infrastructure to be one of many priorities. In addition to coronavirus, it's all going to get wrapped up in the fact that starting August 1st of next year, the debt sexual debt limit will reset. And they'll start taking emergency measures.Jeff Davis:We've already added four point 6 trillion, I think since the last reset August 1st, just a year ago. So this will be by far the largest debt limit increase in the history of the country. And so September, October, next year, treasury, won't be able to move money around and traditionally many of your major turning points in federal fiscal policy in the last 30 years, Graham Rudman the 1999, three budget deals, budget control act HARP, Fannie Freddie bailout, last year budget deals. They all revolve around debt debt, ceiling crisis of trying to find ways to get the votes, to raise the debt limit and all the fiscal policy for that year wound up getting wrapped up in it. So I expect that to be the centerpiece of next year, around September, October, 2021, that will set the stage for fiscal policy for the next five to 10 years.Joe Bates:Got it. Yeah. Well, let's, let's all keep our fingers crossed that we have a vaccine by then. So at least we can take that out of the equation. Thank you all to the panelists for joining us and Daphne, why don't you go ahead and close this out.Daphne Bryant:Great. Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today. Thank you to our panelists and our donors for making this session possible. We have a short evaluation that we'll send you this afternoon. So please share your experience with us. Thank you all. Have a great afternoon and please stay safe. Thank you.

On this episode guest-host Dan Richards talks with Dan Denvir, a journalist, host of the hit podcast ‘The Dig,’ and Visiting Fellow at the Watson's Institute's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. His recent book, ‘All-American Nativism: How the Bipartisan War on Immigrants Explains Politics as We Know It,’ explores the foundational role nativism has played in American politics, and explains why the Trump Presidency is less of an aberration than many would like to believe. This will be the first in a two-part conversation with Denvir. You can learn more about and purchase his book here: [https://www.versobooks.com/books/2858-all-american-nativism] You can read or download a transcript of this episode here: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/15jvSN59FRB-93QU4AXPIRVHwE5X1qMNW/view?usp=sharing]

This seminar was given on September 26, 2019 and was given by James E. Spiotto, Managing Director, Chapman Strategic Advisors LLC; Allan Fung, Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island; and Larry R. Deetjen, The Village Manager of Oak Lawn, Illinois. It was given as part of M-RCBG's weekly seminar series and was co-sponsored by the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, also at HKS.

Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer Mark Fagan is spearheading the Autonomous Vehicles Policy Initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, helping to ensure government officials can successfully navigate the impending robot car revolution. Mark talks with host Thoko Moyo about how AVs could have disruptive impacts on traffic safety and congestion, public transit, jobs, and even data privacy. The Autonomous Vehicles Policy Initiative consults with stakeholders both inside and outside of the United States. Through research, teaching, and work with decision makers in administrations, with technologists and business leaders from AV companies and startups, and with other practicing professionals from the autonomous vehicles space, the initiative seeks to improve policymakers’ capacity to deal with this fast-emerging technology. They find actionable policy and strategy options to help create infrastructure that is livable for humans and AVs, and that helps mitigate the social consequences of the AV revolution. For more on the initiative, please visit: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/taubman/programs-research/autonomous-vehicles-policy-initiative PolicyCast is hosted by Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean of Communications Thoko Moyo. The show is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

Harvard Kennedy School's PolicyCast is back! Enjoy this preview of our relaunch with host Thoko Moyo of upcoming episodes featuring autonomous vehicles expert Mark Fagan, Center for Public Leadership Director Ambassador Wendy Sherman, and Professor Erica Chenoweth, who has conducted groundbreaking research on the effectiveness of nonviolent civil movements. Our relaunch starts Monday with Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer in Public Policy Mark Fagan, who is leading the Autonomous Vehicles Policy Initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. The initiative is working to help local governments prepare for the impacts of driverless cars, which are already being field-tested across the U.S. and which will could have major impacts on traffic congestion, public transit ridership, public safety, and even data privacy. Future episodes will feature conversations with HKS professors, researchers, and other experts about public policy, public leadership, politics, media, international relations, and more. PolicyCast is hosted by Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean of Communications Thoko Moyo. The show is produced by Ralph Ranalli and Susan Hughes.

On this episode of Trending Globally,: a deep dive into the opioid crisis. Guest host Susan Moffitt, Director of the Taubman Center for American Policy and Politics [https://watson.brown.edu/taubman/], talks with Brandon Marshall, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health [https://vivo.brown.edu/display/bm8]. Marshal is an expert in the epidemiology of substance abuse, and presented on his work this February at a conference hosted by the Watson Institute and the Taubman Center [https://youtu.be/-DWoWS3RtBE]. Moffitt and Marshall look at the origins of this public health crisis, and help make sense of the staggering numbers behind it. Download episode transcript

This fall, education policy researchers released Getting Down to Facts II [http://gettingdowntofacts.com], a major report on preK-12 education in California. The findings reveal that reforms adopted since the original report was released in 2007 have put California on the right track, but funding challenges and student achievement gaps remain. Susanna Loeb [https://news.brown.edu/articles/2017/08/loeb], director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University [http://www.annenberginstitute.org] and the report's principal investigator, joined Susan Moffitt [https://watson.brown.edu/public-policy/people/faculty/susan-moffitt], director of the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy [https://watson.brown.edu/taubman], to discuss what the findings mean for California, and what other states might learn from them. Episode edited by Babette Thomas '19 Theme music composed by Henry Ross Bloomfield: www.heybloomfield.com Download episode transcript

@DarrWest / @BrookingsInst on the Future of Work: AI, Robots & Automation #JobsOfFuture Youtube: https://youtu.be/aEfVIY09p3o In this podcast Darrell West (@DarrWest) from @BrookingsInst talks about the future of work, worker and workplace. He sheds light into this research into changing work landscape and importance of policy design to compensate for technology disruption. Darrell shares his thoughts on how business, professionals and governments could come together to minimize the technology driven joblessness impact and help stimulate the economy by placing everyone in futuristic roles. Darrell's Recommended Read: Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson https://amzn.to/2JA4hsK Podcast Link: iTunes: http://math.im/itunes GooglePlay: http://math.im/gplay Darrell's BIO: Darrell West is the Vice President of Governance Studies and Director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. His current research focuses on technology policy, the Internet, digital media, health care, education, and privacy and security. The Center that he directs examines a wide range of topics related to technology innovation including technology policy, public sector innovation; legal and Constitutional aspects of technology; digital media and social networking; health information technology; virtual education, and green technology. Its mission is to identify key developments in technology innovation, undertake cutting-edge research, disseminate best practices broadly, inform policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels about actions needed to improve innovation, and enhance the public’s and media’s understanding of the importance of technology innovation. West is the author of written 23 books and my most recent one published two weeks ago is The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation (Brookings Institution Press) some of the past work includes: How Technology Can Transform Education (Brookings, 2012); The Next Wave: Using Digital Technology to Further Social and Political Innovation (Brookings, 2011), Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy (Brookings, 2010), Digital Medicine: Health Care in the Internet Era (Brookings, 2009), Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance, (Princeton University Press, 2005), and Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005), among others. He is the winner of the American Political Science Association’s Don K. Price award for best book on technology (for Digital Government) and the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber award for best book on political communications (for Cross Talk). About #Podcast: #JobsOfFuture podcast is a conversation starter to bring leaders, influencers and lead practitioners to come on show and discuss their journey in creating the data driven future. Wanna Join? If you or any you know wants to join in, Register your interest @ http://play.analyticsweek.com/guest/ Want to sponsor? Email us @ info@analyticsweek.com Keywords: #JobsOfFuture #Leadership #Podcast #Future of #Work #Worker & #Workplace

Darell West: AI, the Future of Work, and the Future of America (Ep. 137) Bio Darrell M. West (@darrwest) is the vice president and director of Governance Studies and Director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution and Editor-in-Chief of TechTank. His current research focuses on technology, mass media, campaigns and elections, and public sector innovation. Prior to coming to Brookings, West was the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University. West is the author or co-author of 23 books including The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation(Brookings Institution Press, 2018), Megachange: Economic Disruption, Political Upheaval, and Social Strife in the 21st Century (Brookings Institution Press, 2016), Going Mobile: How Wireless Technology is Reshaping Our Lives (Brookings Institution Press, 2015), Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust(Brookings Institution Press, 2014), Digital Schools: How Technology Can Transform Education (Brookings, 2012), The Next Wave: Using Digital Technology to Further Social and Political Innovation (Brookings, 2011), Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy (Brookings, 2010), Digital Medicine: Health Care in the Internet Era (Brookings, 2009), Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance, (Princeton University Press, 2005), Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaigns (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2005), Cross Talk: Citizens, Candidates, and the Media in a Presidential Campaign(University of Chicago Press, 1996) The Sound of Money: How Political Interests Get What They Want (W. W. Norton, 1998), Biotechnology Policy Across National Boundaries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), and Patrick Kennedy: The Rise to Power (Prentice-Hall, 2000), among others. He is the winner of the American Political Science Association’s Don K. Price award for best book on technology (for Digital Government) and the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber award for best book on political communications (for Cross Talk). He has published more than three dozen scholarly articles in a wide range of academic journals. In 2014, he was honored by Public Administration Review for having written one of the 75 most influential articles since 1940. This was for his article “E-Government and the Transformation of Service Delivery and Citizen Attitudes.” He has delivered many lectures in more than a dozen different countries around the world, including Malaysia, Singapore, Norway, China, Japan, Russia, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Bahrain, and the United States. He has been quoted in leading newspapers, radio stations, and national television networks around the world. The Center that he directs at Brookings examines a wide range of topics related to technology innovation including governance, democracy, and public sector innovation; health information technology; virtual education, and green technology. Its mission is to identify key developments in technology innovation, undertake cutting-edge research, disseminate best practices broadly, inform policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels about actions needed to improve innovation, and enhance the public’s and media’s understanding of technology innovation. Resources Inside Politics The Future of Work: Robots, AI, and Automation (Brookings Institution Press, 2018) Brookings Center for Technology Innovation Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (HarperCollins, 2017) News Roundup Federal watchdog: FCC’s ORielly violated Hatch Act The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the federal ethics authority, warned Republican FCC Commission Mike O’Rielly that O’Rielly violated the Hatch Act, according to a letter it wrote to the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from using their official authority to influence or affect an election. At a panel discussion of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February, O’Rielly stated ,“I think what we can do is make sure as conservatives that we elect good people to both the House, the Senate and make sure that President Trump gets reelected.” OSC did say, however, that merely appearing at the event was not a violation. Comcast aims for 21st Century Fox Comcast is preparing an all-cash $60 billion bid for 21st Century Fox, according to Reuters. This exceeds Disney’s current $52 billion proposal. But Comcast says it’ll wait for regulators to decide the fate of AT&T’s proposed takeover of Time Warner, before making a formal offer. Tensions mount between U.S. and China over Telecom/5G Tensions between the U.S. and China are beginning to mount over national security concerns related to Chinese telecommunications equipment, and the two countries’ race to lead the world in 5G. Cecilia Kang and Ana Swanson report in the New York Times that the White House is considering further restricting the sale of telecom equipment manufactured in China. The FCC and Commerce Department have already restricted government contractors from purchasing telecommunications equipment from companies like ZTE, which the Commerce Department says failed to punish employees for violating U.S. sanctions. China’s Ministry of Commerce told a U.S. trade delegation that visited Beijing last week that the ZTE ban would severely hurt the company. Se Young Lee and Lusha Zhang report in Reuters. N.S.A.’s collection of data from U.S. phone companies is up threefold since 2016 Charlie Savage reports in the New York Times that the National Security Agency collected three times more data than it did in 2016. The NSA collected some 534 million phone call and text message records from telecommunications companies. FCC begins shift of $9 Billion in Universal Service funds from BofA to Treasury FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has begun moving $9 billion that’s used for the universal service fund from Bank of America to the Treasury Department. Democratic Commissioners Rosenworcel and Clyburn say moving the funds is a shame because it foregoes some $50 million in annual interest income that could have been used to provide further subsidies. Todd Shields reports in Bloomberg. Velázquez and 46 members of Congress urge the FCC to preserve Lifeline FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made a proposal recently to rollback the federal Lifeline program, a program that subsidizes communications services for low-income Americans. In a letter she wrote along with 47 Members of Congress, New York Representative Nydia Velázquez says rolling the program back would result in 75 percent of existing customers in Puerto Rico losing their telecommunications carrier. Cambridge Analytica declares bankruptcy Cambridge Analytica has declared bankruptcy and is ceasing operations. The company began losing clients following the investigation into its alleged work to use the personal data of millions on Facebook to help get Donald Trump elected. However, the UK’s investigation of Cambridge Analytica is still ongoing, despite the bankruptcy, according to the Associated Press. CBC Releases vision for shared prosperity in tech The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) released last week its Tech 2020 set of principles. The principles include proposals for STEAM education and job training, making tech available and affordable, addressing the economic stability of communities, recruiting and retaining black talent, and targeting investment in diverse companies and communities. Melania Trump announces platform Melania Trump announced a platform focused on children’s issues. It’s dubbed “Be Best” and it will have three components: well being, social media use (including cyberbullying) and opioid abuse. Google and Facebook announce ban on bail bond ads Google and Facebook announced that they would ban ads for bail bonds. Google said it would officially start banning the ads in July. Google’s Global Product Policy Director David Graff said the bail bond providers make most of their revenue from low income areas and communities of color. Facebook has plans to ban the ads as well, but it’s still working out the details.

Prof. Jim Morrone of Brown University’s Taubman Center discusses his latest poll looking at how Rhode Islanders feel going into the April presidential primaries

Are neighbors vanishing in America? Marc Dunkelman thinks so. Marc is a fellow in public policy with the Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions at Brown University and author of “The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community.”

Delivering the Yale School of Architecture’s annual Eero Saarinen lecture, Edward Glaeser (Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard and Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government) discusses how “cities magnify humanity’s strengths” by spurring innovation, facilitating face-to-face interaction, attracting talent, encouraging entrepreneurship, and allowing for social and economic mobility.

Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University, delivers the annual Cornelson Distinguished Lecture in Economics. As director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Glaeser studies the economics of cities, and writes on urban issues such as the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He is particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University; Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and Director of the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston

Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, delivered the annual Noah Krieger Memorial Lecture sponsored by Brown’s Taubman Center for Public Policy on September 24. A Rhodes Scholar and an alumnus of Stanford and Yale Law, Booker has been compared to Barack Obama as a “breakthrough leader”: “African-American politicians whose appeal transcends race,” said the New Yorker in a profile last year. In 2006, at the age of 37, he became mayor of the country’s third-oldest city and one of the worst-afflicted by poverty and crime. Newark’s political climate when Booker took office was described as among the most corrupt in urban America. Booker quickly initiated a controversial, and highly successful, crackdown on major crime as a first step toward achieving his dream for the city’s rehabilitation. He promised to make Newark “a national standard of excellence” for urban transformation. Speaking at the “First Draft of History” conference convened on October 1 and 2 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Brown President Ruth J. Simmons praised Booker as an exemplar of the broadly educated problem-solvers the United States increasingly needs. “As a university president, if I could produce one of him, that would be enough,” she said.