Anonymous's blog Midwestern states have become both battlegrounds and test labs in the past three years for clashing theories on economic development. On one side are pro-business tax-cutting governors, often Republican, devoted to balanced budgets a ...
Anonymous's blog Can major research universities use the immense resources at their command – the storehouses of data, the research techniques, the expertise in analyzing problems, mostly their sheer brainpower – to help solve the problems of the gre ...
Anonymous's blog What with dysfunction in Washington and incompetence in state capitals, the spotlight is shifting to the role of cities, not only as arenas of democratic governance but simply as places where things get done. It’s early days yet for ...
Anonymous's blog More than any other country, the United States looks to philanthropists and their giving to fill the gaps – cultural, social, civic, educational – left unattended by either the market or the government. Over the years, this giving by ...
Anonymous's blog The natural habitat of the Tea Party is usually seen as the unreconstructed reaches of the Old South. If people want to blame Dixie for the recent government shutdown, we should probably let it go at that. But the fact is that many T ...
Anonymous's blog Elkhart, Indiana, which bills itself as the RV capital of the world, got hit harder by the recession than any other American city. Now it has hit the jackpot. Literally. An Elkhart native named David Gundlach left town, got rich, cam ...
Anonymous's blog Small farms are becoming big business. One reason is an innovation called food hubs. Food hubs aren’t exactly new: a few have been around for 20 years. But lately, they’ve been growing like zucchini in August: two-thirds have been in ...
Anonymous's blog Three states – Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana – came together in Chicago’s Loop recently to talk about their common future. They didn’t decide anything and the conversation itself revealed how far they have to go. But this meeting s ...
Anonymous's blog Have you been to a farmers’ market recently? I hit a downtown Chicago market before lunch today, picking up some last-minute sage and yellow beets for tonight’s dinner. The city’s Federal Plaza was packed with kiosks, all doing a bri ...
Anonymous's blog The epidemic of inner city murders in Chicago is well known. Less well known is the spread of heroin and other drugs to the rural counties of the Midwest. The link between these two pathologies is virtually unknown, but is crucial to ...
