Policy Blog

Daily Digit (4-22-10)

1,000: The number of viewers when Pinellas County, Fla., held its online e-town hall meeting. The online meeting blog had 602 readers and 304 published comments. Previously, town hall meetings attracted only 100 to 150 people (from Governing Magazine).

Is Portland a Leader among American Cities or Just Strange? (4-19-10)

Portland Mayor Sam Adams "says Portland's success is 'totally replicable.' But much of it seems to be an unintended consequence of land-use policies dating back to 1973. Back then, Oregon adopted 'urban-growth boundaries' (UGBs) to preserve the farmlands that were then the mainstay of Oregon's economy. Over time the rationale for UGBs changed to 'don't Californicate Oregon'-ie, don't become Los Angeles, a freeway sprawl with no centre. The result has been unusually compact living, which is in turn easily served by public transport.

Joel Kotkin, a Los Angeles-based demographer and author, thinks that places like Portland, San Francisco and Boston have become 'elite cities,' attractive to the young and single, especially those with trust funds, but beyond the reach of middle-class families who want a house with a lawn. Indeed Portland, for all its history of Western grit, is remarkably white, young and childless. Most Americans will therefore continue to migrate to the more affordable 'cities of aspiration' such as Houston, Atlanta or Phoenix, thinks Mr Kotkin. As they do so, they may turn decentralised sprawl into quilts of energetic suburbs with a community feeling.

That is not to belittle Portland's vision. It is a sophisticated and forward-looking place. Which other city can boast that its main attraction is a bustling independent book store (Powell's) and that medical students can go from one part of their campus to another by gondola, taking their bikes with them? Other cities will see much to emulate. Adam Davis of Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall, a Portland polling firm, says that Oregonians like to consider themselves leaders but also exceptions. They are likely to remain both."

Analyzing DNA for 'Routine' Crimes (4-13-10)

"In the mid-1990s, the federal government created the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a software program linked to state and local databases that allowed authorities in possession of DNA evidence to search nationwide for a suspect match. CODIS went live in 1998; today it links to nearly 8 million DNA profiles, which are housed in federal, state and local databases. Every state--save New Hampshire--now routinely enters DNA profiles of convicted felons into their databases. Most law enforcement agencies, however, continued to run DNA offenses on only the most serious violent crimes.

By 2005 . . . a growing number of officials in Denver - and at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in Washington, D.C. - were interested in changing that. Officials wondered what would happen if police responding to routine criminal acts - like commercial and residential burglaries, and auto theft - started looking for and analyzing DNA evidence. That year, the NIJ announced a five-site grant project to find out."

Making Planning More Accessible (4-12-10)

"Planners in the Town of Cary, North Carolina were tasked by the mayor to make their complex planning process more accessible. In January, they launched a new website that allows developers to play out scenarios on their parcel to see what could work there.

The new website tool is called VIP, or the Virtual Interactive Planner. The planning department has seen a significant reduction in phone calls since the tool went online in January.

So what can you actually do on the site? You can go in and actually type in an address, a parcel number or a real estate number and you can set up a development scenario where you say, 'This is my property, and I want to develop it as a convenience store.' And it will take that decision-making tool and walk you through all the processes. It will show you all the steps that you'll have to do, and here's an explanation of every one in great detail such as when the public can speak and when they can't, your fees, what the town looks for when approving it, what you can appeal if you don't like the decision, and what the outcome is going to be."

The Other Side of Detroit (4-12-10)

"The decay is there. The collapse is real. That is the story. But it's not the whole story. Amid the truly legitimate and titanic struggles of Detroit there's another side, one that's too seldom told.

Detroit is Big. The city of Detroit has 912,062 people, making the city still the 11th largest in the United States. Detroit has 100,000 more people than San Francisco and is 50% bigger than Boston.
Detroit is Dense. The city of Detroit has 6,571 people per square mile. That's almost 60% more dense than Portland, Oregon (4,152). Detroit's density is roughly comparable to Seattle (7,136) and Minneapolis (6,969).
Detroit Has Money. There are 18,140 households in Detroit with income over $100,000 per year. Milwaukee, hardly a basket case, has 19,297.
Detroit Has Immigrants. While over 350,000 domestic migrants left the region, Detroit metro saw nearly 100,000 new international migrants move in during the 2000's."