DrUrbanPolicy

On its face, Martin Luther King Day is a holiday dedicated to the memory of one of the key figures in American history. Recently, it has become popular as a "National Day of Service" and an opportunity to give back to the community. For me, its greatest significance is as a day to reflect on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and how America has changed (and not changed) since Martin Luther King, Jr's time. The King Memorial in Washington, DC  As I referenced in an earlier post  on the anniversary of the March on Washington, King's "March to Freedom" began with the Emancipation Proclamation 151 years ago during the midst of the Civil War.  Some may say the movement ended at one of several key moments: the passage of the Civil Rights Act 50 years ago, The Voting Rights Act the next year, the creation of the Martin Luther King Day holiday or the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Culturally, Doug Williams' accolades...

I recently had a conversation with  Tara Bahrampour  of the Washington Post as part of her research for "Rising community association fees are squeezing homeowners on tight budgets,"  the main Metro  section article in Sunday's Washington Post.  I was pleasantly surprised to have this conversation:  the article notes that over 63 million are residents in community associations, and relatively little attention has been paid to how they work. Screenshot of article on washingtonpost.com Rising fees can be problematic for many residents - here's the excerpt that came from our conversation: In the past four decades, the number of condominiums, co-op units and houses that are part of homeowners associations has skyrocketed across the nation, from 701,000 in 1970 to 25.9 million in 2012, according to the Foundation for Community Association Research. The foundation does not categorize ownership by age, but an analysis by AARP’s Public Policy Institu...

"On the 11th hour of the 11th Day of the 11th month" - 95 years ago, the Great War ended and later  Veterans Day  (originally Armistice Day) was born as a celebration of the outbreak of peace.  I've always enjoyed thinking about the duty of veterans in that context. Different faces of veterans (photo from VA.gov ) Several generations of my family (along with a few friends and classmates) have served in the Armed Forces, and today is a day to thank them and their their fellow service-members for their service. It's also a great American custom to separate celebrations of Memorial Day (for those that have passed on) from Veterans Day to have a special day to celebrate those who are living (countries that celebrate Remembrance Day  generally combine both). Since attention is focused on veterans today, this is a time of year that we hear stories about the challenges that veterans face. One can expect to hear about health care problems , the high suicide rate...

Today is September 11. Twelve years ago, we witnessed moments that few of us will ever forget.  Today has been called a day of remembrance, a day of mourning, and a day of service. I think that it's a great sign of American resilience that we can use one day to spur us to do all of these things. As with many of our holidays, we can do more than one thing at a time . Using today as a "day of service" means committing to do something to help improve the lives of others. That is a very noble task, and one kind of fitting tribute to those who lost their lives on S eptember 11th and those who sacrificed their lives in service after that day.

The March on Washington happened 50 years ago today, and its anniversary has me thinking about the policy lessons from the struggle for civil rights. There are dozens of lessons from a struggle that goes back at least 150 years , yet one theme emerges: The strategy to accomplish a goal depends on time, context, resources and opportunity - there isn't a one-size-fits all solution or a single policy solution to solve major issues or meet major goals. Dr. King starts off his speech by referencing the Emancipation Proclamation as the beginning of the march to freedom, and discusses the defaulted-upon "promissory note" that was promised by the Declaration of Independence. While the Emancipation Proclamation has great symbolic weight, eliminating slavery took more - it required a 13th constitutional amendment. (This story was compelling enough to be the focus of the recent Lincoln movie .) Policies to meet the major national goal of equality for African Americans be...

Happy Independence Day! I've talked about a number of challenging issues on the DrUrbanPolicy blog: decreasing housing affordability , the need for better policies on infrastructure , gentrification and segregation , the need to plan better for our future , political corruption , the problems we face from lazy legislation and gerrymandered districts and more.  A discussion of policy change usually often means discussing problems - if there was no problem, there would be no need for policy to address it. Some may think about the challenges and be down on America - I opened the Washington Post this morning to read an article from a Canadian historian who gave his perspective that the American Revolution was a failure . This week's overthrow of the Egyptian government and the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg are reminders of how unstable government can be. A century and a half ago, the country was torn in two, and Egypt's military just dissolved their ...

The "new" Woodrow Wilson Bridge project on I-495 (completed in 2008) is an example of a major infrastructure project that fixed problems of the present (capacity and age issues of a relatively low drawbridge on a major highway connection between Ma ryland and Virginia) and added improvements for the future.