Year: 2012
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Zoning Laws, Housing Segregation and Educational Inequality
by James A. Bacon Following the lead of the book, “Why Nations Fail,” Brookings Institution scholar Jonathan Rothwell classifies national institutions into two categories: “open” institutions that diffuse power and opportunity and “extractive” institutions that concentrate power and limit opportunity. Among the extractive institutions he espies in the United States is zoning. As he writes…
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Moscow Memories
By Peter Galuszka It is a cruelly damp and cold day in the autumn of 1986. I am sitting in the lobby of Vnhestorgbank in the Mezhdyunarodnaya Complex, one of the few modern-looking buildings in Moscow at the time. The “Mezh”, also known as the “International Center” or the “Armand Hammer Center” after the U.S.…
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Virginia Ports Need More than Rail to Handle Cargo Growth
by James A. Bacon In Mid-March the MSC Roma paid a stop at the Port of Virginia. Setting a record for a container ship in Virginia waters, the vessel drew 48 1/2 feet when it departed with export-bound containers. Virginia was the only port on the East Coast with channels deep enough to handle the…
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Where’s the P3 Money Going?
Four days ago Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, issued an analysis contending that the McDonnell administration could find $300 million to support the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project from funds set aside for public private partnerships. That argument is moot now that the state Senate approved the 2013-2014 budget without the…
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Loudoun’s Metro Marriage
This guest column was contributed by David LaRock, a Loudoun County resident and member of the Loudoun Opt Out Group. Spring is here, romance is in the air, and the arranged marriage between Loudoun County and D.C. Metro seems destined to take place. Although the courtship has spanned decades, the moment draws near when Loudoun…
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Quote of the Day: Mark Spitznagel
From “How the Fed Favors the 1%” in the Wall Street Journal. The Fed, having gone on an unprecedented credit expansion spree, has benefited the recipients who were first in line at the trough: banks … and those favored entities and individuals deemed most creditworthy. Flush with capital, these recipients have proceeded to bid up…
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Private Colleges and Educational Opportunity for African-Americans
By James A. Bacon There is a tremendous thirst in Virginia’s African-American population for higher education that is not reflected in minority enrollment at Virginia’s public colleges and universities. Only 13.8% of the students attending public institutions in the fall of 2008 were African-American. But 47.4% of the students enrolled in private, proprietary colleges (often…
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CTB Authorizes $100 Million for Norfolk Toll Relief
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board has allocated approximately $100 million in transportation funds to cover the cost of delaying tolls on the Midtown-Downtown tunnels for a year and half, but Norfolk-area commuters still will be stuck paying tolls for two or more years before the new tunnels and Martin Luther King Boulevard…
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ALEC, the Tea Party and the Feral GOP
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Gun rights, Immigration, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Virginia’s conservatives have gone through a spasm of controversy as they struggle to find their message. They desperately need to balance their ideas of fiscal discipline and limited government with a wide spectrum of unrelated hard-right social issues. The clearest evidence yet of the quandary for their soul involves the American Legislative…
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Richmond’s Creative Class and the Indie Music Scene
Richmond is no one’s idea of a cultural trend setter. I often joke that the last cultural innovation that originated in my fair city and spread beyond its borders was the festival flag (an adornment whose allure has long since peaked and faded). Perhaps I could add the Geico Gecko and Cave Man commercials that…
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Drive Down Dulles Tolls by Restructuring Bond Financing
by James A. Bacon If the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) restructured the way it plans to finance the Rail-to-Dulles project, it could reduce tolls on the Dulles Toll Road by $.90 per driver in the early stages, Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told the Commonwealth Transportation Board today. “We’ve been going through their finances. We…
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Rail-to-Dulles Controversy Goes Statewide
The debate over Rail-to-Dulles has taken a fascinating new twist. For years the controversy over the heavy rail project and its concomitant financing through Dulles Toll Road revenues has been a purely Northern Virginia issue. It received zero coverage in the Rest of Virginia (RoVa). Ninety-nine percent of downstate residents were ignorant of it, and…
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Skirting the Maelstrom
by James A. Bacon It’s Business As Usual in Virginia as the political class grapples over budget issues seemingly oblivious to what’s happening in other parts of the world. Politicians of varied political stripes seem to think it’s a perfectly good idea to borrow another $300 million, over and above $150 million already set aside,…
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“Young Gun” Cantor Gets Tiresome
By Peter Galuszka What a difference nine months makes. Last summer, Boy Wonder Eric Cantor, the U.S. house majority leader from Henrico County, was riding high politically. If he wasn’t snubbing President Barack Obama in meetings over the need to raise the debt ceiling, he was racing to get ahead of the Tea Party parade…
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Fairfax County’s Incredible Shrinking Growth Forecast
More great analysis from Terry Maynard! In a memorandum to fellow members of the Reston Master Plan Special Study Task Force, he tracks the incredible deflating population growth projections for Fairfax County and explores what it means for transportation and land use planning. As recently as 2008, the sky was the limit. As the federal…