Category: Poverty & income gap
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Don't Stop a Welcome Purge
By Peter Galuszka The Confederate Battle flag is quickly unraveling throughout the Old Dominion. With it are going many icons of an era racked with controversy and hatred, along with mythology, which regretfully will still continue in some form. Following the example of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who asked that state’s legislature to take…
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Don’t Stop a Welcome Purge
By Peter Galuszka The Confederate Battle flag is quickly unraveling throughout the Old Dominion. With it are going many icons of an era racked with controversy and hatred, along with mythology, which regretfully will still continue in some form. Following the example of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who asked that state’s legislature to take…
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Only Marginal Gains from Obamacare Insurance Overhaul
by James A. Bacon After all the strum and drang over Obamacare, the restructuring of the United States health care system, the re-engineering of the medical insurance industry and dislocation to millions of Americans who discovered they could not necessarily keep their doctor or their health care plan, even if they liked it, it turns out…
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Tobacco Commission: Six of Eight Projects Fail
By Peter Galuszka Down Danville way, of eight companies that have received money from the Tobacco Region Opportunity Fund (the old, embattled tobacco commission) only two have managed to fulfill contractual obligations to create jobs and help the local economy. According to a report by Vicky M. Cruz in the Danville Register & Bee, the…
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Map of the Day: Disconnected Youth
A new report by the Social Science Research Council, “Zeroing in on Place and Race,” defines “disconnected youth” as Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school. Disconnected youth, who consist disproportionately of minorities and the poor, are at higher risk for a variety of social pathologies such as criminal…
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Crossing the Rubicon
By Steve Haner I don’t know about others, but I notified the Governor’s Office in March that I did not want another term on the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV). My goal in going on that panel was to advocate against skyrocketing tuition. Four years of a losing battle was enough. The…
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Hottest Primary May Be 10th Senate District
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in Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t OversightBy Peter Galuszka Primaries in Virginia used to be a bore, but no longer. Last year, Dave Brat’s Tea Party-backed insurgency against the seemingly impregnable Eric Cantor garnered national headlines in the 7th Congressional District. This year, you have several General Assembly races come June 9 that will seek to replace several prominent politicians who…
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Two Stories on Change in Richmond's Suburbs
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Well, well, Jim Bacon has this month’s cover story in the Henrico Monthly about the changing nature of office parks in one county that has plenty of them. Not to be outdone, I have my own cover story in the Chesterfield Monthly, a sister magazine published by the same people. My…
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Two Stories on Change in Richmond’s Suburbs
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Well, well, Jim Bacon has this month’s cover story in the Henrico Monthly about the changing nature of office parks in one county that has plenty of them. Not to be outdone, I have my own cover story in the Chesterfield Monthly, a sister magazine published by the same people. My…
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Will the "Ferguson Effect" Kill Urban Renewal?
by James A. Bacon Baltimore is the East Coast’s answer to Detroit, a once-prosperous city hollowing out from decades of mismanagement under the Blue State governance model. By the time the Washington Village Development Association (WVDA) filmed its documentary, “Fleeing Baltimore,” in 2013, 31,500 residents had abandoned Maryland’s largest city over the previous decade. Sixteen thousand buildings stood…
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Will the “Ferguson Effect” Kill Urban Renewal?
by James A. Bacon Baltimore is the East Coast’s answer to Detroit, a once-prosperous city hollowing out from decades of mismanagement under the Blue State governance model. By the time the Washington Village Development Association (WVDA) filmed its documentary, “Fleeing Baltimore,” in 2013, 31,500 residents had abandoned Maryland’s largest city over the previous decade. Sixteen thousand buildings stood…
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New Film Documents Horrors of Coal Mining
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in Business and Economy, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Several years in the making, “Blood on the Mountain” has finally premiered in New York City. The documentary examines the cycle of exploitation of people and environment by West Virginia’s coal industry highlighting Massey Energy, a coal firm that was based in Richmond. The final cut of the film was released publicly…
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Fixing Food Deserts Won't Fix Food Insecurity
by James A. Bacon Speaking of food… there’s new research out on the differences in diet and nutrition between different socioeconomic groups. The conventional wisdom is that a major factor explaining the gap in nutritional quality between affluent and poor Americans is the difficulty poor people have in accessing fresher, healthier food — the food desert…
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Fixing Food Deserts Won’t Fix Food Insecurity
by James A. Bacon Speaking of food… there’s new research out on the differences in diet and nutrition between different socioeconomic groups. The conventional wisdom is that a major factor explaining the gap in nutritional quality between affluent and poor Americans is the difficulty poor people have in accessing fresher, healthier food — the food desert…
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The Parental Backlash Against SOL Tests
By Peter Galuszka Although their numbers are small, more Virginia parents are refusing to have their children take the state’s Standards of Learning tests, saying that test preparation takes away from true education. In the 2013 -14 school year, 681 SOL tests were coded as parent refusals out of the nearly three million given, with…