Category: Poverty & income gap
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Economic Un-Development
I was planning to blog today about the sad fate of Tarek Hezam, a New Yorker who moved to the Richmond region and opened a convenience store in the Oak Grove neighborhood of the city in 2013. After neighbors complained that the store became a magnet for trash and crime, the City of Richmond revoked his…
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Are We Reducing Food Insecurity or Aggravating It?
by James A. Bacon The federal government has awarded Virginia an $8.8 million grant, to support a program in the City of Richmond and seven localities in Southwest Virginia to fight child hunger. Elaborates the Times-Dispatch: The children will receive a third meal before leaving school every day, and they will also participate in an off-hours…
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Celebrating an Architectural Classic
by James A. Bacon Bacon’s Castle, a 17th-century brick plantation house in Surry County, is vaguely known by Virginians for playing some kind of role in Bacon’s Rebellion, the first rebellion in the North American mainland against the English crown. Despite my passing interest in the conflict, I knew little about the building — other than…
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Are Do-Gooders Making Food Insecurity Worse?
by James A. Bacon Food deserts are back in the news here in Richmond with the premier of a documentary, “Living in a Food Desert,” at the Richmond International Film Festival. First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe, who has made food security her signature cause, attended the screening and addressed the audience. More than 300,000 Virginia children are…
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Big Data and Power to the People
by James A. Bacon In the previous post, John Butcher brought to light some incredibly important data long secreted in the Virginia Department of Education — Student Growth Percentile (SGP) scores. There are two aspects to this story. First, the data will bring unprecedented accountability to Virginia schools and school divisions. Second, it is a cautionary…
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SGPs: Bringing Accountability to School Systems
by John Butcher For much too long, the principal measures of educational quality were inputs: budgets, teacher salaries, class sizes, pupil/teacher ratios, and the like. Grades did not compare from school to school or even class to class. Specialized tests such as the SAT reached only limited numbers of students and, in the SAT case,…
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Measuring Automobile Dependency
Fascinating data from Governing magazine comparing auto dependency of various municipalities around the United States: Arlington, Alexandria and the City of Richmond led the pack in Virginia as the least auto-dependent, with Norfolk, Lynchburg and Roanoke close behind. There are two main variables affecting automobile dependency: income and availability of transportation alternatives. Income: Poorer communities,…
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Why Hide Details of Lethal Injection?
By Peter Galuszka It has to be one of the creepiest bills ever considered by the General Assembly. Senate Bill 1393, sponsored by Sen. Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax), would drop a veil of secrecy over how Virginia executes prisoners by lethal injection. Its backers, including Gov. Terry McAuliffe, are pushing it against a backdrop of global…
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Best Region for Hispanics — the Mid-Atlantic
Hispanics now comprise 17% of the United States population. In New Geography, Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox ask where in the country Hispanics are faring the best economically. Based on their analysis of the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan regions, it appears that Hispanics are more likely to prosper in the Mid-Atlantic than anywhere else in…
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The Importance of “Selma”
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in Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Economic development, Electoral process, Government workers and pensions, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka “Selma” is one of those fairly rare films that underline a crucial time and place in history while thrusting important issues forward to the present day. Ably directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie depicts the fight for the Voting Rights Act culminating in the dramatic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in…
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Interview: McAuliffe’s Economic Goals
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka For a glimpse of where the administration of Gov. Terry McAuliffe is heading, here’s an interview I did with Maurice Jones, the secretary of commerce and trade that was published in Richmond’s Style Weekly. Jones, a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College and University of Virginia law, is a former Rhodes Scholar who had…
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Whatever Happened to “Boomergeddon?”
By Peter Galuszka Attention ditto-heads! Before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last night, there was an interesting piece on CNN of hard-line conservatives claiming two years ago that the U.S. economy would collapse if Obama were re-elected. They claimed that the U.S. faced uncontrollable government spending and ever-growing budget deficits. Obama’s efforts…
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A Positive Alternative to Payday Lenders
by James A. Bacon It’s understandable that people get upset with payday loan companies. The short-term lenders, who use borrowers’ paychecks as collateral, charge interest rates that seem extortionate on an annualized basis. Many borrowers get caught on a treadmill of indebtedness, taking out new loans to pay off the old ones. The problem with most…
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Virginia’s Top Stories in 2014
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, 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, Taxes, Transportation, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka The Year 2014 was quite eventful if unsettling. It represented some major turning points for the Old Dominion. Here are my picks for the top stories: Robert F. McDonnell becomes the highest-ranking former or serving state official to be convicted of corruption. The six-week-long trial from July to September of the Republican…
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Redistricting, Ethics Panel Pushes Ahead
By Peter Galuszka Against strong chances that their efforts will be killed in the self-serving General Assembly, a panel is pushing ahead with badly needed reforms in government ethics and redistricting. The bipartisan Commission on Integrity and Public Confidence in State Government wants to change the state constitution to create and independent redistricting commission tasked…