Americans know that government is broken. But Washington insiders will never fix it. Bureaucracy is their safe nest. They won't let the new president fix it either. That's why we must join together to demand a historic overhaul. The solutions are relatively easy- remaking government into simple frameworks that allow people to take charge again. What's hard is overthrowing the Washington status quo. It will only happen with your help...

The primary purpose of CSAC is to represent county government before the California Legislature, administrative agencies and the federal government. CSAC places a strong emphasis on educating the public about the value and need for county programs and services.

Anyone looking for upstream solutions to the biggest problems facing America should look to Nobel Prize winning University of Chicago Economics Professor James Heckman's work to understand the great gains to be had by investing in the early and equal development of human potential.

Bloomberg Philanthropies focuses on five key areas for creating lasting change: public health, environment, education, government innovation, and arts & culture. These five areas encompass the issues Mike Bloomberg and his team are most passionate about, and where they believe the greatest good can be achieved. While Bloomberg Philanthropies works on a wide range of issues within each focus area, we apply a distinctive approach to all of our undertakings.

New Urban Mechanics is a network of civic innovation offices. Across the network, we explore how new technology, designs and policies can strengthen the partnership between residents and government and significantly improve opportunity and experiences for all.

Some may be surprised to hear PPS echoing a version of the modernist mantra "form ever follows function" (see principle 9), but it's important for us to remember what that phrase is really all about. When it was first coined by Louis Sullivan, it was a humanist idea: that the form of a building should serve first and foremost the human uses that animate it. But over time, as Jane Jacobs observed, the idea of function underwent a "drift from humanism to gimmickry."

The Election Toolkit is a place where any election official can find communication tools that are recommended and tested by other election officials. Each tool includes information about why to use it, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to best use each tool.

Building inclusive, healthy, functional, and productive cities is perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity today, and there are no easy solutions. A key part of the puzzle, though, lies right at the heart of the world's urban areas: its public spaces. Here are ten ways you can help strengthen the social fabric of your community and jump-start economic development by creating and sustaining healthy public spaces.

Placemaking, a collaborative process by which we (residents, architects, activists, community leaders and planners alike) shape our public realm together, is fundamentally about inclusion and shared community ownership.

Like ecosystems, financial markets are complex evolving systems from which unexpected bubbles, crashes, and other surprising behaviors can emerge. Building resilient financial systems may require policymakers to take cues from biology.

Singularity Hub chronicles technological progress by highlighting the breakthroughs, players, and issues shaping the future as well as supporting a global community of smart, passionate, action-oriented people who want to change the world.

From 2014 to 2015, more than 70,000 residents across the United States and Canada directly decided how their cities and districts should spend nearly $50 million in public funds through a process known as participatory budgeting (PB). PB is among the fastest growing forms of public engagement in local governance, having expanded to 46 communities in the U.S. and Canada in just 6 years.

Infill Planning Tool

There is growing evidence showing that place impacts people's health on multiple scales. From obesity and chronic disease to depression, social isolation, and increased exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants, the world faces very different health challenges today than it has in the past, and many of these challenges are directly related to how our public spaces are designed and operated.

The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. The decrease in the middle-class share was often substantial, measuring 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a 4-point drop nationally.

The highest rates of multidimensional poverty are found in Southern and Western metro areas like Memphis, Birmingham, and Miami, where more than 1 in 5 low-income adults live with multiple disadvantages. The McAllen region exhibits the highest rate of multidimensional poverty overall (41 percent), followed by metropolitan Fresno, where one-third of adults are at least doubly disadvantaged. In each of the regions mentioned, living in a poor area is the most likely additional disadvantage experienced by low-income residents. But in other metro areas with above-average multidimensional poverty rates, different disadvantages come to the fore, like limited education in Stockton, lack of health insurance in Deltona, and lack of employment in Lakeland (see the interactive bar charts below, or the full appendix tables).

Poverty is about a lack of money, but it's not only about that. As a lived experience, poverty is also characterized by ill health, insecurity, discomfort, isolation, and more. To put it another way: Poverty is multidimensional, and its dimensions often cluster together to intensify the negative effects of being poor.

What this report finds: Income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s and in many states is up in the post-Great Recession era. In 24 states, the top 1 percent captured at least half of all income growth between 2009 and 2013, and in 15 of those states, the top 1 percent captured all income growth. In another 10 states, top 1 percent incomes grew in the double digits, while bottom 99 percent incomes fell. For the United States overall, the top 1 percent captured 85.1 percent of total income growth between 2009 and 2013. In 2013 the top 1 percent of families nationally made 25.3 times as much as the bottom 99 percent.

Income trends have varied from state to state, and within states. But a pattern is apparent: the growth of top 1% incomes. Explore inequality in this interactive feature.

Seattle Invites State DOT to Talk About Homeless Camps http://ift.tt/2bnnVVM

Seattle Invites State DOT to Talk About Homeless Camps http://ift.tt/2bnnVVM