Every Wednesday, the TFG Blog posts a series of articles published over the previous week that discusses topics of interest to local governments. Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!
Obama Aims to Unleash Broadband Boost
During a speech in Iowa on Wednesday, President Obama asked the Federal Communications Commission to override state laws that restrict community-run broadband networks, to provide new tools to mayors who want to build such networks, and proposed revitalizing a program of grants and loans for city-run broadband projects. The President’s announcement is part of a rollout of tech-related initiatives that will be part of his January 20 State of the Union address. Read more...
Counties Lag behind National Recovery, Report Finds
A new report released by the National Association of Counties found that the economic recovery has yet to be realized at the local level in much of the country. The analysis considered four measures: job totals, unemployment rates, economic output (GDP) and median home prices. Only 65 counties (out of more than 3,000 nationally) have seen all four economic measures fully recover from pre-recession peaks. Read more...
Problem Properties: A Pre-emptive Strategy toward Neighborhood Stability
On July 13, 2011, then-Mayor of Boston Thomas Menino signed an executive order that created a special task force for the city’s most risk-prone and risk-causing addresses. The result was the Problem Properties Task Force, which aims to identify properties that disproportionately attract illegal and dangerous activities using cross-agency collaborations and data analysis. Read more...
Homes for the Homeless in Utah
Utah’s Housing First program employs a simple ideology for ending homelessness: provide homeless individuals with housing. The idea has yielded impressive results. Not only has chronic homelessness dropped 74 percent since the program’s inception, the program is extremely cost effective. Read more...
Bright Future Seen for Smart LED Streetlight Projects
An interconnected network of smart streetlights can serve a city by monitoring traffic and weather, providing real-time video, audio and Wi-Fi, broadcasting city announcements or advertisements, directing event parking or illuminating evacuation routes in an emergency, among many other things. Cities are rapidly starting to jump on the LED smart streetlight bandwagon, some estimating that by 2019, there will be around 40 million network-controlled streetlights in cities around the world. Read more...
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