On Iraq, Part 1

I haven’t written much about investment issues recently, possibly because I can’t think of anything to say about them. (I just hope you aren’t loading up on equities or buying index funds.) read more »

How Social Policy Gets Made: HCZ

Roughly four decades after the demise of the Hyman-Curtis Project I found myself in NYC – it was now safe to visit the place again. I was in town to attend a charity event at the American Museum of Natural History, which sits on Central Park West. My hotel was near Gramercy Park, and since I considered myself to be practically a New Yorker I naturally decided to take the subway. read more »

How Social Policy Gets Made: Après Moi, le Déluge

The Model Cities experiment proved to be a disastrous failure. This was especially true in the most fragile neighborhoods, which were most in need of help. In a few years, for example – a very few years – the South Bronx was converted from a struggling but intact neighborhood into an empty war zone.(1) Granted, South Bronx hadn’t exactly been a model community since Gouverneur Morris died there in 1816, but prior to Model Cities it was getting along. Families lived there, small businesses flourished, there were churches and restaurants and bars and even a few good jazz clubs.(2) read more »

How Social Policy Gets Made: I Learn the Facts of Life

John Lindsay loved the Hyman-Curtis Project. He asked a million questions about how it would work and even had a couple of ideas about which neighborhoods we might pick to try it out on. As our fifteen-minute time slot stretched out to forty minutes, the Mayor picked up the phone and summoned one of his many Deputy Mayors. (In those days Lindsay had what seemed like an unlimited supply of DMs, each with a fuzzy portfolio. This particular DM shan’t be named, as he is one of the quasi-villains of the piece.) read more »

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