May 23, 2013
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kb@remappingdebate.org Kevin C. Brown is a staff reporter at Remapping Debate. He holds a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Carnegie Mellon University. Kevin is also the creator and host of Remapping Debate’s “History for the Future” interview series, which he started in 2010 at WRCT-Pittsburgh.
Original Reporting
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Alternative models, Infrastructure, Transportation
The ticket to getting widespread transit adoption in U.S. cities? Invest in convenient service upfront. The riders will follow.More
Original Reporting
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Alternative models, History
Does the notion that every American should be guaranteed a basic level of income sound utopian? In the late 1960s and early 1970s it was mainstream.More
Original Reporting
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Alternative models, History
As “market values” have replaced “social values,” they've driven a once-popular policy idea out of favor. Not coincidentally, the prevailing American concept of citizenship has come to de-emphasize participation and mutual obligation.More
Original Reporting
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Energy, Infrastructure
Long Islanders suffered through an extended period of post-Sandy electrical outages. National Grid, which operates the system for an asleep-at-the-wheel LIPA, is a for-profit company. LIPA's predecessor, LILCO, was too. But the initial report of Gov. Cuomo's Moreland Commission recommends full privatization. Is this the best way?More
Press Criticism
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Budget deficit, Media
Most of those who interview or moderate for Peterson’s “fiscal summits” appear to themselves believe that it’s “not realistic” to believe the country can afford the programs it used to. Those who are prepared to be “adults," they think, will not flinch at these “hard truths” and recognize that it is time to take citizens-have-to-do-with-less medicine. The proof is in the questions.More
Original Reporting
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Infrastructure, NYC, Transportation
In part 2 of our story on New York’s failure to get a full build-out of the long-needed Second Avenue subway, we focus on the area’s politicians — especially those who hold themselves out to be advocates of mass transit. Most hid from our questioning; some accepted the idea that key infrastructure needs will not be met; a few insisted that the decision to shortchange the Second Avenue subway and similar projects was indefensible.More
Original Reporting
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Infrastructure, NYC, Transportation
A fully realized Second Avenue subway would replace service lost decades ago, help meet ever growing transit demand, and provide a wide range of economic and environmental benefits to New York City and its residents. Even though the entire line could be built at one time, and even though delay is more costly than action, all that has been funded is a less-than-two-mile stub.More
Original Reporting
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Government services, Role of government
In looking at the decisions the Postal Service has been forced to make since the early 2000s, it is almost as though the Bush Administration and successive Congresses had decided that the task was to make the Postal Service a failed business and a failed public service. The alternative hypothesis? That no one at the wheel knew what he or she was doing.More