Urban policy

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was ecstatic last week, announcing that the city’s population had swollen to an all-time high. Unfortunately, the mayor remains completely dissociated from the many negative consequences already arising from the city’s population “boom.”

A front-page article exemplifies exactly the kind of one-sided narrative of Detroit’s decline that has prevented meaningful debate about the city’s complex problems and their potential solutions.

Reconstruction program done right would require policy makers to put aside one-dimensional narratives.

Neither city nor suburban officials would look past selfish concerns.

Historical failure to achieve regional cooperation hastened, intensified city's decline. Experts suggest that city and entire region could have prospered through partnership.

Proposed short-term solutions for Detroit's immediate financial crisis likely to exacerbate long-term problems.

In 2007, New Jersey created a commission that promised a path to streamlining its inefficient patchwork of municipalities. But that entity has been defunded before it had a chance to fulfill its mission.