All Publications

Parking has been a contentious policy focus in cities and towns around the United States for decades. Residents, visitors, and business owners often lament what they see as parking shortages or unfair prices. Meanwhile, surface lots and parking garages have chipped away at once vibrant urban centers, taking up what is often the most valuable land in the region. Undoubtedly, parking is an important asset to many American cities and, as such, should be viewed as an integral piece of the each city’s transportation and land use system. However, like any land use or any piece of transportation infrastructure, it must be managed properly to ensure it works efficiently and adds value to the community. City officials can accomplish this by leveraging municipally owned parking—both on-street and off—and by regulating and taxing privately owned parking.

Across the country, Healthcare Training Funds – joint programs of labor and management, bargained and administered at the local and regional level – have developed an impressive and growing core of work. From a core of SEIU locals and employers, mostly from the hospital sector, H-CAP and the related H-CAP Education Association (EA), have convened a network that has grown into a force with reach, experience, and impact not conceived of when the project began. The participating partnerships and training funds/organizations in aggregate now reach 900 healthcare providers in every setting of healthcare – from home health, to long term care, to clinics and hospitals – and nearly 600,000 workers from every occupational level in the healthcare industry. This paper provides an introduction to one of workforce development’s most innovative programs across the nation.

From The Nation‘s 150th Anniversary Issue, April 6, 2015.

Wisconsin’s growth and prosperity are not being widely shared. Over the last 40 years, Wisconsin’s richest residents have experienced dramatic increases in income, while Wisconsinites not among the very highest earners saw little or no income growth. In 2012, Wisconsin reached a milestone, with a record share of income going to the top 1%.

Jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show an increase of 16,000 jobs in Wisconsin this past month. While statistics are subject to monthly revisions, and the exact figure might change, this substantial increase is significant and likely to remain the best month for job growth of 2015. This increase in jobs is very good news for the Badger State which has been on a weak trajectory since the recovery began. Wisconsin now is firmly and consistently posting a job count well in excess of the number of jobs the state had on the eve of the Great Recession (December 2007).

Because the population has grown since the Great Recession, just getting back to the 2007 job base doesn’t provide the same sense of opportunity, however. For the labor market to provide the same level of opportunity for our current population, the state job market is still 95,000 jobs short. In fact, even if this strong rate of job growth were maintained –a difficult feat in itself–the state is still half a year from recovering to the level of opportunity in 2007.

Automobile use has been on the rise in cities for nearly a century and so has the supply of parking. Because driving often seems unavoidable, policymakers, developers and the public push endlessly for more parking to meet demand. That push, however, might only be making matters worse.

This report strongly suggests that abundant parking in cities causes people to drive more, shedding important light on the question of cause and effect.

From the Gateway Cities Innovation Institute, in collaboration with State Smart Transportation Initiative, this report examines how best practices in transit planning can benefit Massachusetts’s Regional Transit Authorities.

As part of 2013’s landmark transportation finance legislation, the state legislature mandated that the RTAs conduct comprehensive service plans. If done well, the report argues, these assessments could help make the case for more funding from the state going forward.