“A single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
The path to ruin is paved with good intentions. In an effort to rein in the burden of environmental review standards, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed major CEQA reforms in June 2025. A year later, how is the program doing?
Albuquerque's 311 van drives around the city all day, picking up panhandlers and taking them to work. But is that really a viable way to reduce homelessness?
A first phase of permitting reforms — virtual inspections, an online tracker, and an 'EZ Permits' fast lane — targets low-risk residential and commercial work.
A public-private fund seeded with leftover federal pandemic aid and matched by three banks has raised $53 million toward a $100 million goal, financing construction of housing for residents earning under 80% of area median income.
A new playbook catalogs early agentic-AI experiments in Virginia, Utah, and Boston, including one pilot state officials say found $1.4 billion in annual savings and cut permit times by nearly 80%.
Seward, Alaska put a one-time cruise-line donation into child care instead of just housing, and licensed slots rose 150% in five years.
A knock at the door. Two cops, your pastor, and a social worker with a message: stop the gun violence. This is exactly how one of America's most violent cities reduced homicides by 60%.
Facing board pushback over school arrests, Christina School District will phase school resource officers out of middle schools and replace them with constables it employs directly.
Nine years into a state-university partnership, the reporting says AI-assisted cameras informed the response to about 3,600 incidents last year, though no false-alarm or response-time figures are given.
The state ranked 49th in reading in 2013. By 2025, it ranked 9th. Mississippi is no longer the butt of the joke, and other states should be taking notes.
A Chalkbeat Detroit piece gives the district's attendance numbers and describes its incentive experiment while candidates debate penalizing parents.
A nonprofit-run Indianapolis Public Schools campus rebuilt around family support and daily reading blocks is showing early gains after years as one of the district's lowest performers.
A peer-reviewed study of nearly 1,900 Massachusetts Medicaid patients found medically tailored meal deliveries were linked to 20% fewer ER visits and 31% fewer hospitalizations, even as federal funding for such waivers grows uncertain.
Extra clinics, extended hours, and a rapid-response news conference countering vaccine misinformation produced a measurable uptick in immunizations within days.
A national report finds cities that speed up buses and drop fares together see bigger ridership boosts than doing either alone, with some agencies finding fare collection costs more than it collects.
A joint city program running 168 electric vehicles and 70 curbside charging stations may be the only municipally owned car-share and charging network in the US.
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