Full Participation

"As a Christian and an economist, I believe in the importance of
unfettered participation by all; anything else is less than the best
for all."

It was a throwaway line in one of my posts this week, but a concept I
want to elaborate on today. A well-known Biblical analogy for the
church is that we are a body, and not just any body, but Christ's
body. So it is that just as a body is made of many parts, which are
different but which must function together in order to function (and
which much function in order for the body to function), that's how it
is with the church. And not just functioning together for
functioning's sake, but for the sake of representing in physical form
the presence of Christ wherever we are. Talk about a high calling!

Thus, it matters that each individual understands what he or she has
been gifted with, in terms of talents and opportunities and passions.
Because to the extent that we each know, and act by God's grace on
that knowledge, we'll be a more functioning body, a better
manifestation of Christness in the world today.

And these principles hold true for a functioning market economy, as
well. When groups are excluded, either by law or by practice, from
fully contributing, the market as a whole suffers. In contrast, each
new contribution has a positive ripple effect on everyone and
everything else.

So it matters that we invest in education, so that our knowledge
economy can benefit from new ideas and new brainpower. It matters
that we not discriminate against women and minorities, in terms of
overt or covert forms of excluding them from mainstream opportunities.
And it matters that we encourage and not discourage immigrants who
are willing to step outside of their home language and culture to make
a decent living and offer a positive contribution to our nation.

And so it is as a Christian and an economist - and as a Christian
economist - that I again lobby for full participation. Our economy,
our church, and the soul of this generation, needs everyone all in.

Recent Developments in University City

Two interesting pieces recently on the "gentrification" of University
City. My family and I are fortunate to have bought when we did; while
we knew the neighborhood always had a lot of history and culture and
infrastructure going for it, in the seven years we've been homeowners
we've seen marked increases in safety, kid-friendliness, and vibrancy.

Of course, rising property values are a double-edged sword for some,
and Penn is often blamed instead of lauded for its participation. If
you've read my blog at all, you know where I stand on the issue. If
anything, I think we need even more new development.

Take 46th and Market Streets, for example, the corner where I worked
for ten years and which is the site of a proposed mixed-use
development spearheaded by my old employer. Some of Philadelphia's
oldest developed blocks are near transit stops, and since we saw very
little investment in the second half of the 20th century, these
locations, far from being meccas of activity, are among the City's
oldest and shabbiest.

But a new push for development in the City, especially around transit
stops, provides an opportunity to make it right again. And it doesn't
just have to be latte-sipping yuppies, either; dense construction
allows developers to build affordable units and still make money, and
neighborhood residents get safer access to transit and the mobility to
employment and shopping nodes that that resource affords.

So let's keep an eye out on University City. We shouldn't haphazardly
pave over historic blocks and lose the richness of culture and life
that is contained in them. But nor should we reactively slam the door
on any new development.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/10100737.html

http://media.www.34st.com/media/storage/paper1076/news/2007/09/27/Feature/The-HipsterFication.Of.West.Philadelphia-2995300.shtml

Fair Participation in the City

Yesterday there were City Council hearings on the first of two fair
participation studies our firm did for the City of Philadelphia this
summer: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/10100697.html.

The
subject here was the lending and location decisions of banks that do
business with the City. The second is on the City's distribution of
contracts to minorities, women, and the disabled. Both reports are
now available online:

http://mbec.phila.gov/HOME/forms/FY%202006%20Disparity%20Study%20-%20FINAL%202007-06-01.pdf

http://www.phila.gov/treasurer/pdfs/FairLending_FinalReport%202005%20City%20of%20Philadelphia%20Authorized%20Depositories%20_single%20page.pdf

I'm proud to have contributed to this important topic and hope it will
stimulate further discussion, both here in the City and elsewhere. As
a Christian and an economist, I believe in the importance of
unfettered participation by all; anything else is less than the best
for all.

Moving People or Making Places

Interesting piece on Governing's website today re: what public transit
is for, in terms of the use of federal funds:
http://governing.typepad.com/13thfloor/2007/09/a-streetcar-nam.html#more.

So which is it: transit as a way of moving people or transit as a way
of making places? Of course the answer is a little of both.

Although when it comes to government money, I'd say the former can be
more subsidized while the latter should seek to stimulate private
investment. As for moving people, many parts of the country are out
of room to build roads for people to drive on - LA comes to mind - so
transit can be a way to catalyze mobility without piling on the
congestion or the pollution. And as for making places, cities and
regions of course have an incentive to stimulate the development of
unique and authentic and attractive places, but it's the private
sector that is best at actually providing the resources and ideas and
muscles.

Urban Christians ought to be more involved and informed on issues of
transportation funding. Because moving people isn't a private
decision, to the extent that it affects our taxpayer dollars and our
land use and our air quality. And making places matters, since it's a
way to revitalize formerly beaten down neighborhoods and reclaim their
soul and their usefulness. Who knew that the Federal Transit
Administration and SAFETEA-LU and New Starts were of Kingdom
consequence?

Bloomy and Ahnold

Is it too late to stump for a Bloomberg-Schwarzenegger ticket?
There's nothing in the Constitution about the VP having to be US-born.
They're both socially moderate Republicans who are broadly popular
but who might be more palatable to the hard right than Rudy or Romney.
They hail from the bluest of blue states and the biggest of big
cities. They've got the environment (Ahnold) and urban policy
(Bloomy) covered. And talk about accessible: Bloomy's office is in
the middle of a "bullpen," while Ahnold does his best deal-making
smoking cigars in a tent outside his office. It looks like Time
Magazine scooped this ticket a few months ago:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1632736,00.html.

It's
got my vote if it materializes.

Global Poverty

Just an outstanding series of articles assembled by the Brookings
Institution on global poverty for its 2007 Blum Roundtable last month:
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20070801.htm.

I have to confess
some skepticism about how chic global poverty has become as a cause: a
black Africana studies prof humorously wrote earlier this year about a
young white woman shrieking to him as he passed her Africa table,
"Save Africa! Don't you want to save Africa?!"

Fortunately, people like Bono, Angelina Jolie, and Matt Damon are
surprisingly thoughtful and informed about the mechanics of global
poverty, and are doing what they can to use their celebrity status and
the doors it opens to fight a good fight against it. So while I might
roll my eyes at folks who are jumping on the global poverty bandwagon
because it's the cool thing to do now, I shouldn't; who knows who of
that group might take the time to get educated, and perhaps make a
huge difference in a battle in which we need all the workers and
dollars we can get?

Doublemint

Two nice articles on going green, one about what the Philadelphia
Eagles are doing to minimize and even reverse the environmental impact
of running a team and operating a stadium, and one about two legit
enviro-activists who are tired of their movement being about
restricting activity and who are advocating instead to "go long"
(sorry, couldn't resist the football analogy) and figure out how to
simultaneously achieve economic growth and environmental gain.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/9943917.html

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/burning.html

Ironically, the Eagles get the first win of the season by eschewing
their green jerseys for blue and yellow throwbacks. I love the
thought put into every aspect of team and stadium management, in terms
of environmental impact.

And I love these two dudes in the Wired article who couldn't care less
what their former peers think about their new plan to pursue two
greens at once. Wherever you sit on the global warming debate, you
have to admit that even if we've had 200 or 20 or 2 or however many
years of "bad" industrialization, there's been some good in there,
too. So why not figure out how to keep doing that good in a more
responsible way, rather than jumping up and down to decry free trade,
manufacturing, and global capitalism - three things, by the way, that
are largely responsible for pulling countless formerly impoverished
nations into a decent quality of life, and that are unquestionably
necessary to pull other, currently impoverished nations as well.

Morals Today

I have a friend who is my age and who has worked with the teens in his
church practically since he was a teen. So he's seen multiple
generations of adolescents come and go, and deal with the same issues
in different ways and in different contexts. Recently, he sent around
an email requesting some guidance on what to do with the general
loosening of teen culture, in terms of dress, speech, and consumption
of secular culture. Here's what I had to say in response:

***

You make some valid points, and the important thing is that you are
seeking to hold every thought captive to Christ, and not just cede
stuff thoughtlessly. That takes extra effort, but it's what we're
called to, and what will prove us to be among His people.

I would add two somewhat contradictory statements to the mix. On the
one hand, it is clear that Paul believes there are Christian liberties
that can be practiced, but that for the sake of one's own reputation
and the edification of others, should be voluntarily withheld from.
So it's not that a particular action is sinful, it's just that we
choose not to do it so that we're above reproach and so that others
who aren't where we are won't be tempted to stumble.

Drinking alcohol is the best example I can think of here: for some,
it's not of any interest, for others it's enjoyable and can be
moderated, and for still others it's something that should be avoided.
So if I like drinking and can manage to do so without getting stupid,
but I'm in a setting where others are watching me or a Christian
brother is recovering from alcohol problems, I might choose not to
drink.

On the other hand, I believe you're getting at a general erosion in
morals in modern society. Don't get me wrong: people have always been
sinful. I don't believe there was such a thing as "the good ol'
days," because man has been fallen ever since Adam and Eve. And yet,
especially with teens, there is this sense that the norm is more out
there than it was when we were teens. And so all the more to confront
today's teens to take a stand in personal morality and in
relationships and in sexuality and in dress/speech. How we confront
them is another story - we can come off as self-righteous and
hopelessly dated, or we can speak and listen with sensitivity and
wisdom and conviction - but that we should confront them, there is no
doubt we should.

Thanks for including me in this dialogue, and keep on keeping on!

LH

A 3-D City

Here's a great blurb from a recent publication of Neighborhoods Now
(formerly known as the Philadelphia Neighborhood Development
Collaborative):

"While the character of many Philadelphia neighborhoods has been
defined by their human scale, historic architecture, and unique
neighborhood identity - former in an age when residents lived, worked,
learned, and played within community borders - these same qualities
have been most vulnerable to the changing circumstances of the region
and the lifestyles of its residents."

Put another way, are cities obsolete? Are they a 20th century
construct, when blue collar workers walked to factory jobs along urban
corridors and shoppers flocked to retail clustered around transit
stops; but hopelessly useless now that we use cars and highways to
office parks and power centers?

Fear not, city lovers; the urban space still can have three draws for
residents, workers, and shoppers:

1) Density - close clustering enables the talent density required for
universities, hospitals, and cultural venues, as well as the transit
infrastructure needed to move people to and from such places.

2) Design - reclaiming that historic architecture can lend a place the
authenticity and uniqueness that simply cannot be recreated in a newly
developed suburb, and "place-making" is a draw that is hard-wired into
us as humans.

3) Depth - there is a richness to urban life that comes from human
interaction at the street level, whether casually at a sidewalk cafe
or professionally in any number of planned and unplanned meet-ups with
other like-minded citizens.

So there you have it: a 3-D approach to making cities relevant. At
least here in the US, with our frontier mentality embedded into our
national psyche, it's not likely we'll retrench from our far-flung
suburbs and all move back to cities. But neither is it necessary for
cities to completely hollow out, for, when they offer the 3 D's, they
become a powerful draw for people to live, work, and play.

Making Spreadsheets for Jesus

One of the useful things I learned at Wharton was pro-forma analysis.
I got pretty good at using spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel to make
financial statements with all sorts of bells and whistles. It was
even a little fun for me, believe it or not.

It's a testament to the vastness of God's reign that even the most
mundane and worldly skills, like making spreadsheets, can be used to
advance the purposes of His Kingdom. In my present job, making
spreadsheets is a lot of what I do. And I get to use that skill to
contribute to meaningful urban discussions, on topics like economic
development and affordable housing and immigration and commercial
corridors.

I like to say that everyone in our firm has some "superpower" that
they bring to bear on behalf of our clients. I envy the talents of
others, who run circles around me on statistical models and
econometrics and spatial analysis and economy theory, but more than
envy I'm grateful their "superpower" is available to our firm.

And I'm grateful I have a bit of a "superpower," in making
spreadsheets, that I can offer to the cause, and to topics that I
think matter for the Kingdom. And so I try to remember back to my
days at Wharton when I first learned. And I try to remember that you
can even make spreadsheets for Jesus.

Vote for David Oh

We're about six weeks away from Election Day here in Philadelphia, and
while most people are most excited about the likely election of
Michael Nutter to the office of mayor, I want to remind you there are
other mechanisms you have at your disposal to vote in smart,
progressive, and thoughtful leaders into office.

A quick lesson on how City Council elections work: the city is divided
into ten districts, plus there are seven "at-large" seats. The
majority party can only claim five of those at-large seats, so for
several years now, those seven seats have been composed of five
Democrats and two Republicans. The primary in May narrowed our
choices to five Democrats and five Republicans, and in the general
election, each voter gets to pick five candidates, regardless of party
affiliation. Which means that there is a 99.9% chance that all five
Democratic candidates will get a seat, leaving the five Republican
candidates to fight over the last two seats.

If you're a Democrat, I would strongly encourage you to vote for your
four favorite Democratic candidates, and use your fifth vote for David
Oh. Whoever of the five Democratic candidates you don't vote for will
still get a seat, but you'll be helping make sure David gets one of
the two Republican seats. And believe me, if you're a Democrat, David
is the best of the five Republican candidates.

But let's forget about party affiliations for a moment. David is the
kind of person you want in public office. He's in it for public
service, not for personal gain; his whole career proves this point,
whether serving in the military or as assistant DA or in his law firm.
He's got big ideas about the creative economy and about the ports.
And he's the most honest person I've ever met. In short, he's who you
want representing you on City Council.

http://www.DavidOh.org
http://www.MySpace.com/DavidOh2007

Support Minority Entrepreneurship

The non-profit where I worked for ten years and where I am now on the
board is having its annual fundraiser next month, on October 4th at
6:00 pm. The second annual Passing the Torch is an opportunity to
celebrate and support minority entrepreneurship. The Enterprise
Center is a recognized leader on this topic, and if you want to make a
contribution to that cause, Passing the Torch is a great way to do it.
Tickets are $100, and if you come, you'll be treated to good food in
an elegant business setting, and you'll get a chance to meet Randal
Pinkett, our honorary event chair and the Season 4 winner of The
Apprentice. Go here to find out more and buy a ticket or ten:

http://www.theenterprisecenter.com/events/ptt/.

Urban No-No

One of my first ever nights after graduating from college, I rode my
bike home from work, locked it up outside the house I had just moved
into, made myself dinner, read a little, and then went to bed . . .
and was rousted up an hour later by my seasoned housemates, dragged
outside, and made to bring my bike indoors, where it wouldn't get
picked clean. I learned that night that you don't leave your bike
locked up outside, under any circumstances.

Many, many years later, I'd like to think I've gotten a little urban
seasoning. But I made a rookie mistake yesterday. I rode my bike to
the train station and locked it up there while I took the train to
Trenton, as I've done a handful of times this year. But when I got
back to Philadelphia, I went straight to another meeting downtown, and
straight from there to my kids' day care, and from there to home.

And somewhere in the middle of all that criss-crossing, I realized my
bike was still at the train station. I worried for a moment, and then
though that I would take my chances, and pick it up first thing the
next day since my morning run took me right past there. Only when I
got there, the seat and the back wheel had been removed. I had to
roll it on its one wheel to in front of my office, where later that
day, I rolled it down the street to the bike repair shop to order a
new seat and wheel.

So for the next week or so, I'll be walking and not biking. And with
my extra time on the road, I'll have plenty of time to remind myself
that locking my bike outside overnight is an urban no-no.

Cedar Park

My last meeting downtown ended around 4, so instead of hopping on the
subway to go back to work for about an hour, only to walk twenty
minutes to get my kids from day care, I decided to take the trolley
straight to near day care, and find a place to camp out for an hour or
so. I settled on a bench at Cedar Park, just a block off the trolley
line and three blocks from day care.

I probably stuck out like a sore thumb: all around me were older
folks, many drunk, and all cussing up a storm as they regaled each
other with stories and busted each others' chops. Meanwhile, I'm in a
shirt and tie, dutifully editing page after page of reports and other
work documents. But nobody hassled me, and a few even nodded my way,
as if to say, "You're alright."

One efficient hour later, I had gotten through all my papers, just in
time to pick up my kids. And I was glad I picked Cedar Park, because
it's something you have to do every once in awhile when you live and
work in the city, just to be out and about, amidst other people,
taking in life at the street level.

Maybe I would've been more productive sipping on a latte in an
air-conditioned Starbucks or some other climate-controlled,
riff-raff-free environment. But I would've missed out a slice of
urban fabric, one of several thousand in the journey of an urban
Christian seeking to know and love his adopted city.

Great Places

I just came back from Urban Land Institute's conference in Toronto on
placemaking. I dig this organization, but this was my first ULI
conference. I wasn't disappointed. These guys know a lot of stuff,
from the ultra squishy - man is a walking creature and a herding
creature, so we have to reclaim public spaces that encourage walking
and herding - to the super quantitative - parking ratios and cap rates
and what not.

As I've written about in this space before, in urban settings, more is
more. That is, people are attracted to other people. So great public
spaces are about giving people ample opportunity to people-watch. I
guess the suburban equivalent is the mall, but such spaces tend to be
so sterile, so same.

Great urban spaces, on the other hand, are authentic to that place,
literally alive with human activity. I saw some great examples
walking around Toronto with my family: public squares with fountains
and Times Square-like billboards, parks with funky sculptures and
eternal flames, and waterfront space super conducive to promenading.

I moderated a panel on transit oriented development, and since one of
the four original speakers had to cancel at the last minute, we had a
goodly chunk of time for Q&A. Although in my mind, we could've gone
way over, there was so much interesting ground to cover. I personally
left with a richer sense of the ways in which great places have
universal characteristics because humans are the same worldwide in
spite of different cultures and climates, and yet such developments
can and do have unique features about them, which play authentically
to those different cultures and climates.

All in all, it was a great time in a great place, and great times
learning about great places. Well done, ULI; and well done, City of
Toronto. In both cases, we'll be back.

LA Story

Two of the three panelists in the session I moderated were from LA,
and since my sister and brother-in-law just moved there, I have been
learning more about that city, so it was good to learn even more. I
have to confess some disdain towards SoCal, having grown up in San
Jose and pooh-poohing a lot of things about LA culture. But I am
warming to LA, as I learn about its storied past and the things it's
doing in the present to reclaim that past.

Most notably, LA is greatly improving its public transit
infrastructure. My sister and brother-in-law both commute to work via
public transit, and every week it seems they are excited to tell me
about yet another fun destination they can get to without a car.

From the late 19th century to just about World War II, LA grew around
transit. Post-WWII brought massive federal subsidies for highways,
and a literal tearing down of transit lines. As a result, growth in
the second half of the 20th century had no connection to transit.
Smog and gridlock quickly resulted.

LA is now basically maxed out, hemmed in by the ocean to the west and
south and the mountains to the north and east. And vast swaths of
land are unserved by transit. So far too many families, rich and
poor, have to depend on one car or more per adult.

Let's hope the recent trend of building more lines and stops
continues. Because more people are moving to LA. And somehow, the
city will have to figure out how they're going to get around, without
mashing them like sardines onto already crowded freeways and further
polluting air and water.

What Am I Working On

As has become my custom every three months, here's what I'm working on
now at work. I won't repeat anything from last time that I happen to
still be working on (which unfortunately is a lot - darn these long
and unending projects!), and for confidentiality's sake I have to blur
some of the details for some of these studies).

* Quantifying the economic and fiscal impact of a major financial
services firm relocating most of its jobs to Philadelphia

* Advising a region on the size and composition of its "creative
economy" and on ways to increase its impact

* Calculating the amount of upfront funds that a city could generate
by capturing future property tax increases that result from
infrastructure development

* Making the case to a city and state that connecting high-skilled
immigrants to jobs more suitable to their skills is an essential
workforce development strategy

* Helping a regional economic development entity envision the
commercial impact of extending a main subway line out to a nearby
growth community

* Performing a "strengths / weaknesses / opportunities / threats"
analysis for a major university

* Providing economic and real estate analysis to assist a respected
cultural institution in determining where and how to relocate its
headquarters

* Assisting a community group in lobbying for local infrastructural
improvement while simultaneously addressing resident concerns about
"gentrification"

* Selling a city on the financial benefits of supporting the
construction of public space for X-Games-like activity

Affordable Living

A lot of the talk around affordable housing is this notion of
"inclusionary zoning." That is, force developers of housing units to
sell a portion of those units below market price, and in exchange, let
them build more units than they otherwise would be allowed to. In
short, you'll lose money on the affordable units, but make it up by
being able to sell more market units.

I'd like to broaden the discussion from affordable housing to
affordable living. Not that I'm against inclusionary zoning, but I'm
even more for "transit-oriented zoning." That is, zone the areas
around transit stops really dense, and build affordable units into
those developments. Developers are happy, because living near transit
is becoming something people are willing to pay for, so being able to
build a bunch more units means profits for developers.

And those who need the affordable housing get a second boost:
drastically lower transportation costs. A number of studies have
highlighted the importance of lowering transportation costs for
working families, and one huge way to do that is to help people
minimize or even eliminate their need for a car.

This could work in Philadelphia, and in other big cities with transit
infrastructure. The key is to get the political buy-in from local
councilpeople and aldermen, who can either inflame existing residents
to balk at new development or see new development as a way to improve
quality of life for those existing residents. In the burbs, the
opposing sentiment is usually about NIMBY, while in the city, it's
usually fear of "gentrification."

Either way, the local politicos can be the ones who either hammer the
last nail in the coffin, or alternatively who plunge the first shovel
into the ground. You can tell what side I'm on: the side that I
believe will lead to more affordable housing being built, less
dependence on the car, and prettier neighborhoods; and the side that
leads to units high-income yuppies will want, and units that allow
working families some semblance of affordable living.

Loyal to Who

Last month, I parlayed some airline miles of Jada's from when we had
all flown earlier in the year into a free subscription to The
Economist, my favorite magazine but one whose subscription rate
usually scares me off from being a regular. I wasn't expecting my
first issue until a month or two, so I was pleasantly surprised when I
checked the mail the other day to find it waiting for me.

One of the things I appreciate about the magazine is its coverage of
US affairs from a non-US perspective. I'm only a third of the way
through the issue, but I thought I'd chime in on this article about
Albert Gonzales' recent resignation:
http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9724308.

The
Economist called it just like I suspected all along: the guy was not
up for the task, and was too much about loyalty to W than to the role
itself.

Loyalty is a funny thing. Most of us aspire to it, and want those
whom we work with to aspire to it, too. But it is important to ask
the question, "Loyal to who?" After all, being a yes-man to the
administration when your job is to be a check on the administration
may count as loyalty, but it certainly does not count as competency.
Better to be loyal to the position, to justice, to America.

It ought to be the same way in our friendships, as I have noted in
this space before. We may need our friends to tell us we're OK
because it's important to hear that, but we also need them to tell us
when we're not OK; because if they don't, who will?

Perhaps I shouldn't ask, "Loyal to who?" For calling someone else out
- whether a dear friend or a boss - isn't an act of disloyalty, or
even just a matter of being loyal to something greater than that
person. It is the very pinnacle of loyalty to that person: being
willing to say an unpopular, counter thing to that person because you
have that person's real, long-term interests in mind. Now that's true
loyalty.

Block Party

I took the kids to a good old-fashioned block party this weekend, just
down the street from us. The kind of thing you see in the movies or
that Will Smith rapped about in "Summertime": kids biking and
scootering around, music blaring, and multiple stations of delicious
food. With the street blocked off to traffic and emptied of cars,
there was plenty of room to socialize. Michael Nutter, future mayor
of Philadelphia, even stopped by.

I know a handful of the residents on this block, so I touched base
with them and also said hi to a few others from the larger
neighborhood who, like us, were mooching in on the fun. I also met a
guy who writes speech for a US senator. Meanwhile, Aaron took the
spectacle in from his stroller seat, and Jada was busy pounding the
fried plantains and releasing the helium balloons into the air.

I'm not sure if a party like that would work on our block, as there
are way too many renters vs. owners. So it was nice to just slide a
few hundred feet to the south and partake of someone else's communal
fun. Now, who else is having something like this that I can horn in
on?

Lessons Learned

Nice piece in the Inky yesterday about Michael Nutter meeting with New
York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg. So now our future mayor has hit NYC,
Baltimore, and Chicago to learn.

This reminds me of when I used to take my staff to other cities to
meet up with other, similar organizations to see what they were up to.
There was never a sense of directly pillaging a program step by step,
just an expanding of perspective when you see people doing a similar
thing but in a slightly different way for a slightly different
population in an altogether different place.

I think this sort of skill is really important. We do a lot of "best
practices" work at our firm, and when you do it right, you don't just
lazily say, "Here's what Agency X does, so we should do the same
thing." You have to decide if what Agency X does is indeed a good
practice, and then you have to translate what's good about that
practice into how it might work in your agency.

(Which, by the way, is why I recommend that anyone in college do
anything BUT take classes in the summer. Summer isn't for more of the
same; it's for doing new stuff that gives you a new perspective and
helps you get better at this important skill of "translating.")

So best of luck to Michael Nutter, and to the rest of us who also seek
out new ideas for the sake of expanding our perspective and doing it
even better at home.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20070831_Nutter_gets_tips_of_the_trade_on_NYC_visit.html

Back on the Road

Three months ago today, Amy left for California to pick up our son.
Since then, I've run about three times a week, but with four
exceptions always indoors on our treadmill: twice, when we were in
Ocean City, once when everyone else was in Ocean City and I was home
for one morning, and last month when Amy took the kids to her sister's
and I was free to hit the road.

But now that the kids are sleeping more consistently, I decided to
chance a morning run today, just like in the olden days. Let me tell
you: it sure beats the treadmill. It was good to get reacquainted
with the city I love. There was something even a little romantic
about it, since the time of day I was out was not unlike the darkness
of the early evening; so running along the river, you look out and see
that inky color that makes evening walks along the river so seductive.

I've posted often in this space about the joy of urban running. I'm
happy to report that after a three-month hiatus, the joy is back.