Some folks asked me to comment on Ferguson, MO. I don't have anything to add to the massive amount that has already been written, but it did get me thinking about my own neighborhood and the racial dynamics that exist in America. I live in a mixed race neighborhood on the North Side of Indianapolis called various names, including South of Broad Ripple (SoBro) and Keystone-Monon. It's a racially diverse area, mostly featuring wood frame 2-3br/1-ba worker cottages built around wartime. It's likely always been working class or starter home … [Read more...]
Archives for September 2014
The New Donut
Former Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut used to like to say that "you can't be a suburb of nowhere." This is the oft-repeated notion has been a rallying cry for investments to revitalize downtowns in America for three decades or so now. The idea being that you can't have a smoking hole in your region where your downtown is supposed to be. This created a mental based on a donut. You can't let downtown become an empty hole. For reason that will become apparent soon, I call this model "the old donut": Filling in the hole became every city's … [Read more...]
Reinventing Higher Education
It's no secret that the status quo in higher education is facing a lot of pressure from things like skyrocketing tuition, ballooning student loan debt, people questioning the need for higher education, difficulties graduates are getting established in careers, etc. One organization focused on helping universities navigate the transition to a new future and boost higher educational attainment rates in the US is the Lumina Foundation. Lumina is a $1 billion foundation in Indianapolis - no, they don't give out scholarships! - focused on … [Read more...]