State & Hill

City of Flint and CLOSUP work toward transparency in municipal financial reporting By Daniel Rivkin When City of Flint CFO Rob Widigan looks at his required annual financial reporting to the state of Michigan, he sighs. His department needs to...

By Tom Ivacko (MPA ’93), executive director, Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy Democracy in the United States and across the globe has been in decline for years, as documented with rigorous tracking methodologies. Freedom House has tracked...

By Rebecca Cohen (MPP ‘09) Two-directional learning helps small businesses and students thrive Lily Hamburger (MBA ’16) supports economic mobility for entrepreneurs as the senior director of the pandemic-born Detroit Means Business, a coalition...

By Rebecca Cohen (MPP '09) Americans’ trust in government institutions to “do the right thing” has steadily eroded since the late 1960s,1 correlated for many analysts with events such as the Vietnam War, Watergate, the ’70s oil embargo, and...

It’s been a tumultuous decade in Michigan: three governors, a cratered economy and its recovery, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, a public health disaster in Flint, and more. Through it all, the Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS)...

Local government officials’ assessments of their own fiscal health is often at odds with—and worse than—what their financial statements indicate, according to work done by Stephanie Leiser and Sarah Mills. The researchers note that this could be...

Voter turnout is abysmally poor," says Joe Schwarz, a Ford School lecturer and former U.S. Congressional representative (R-MI-7). "In general elections, you're lucky to get 50 to 60 percent of eligible voters—that just shows an embarrassing level of...

It's been eight years since the Ford School launched the Michigan Public Policy Survey, which collects data and opinions about a broad range of state and local policy challenges from local government leaders across the state. After 16 surveys, 60...

Ford School faculty members often engage in collective problem-solving--with other scholars, of course, but also with policymakers and practitioners all around the world. The goal of these collaborations? Finding better solutions, and mutually...

The fall 2015 issue of State & Hill magazine was mailed to alumni and friends of the Ford School on November 18, 2015. This edition of the magazine, titled “Motor City Remix,” highlighted stories about some of the work Ford School faculty,...

I had to really drum up interest a decade ago; nobody gave a rip,” says David Thacher of his course, “Thinking about Crime.” These days, there’s a lot more interest in public safety—at the Ford School and elsewhere. Reflecting those concerns, the...

Republicans support a carbon tax? Yes they do. Barry Rabe, director of the Ford School’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, explains. ​ S&H: You'll spend your sabbatical year working on a book about carbon pricing. Why that topic? Barry...

Barry Rabe on the future of CLOSUP A six-inch bobblehead of Ron Swanson, director of a fictitious Midwestern parks department in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation, dominates the meeting table in Barry Rabe's office. The bobblehead is something of...

CLOSUP Program Manager Tom Ivakco played a key role in designing and implementing the center's Michigan Public Policy Survey (MPPS)-an innovative effort to query elected and appointed officials from every jurisdiction in Michigan. Tom spoke with...

Mounting evidence suggests that an economic recovery is in view. Unemployment isn't rising as quickly as it once was. Consumer spending has increased for four consecutive months. Household net worth is growing. While the economy may be turning...