Big Data; Better Cities

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Big Data; Better Cities

FromPolicyCast

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Length:

12 minutes

Released:

Feb 4, 2015

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Data-Smart City Solutions Project at the Kennedy School’s Ash Center, describes how city and state governments can improve service to citizens by harnessing new technologies.

Released:

Feb 4, 2015

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Each week, Host Matt Cadwallader speaks with leading experts in public policy, media, and international affairs about their experiences confronting the world's most pressing public problems.

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How Presidential Campaigns Influence Governance: Republican strategist Matt Lira, a spring 2015 fellow at the Institute of Politics, discusses the early days of a presidential campaign, the importance of primaries, how campaign management eventually influences governance and what technologies will likel by PolicyCast
20 min listen
Ending Veteran Homelessness: Andrew McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, describes the steps the organization is taking to combat homelessness among US veterans and how likely it is that the nation will see the complete eradication of vetera by PolicyCast
16 min listen
Is it Civil Rights or Human Rights?: HKS Associate Professor Moshik Temkin argues that the debate over civil rights in the United States, sparked by the unrest in Ferguson, MO, is actually a debate about human rights and the difference is not just semantic. by PolicyCast
19 min listen
045 Feeding the World Through Science: HKS Professor Calestous Juma, Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization project, believes that science and technology are critical to the future of food security. He talks about meeting the needs of a growing human population, using science t by PolicyCast
13 min listen
015 Why Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue: Harvard Chan School of Public Health Professor David Hemenway makes an emphatic case for why gun violence needs to be researched through the lens of public health. by PolicyCast
20 min listen
The End of the American Dream?: HKS Professor Robert Putnam explains how the United States has become a class-segregated society with a growing stratification between the educated and uneducated. He describes how upward mobility has nearly vanished over the last few decades and what by PolicyCast
25 min listen
Measuring Human Ability: Ron Suskind’s world was shaken when his son Owen was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Now, more than 20 years later, his experience has helped kick off new research into how we as a society can better integrate those with developmental disabilit by PolicyCast
22 min listen
Steve Jarding on the 2014 Midterms: HKS Lecturer Steve Jarding, a longtime political operative who’s currently advising the Democratic candidate for US Senate in South Dakota, gives his take on how the upcoming midterm elections are shaping up. He explains the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm by PolicyCast
19 min listen
The Criminal Injustice System: HKS Alumnus Bryan Stevenson has spent his career working to address issues of racial and wealth inequality in the United States’ justice system. He believes this inequality stems from a failure of the nation to reconcile its dark history with regard to sl by PolicyCast
15 min listen
How to Fix a Sovereign Debt Crisis: HKS Professor Carmen Reinhart details the lessons we can learn from two centuries of data on how countries have historically dealt with debt problems. She discusses the long menu of debt relief options that are often overlooked, criticizes the disparity b by PolicyCast
25 min listen
The Accidental Fall of the Berlin Wall: Professor Mary Elise Sarotte, a visiting professor at the Harvard Center for European Studies and author of “Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall,” explains how the opening of the border between East and West Germany came down to a decision by PolicyCast
14 min listen
How Uber Wrangles Regulations: Brian Worth, the Public Policy Lead for ridesharing service Uber, discusses how the company works with governments at all levels to tackle hackney regulations it sees as outdated. Worth participated in the Harvard Institute of Politics' 2014 Internet Poli by PolicyCast
14 min listen
The Midterms, the Youth Vote and GOP Strategy: IOP Fall 2014 Fellow Kristen Soltis Anderson gives her take on the gains the GOP made in the midterm elections, how the party can better target the youth vote and what we can expect from congress over the next two years. by PolicyCast
17 min listen
Ensuring Electoral Integrity around the Globe: HKS Lecturer Pippa Norris discusses her work on the Electoral Integrity Project, which assesses the veracity of elections around the globe and gives policy recommendations on how to ensure free and fair voting. by PolicyCast
14 min listen
An Ethical Perspective on the Brian Williams Scandal: HKS Lecturer Jeffrey Seglin of the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy discusses the ethical hot water Brian Williams has recently found himself in. He breaks down the reputational harm that has been done to both Willi by PolicyCast
14 min listen
Is Transparency Bad for Politics?: Professor Michael Ignatieff of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy makes the case that increased transparency in government makes it harder for politicians to find compromise by relating his experience as the Leader of the Opposit by PolicyCast
17 min listen
Big Data; Better Cities: HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Data-Smart City Solutions Project at the Kennedy School’s Ash Center, describes how city and state governments can improve service to citizens by harnessing new technologies. by PolicyCast
12 min listen
VOA: Exporting the First Amendment: David Ensor, former director of Voice of America and current Fall 2015 Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Shorenstein Center, explains why Voice Of America is a key instrument in the projection of US soft power and how the organization’s commitment to objecti by PolicyCast
27 min listen
The Other Effects of Torture: HKS Lecturer Doug Johnson, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, goes beyond the debate over the efficacy of torture to look at the consequences of its use in legal, military and international relations contexts. by PolicyCast
19 min listen
Taking Down DOMA: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, a spring 2015 fellow at the Institute of Politics, recounts the legal journey that ultimately led to the US Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to strike down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act - a by PolicyCast
13 min listen
Behind the Steady Recovery in Cyprus: Cyprus’ Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Yiorgos Lakkotrypis describes his country’s slow emergence from a deep economic recession following a 2013 EU bail-in that came with significant austerity measures attached. He points out brigh by PolicyCast
14 min listen
A Political Crossroads in Indonesia: HKS Adjunct Lecturer Jay Rosengard, faculty chair of the Ash Center’s HKS Indonesia Program, breaks down the political climate in Indonesia, just months after the election of a new, potentially transformational president. He explains how Indonesia’s still by PolicyCast
15 min listen
Better Policy Through A.R.T.: Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus, Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and professor of the practice of theatre at Harvard, explains why the arts are critical to the shaping of public policy. Paulus offers examples of how a by PolicyCast
25 min listen
Designing Smarter Policy: HKS Professor Asim Khwaja, Co-Director of the Evidence for Policy Design program, explains the benefits of bringing academics into the field to develop policy in collaboration with practitioners. by PolicyCast
22 min listen
Tunisia and the Arab Spring: Former Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and the Middle East Institute’s Dr. Paul Salem discuss Tunisia’s relative success in establishing a stable democracy in the wake of the Arab Spring. Jomaa, who recently delivered an address at the JFK Jr. Forum, by PolicyCast
22 min listen
The Iran Nuclear Accord: What Happens Next?: Gary Samore, President Obama’s former principal advisor on arms control and nuclear proliferation who currently serves as the Director for Research at the Belfer Center, gives his take on the agreement struck between Iran and a group of world powers refer by PolicyCast
23 min listen
How Partisan is the US Judiciary?: HKS Assistant Professor Maya Sen describes new research breaking down political leanings within the United States judiciary. The analyses exposes a partisan divide between lawyers and judges and finds a link between certain political leanings and specific by PolicyCast
13 min listen
Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: Lessons From Finland's Former President: Former Finnish President Tarja Halonen, currently in residence at the Kennedy School as an Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, recounts the challenges she faced as a woman ascending the Finnish ranks of power. She also explains some of the facto by PolicyCast
21 min listen
The Power of Protests, Propaganda and Religion: HKS Associate Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott’s quantitative analysis of three seemingly disparate topics shows the power of protests to change policy, the power of propaganda to induce violence and the power of religion to create happiness despite reduc by PolicyCast
26 min listen
How the UN set the standard for human rights in the corporate world: HKS Professor John Ruggie, who has twice served in senior roles at the United Nations, describes how the UN was able to leverage its convening power to create an unprecedented set of "Guiding Principles" for corporate responsibility on human rights issues by PolicyCast
22 min listen

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The Ghost Budget: How U.S. war spending went rogue, wasted billions, and how to fix it: HKS Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes, an expert on public finance who has studied post-9/11 war costs for the past 20 years, says their staggering $5 trillion cost was enabled by what she calls “The Ghost Budget.” Using an unprecedented combination of borrowing, accounting tricks, and outsourcing, presidential administrations, Congress, and the Pentagon were able to circumvent traditional military budget processes in a way that kept war costs out of the public debate and resulted in trillions being spent with minimal oversight. The result: corporations and wealthy investors raking in huge profits, massive waste and fraud, and—combined with the Bush and Trump tax cuts—a shifting of the burden of the costs of war away from the wealthy and onto middle- and lower-income people and future generations. Of course by any metric, the United States-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were costly. Human life? At leas by PolicyCast
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The Great Creep Backward: Policy responses to China’s slowing economy: Harvard Kennedy School Professor Rana Mitter and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Meg Rithmire say that after decades of tremendous growth, an economically slowing China is the new normal. With a growing debt-to-GDP ratio, an aging population, a devastating real estate bubble, and a loss of confidence among both foreign investors and domestic consumers, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party face a daunting array of thorny problems—including ones of their own making resulting from the One Child law policy and other home-grown policies. So how should the United States and other Western countries respond? Is it a moment China's rivals can use to their advantage, or one where great power rivalry can give way to great power cooperation? And how will an economic slowdown affect China’s geopolitical ambitions, and is an annexation of Taiwan now more or less likely? Rana Mitter is a histor by PolicyCast
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Two peoples. Two states. Why U.S. diplomacy in Israel and Palestine needs vision, partners, and a backbone: Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later and today bullets are flying, bombs are falling, and 1,200 Israelis are dead after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli response. Yet Djerejain still believes that a breakthrough is possible even in the current moment, as horrible as it is. Djerejian, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Relations, says the crisis has shaken the regional status quo to the point where—if the United States pursues diplomacy that includes principled pragmatism, coalition-building, and good old- fashioned backbone—a breakthrough may finally be possible. But in a recent paper he ar by PolicyCast
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We can productively discuss even the toughest topics—here’s how: As our discourse and our politics have become both more polarized and paralyzed, Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Erica Chenoweth and Julia Minson say we need to refocus on listening to understand, instead of talking to win. In mid-2022, the School launched the Candid and Constructive Conversations initiative, based on the idea that frank yet productive discussions over differences are not only vital to democracy and a functioning society, but that the ability to have them was also an essential skill for students, staff, and faculty in the Harvard community and beyond to learn. The effort—which uses techniques and principles based on surveys and decision science—took on even greater urgency after the recent events in Israel and Gaza and their fallout in the U.S., including at Harvard and other universities. Erica Chenoweth is the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and the academic dean for faculty Engage by PolicyCast
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Legacy of privilege: David Deming and Raj Chetty on how elite college admissions policies affect who gains power and prestige: Legacy admissions, particularly at elite colleges and universities, were thrust into the spotlight this summer when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in admissions. The ruling raised many questions, and fortunately, Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Deming and Harvard University Professor Raj Chetty were there with some important answers—having just wrapped up a 6-year study of the impact of legacy admissions at so-called “Ivy-plus” schools. Students spend years preparing to face judgment by colleges and universities as a worthy potential applicant. They strive for report cards filled with A’s in advanced placement courses. They volunteer for service projects and participate in extracurricular activities. They cram furiously high-stakes standardized tests. They do all that only to find a big question many top colleges have is effe by PolicyCast
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Need to solve an intractable problem? Collaboration is hard but worth it.: Harvard Kennedy School faculty member Jorrit de Jong and Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson say the big, intractable problems challenges facing city leaders today are too complex to be addressed by any one agency or government department. Complex challenges like the shortage of economic opportunity and affordable housing, homelessness, the effects of the climate crisis, crime—and can only be solved by multiple organizations working together. But that’s easier said than done. Bringing together government agencies, nonprofits, private business, academia, and the public into successful collaborations can be a huge challenge. Different people bring different agendas and goals. They don’t necessarily trust each other. Sometimes they can’t even agree on what the problem actually is and they fail before even getting started. In a recent study, de Jong and Edmondson found that the most successful problem-so by PolicyCast
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How to keep "TLDR" syndrome from killing your policy proposal: Harvard Kennedy School Professor Todd Rogers and Lecturer in Public Policy Lauren Brodsky say that trying to sound too smart—even when trying to communicate complex or nuanced ideas—can end up being a dumb strategy. Because today’s overburdened information consumers are as much skimmers as readers, Rogers and Brodsky teach people how to put readers first and use tools like simplification, formatting, and storytelling for maximum engagement. They say you can have the most brilliant, well-researched ideas in the policy world, but you can’t communicate them, they’ll never reach the ultimate goal—making an impact. Rogers is the faculty chair of the Behavioral Insights Group at the Kennedy School and the author of “Writing for Busy Readers: The Science of Writing Better.” Brodsky is senior director of the HKS Communications Program and the author of “Because Data Can’t Speak for Itself,” a book about how to more effectively comm by PolicyCast
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Transitioning to clean power without workers absorbing the shock: Harvard Kennedy School Professor Gordon Hanson and Harvard Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability James Stock say an important part of the green energy transition will be mitigating its effects on employment, both in the United States and overseas. Talking about the clean energy transition can conjure up images of commuters using sleek electric trains and electric cars powered by the sun and wind, and of workers with good-paying jobs installing the infrastructure of the future. But the outlook for communities that are economically tied to the fossil fuel economy that will be left behind isn’t quite as sunny. Stock is director of Harvard's Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, which brings together researchers from around the university to collaborate on climate solutions. Hanson is co-director of the Reimagining the Economy Project at the Kennedy School's Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. They say by PolicyCast
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The rising tide no one’s talking about—finding homes for millions of climate crisis migrants: When it comes to the climate crisis, there’s barely a day that goes by when we don’t hear about rising sea levels and storm-driven tides. But Harvard professors Jaqueline Bhabha and Hannah Teicher say there’s another rising tide that’s not getting as much attention, despite its potential to reshape our world. It’s the wave of climate migrants—people who have been and will be driven from their homes by rising seas, extreme heat, catastrophic weather, and climate-related famine and economic hardship. Some will try to relocate within their home countries, others across international borders, but most experts predict that there will be hundreds of millions of them. In fact the United Nations says hundreds of millions of people globally have already been forced to relocate for climate-related reasons, and experts say as many as a billion people could be seeking new homes by 2050. Meanwhile, immigra by PolicyCast
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How American cities can prepare for an increasingly destructive climate: Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has a unique perspective on the topic of climate resiliency. He was a city official in 2012 for Superstorm Sandy—which many call the worst disaster in New York City’s history—and in 2021 for Hurricane Ida, which caused $24 billion worth of flooding in the Northeastern United States, making it the costliest and most damaging storm since Sandy nine years before. He was also mayor during most of those nine years, when policymakers, planners, and the citizens of New York tried to grapple with the enormous task of making the city more resilient in the face of ever more destructive and dangerous weather events driven by the man-made climate crisis and global warming. With 520 miles of shoreline, 443 miles of underground railroad and subway tracks, and an antiquated storm sewer system, New York City is a nightmare to protect from rising seas and catastrophic rainfall, and de Blas by PolicyCast
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243 Former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on stemming the tide of right-wing authoritarianism: During his seven years leading Sweden’s government from 2014 to 2021, Stefan Löfven had a front row seat to observe the rise of right-wing and neo-fascist political parties both at home and around Europe. A former welder, and union leader from working class roots, Löfven earned the nickname “the escape artist” during his years as prime minister for his knack for holding together governments despite his country’s increasingly fractious and polarized politics. But this year the Sweden Democrats—a party with its roots in fascist and white nationalist ideology—became the second leading vote-getter and were embraced as part of a ruling coalition government by other conservative and centrist parties. Löfven says the Sweden Democrats, who were once politically radioactive, are now the tail wagging the dog of Sweden’s new government. And he says the rise of far-right parties is a trend all over by PolicyCast
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$243 Former Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven on stemming the tide of right-wing authoritarianism: During his seven years leading Sweden’s government from 2014 to 2021, Stefan Löfven had a front row seat to observe the rise of right-wing and neo-fascist political parties both at home and around Europe. A former welder, and union leader from working class roots, Löfven earned the nickname “the escape artist” during his years as prime minister for his knack for holding together governments despite his country’s increasingly fractious and polarized politics. But this year the Sweden Democrats—a party with its roots in fascist and white nationalist ideology—became the second leading vote-getter and were embraced as part of a ruling coalition government by other conservative and centrist parties. Löfven says the Sweden Democrats, who were once politically radioactive, are now the tail wagging the dog of Sweden’s new government. And he says the rise of far-right parties is a trend all over$
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239 He predicted globalization’s failure, now he’s planning what’s next: Summary: For more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were listening. Now as record economic inequality, a climate in crisis, and global financial shocks from to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of unchecked globalization and neoliberal orthodoxy about the primacy of markets, Rodrik may be having the world’s least-satisfying “I told you so” moment. But while the temptation might be to look backward for vindication, Rodrik is choosing to look toward solutions instead. He says that finding a way forward for the world economy will require two kinds of thinking: small picture—about how to create good jobs in an equitable way in specific settings—and big picture: imaging possible by PolicyCast
38 min listen
238 Reform, refugees, and the war next door: President Maia Sandu of Moldova: Maia Sandu has been president of Moldova since December 2020. She is the first woman to be president of the country, and she named fellow Party of Action and Solidarity member Natalia Gavrilița as prime minister, marking the first time that two women have held the country’s two highest political posts at the same time. Sandu was named prime minister in June 2019, but was removed from power just six months later when Moldova’s Russia-leaning socialist party pulled out of the governing coalition over her reform efforts. She served as the country’s education minister from 2012 until 2015, instituting numerous reforms including ending widespread cheating on exams and bribery of education officials. Sando holds earned her mid-career masters of public administration degree at Harvard Kennedy School in 2010, and worked as a senior advisor for the World Bank in Washington DC before returning to Moldova. Sandu was bor by PolicyCast
26 min listen
237 The pandemic's silver lining—a treasure trove of data on social protection programs: Rema Hanna is the Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies and Chair of the International Development Area at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also serves as the Faculty Director of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard University’s Center for International Development and is the co-Scientific Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) South East Asia Office in Indonesia. In addition, Professor Hanna is a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and an affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). Her research revolves around improving the provision of public services in developing and emerging nations, particularly for the very poor. She combines economic theory, qualitative field work, extensive data collection, and cutting-edge empirical analysis to offer insights into how governments func by PolicyCast
35 min listen
236 Worldwide outrage over atrocities in Ukraine is enabling a new era of international justice: A mass grave behind a church. Bodies of children and families buried under the rubble of a theater where they had been seeking refuge. Streets littered with bodies of civilians who were shot, hands tied behind their backs. Almost every day, the headlines bring news of new violations of international human rights norms and the rules of war in Ukraine, including attacks by the Russian army on hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and even water facilities. Those revelations have also launched daily accusations against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military of war crimes and illegal aggression, and calls for international investigations and prosecutions. Now a group of Harvard Professors says that the war in Ukraine could be a watershed moment for the evolving notion of meaningful international justice. In a recent Op-Ed, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and H by PolicyCast
37 min listen

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Big Data; Better Cities

Big Data; Better Cities

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