Archive of posts filed under the Basics category.

Why antitrust matters to City 2.0 – FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision today in FTC v. Phoebe Putney Health System, Inc., I’d like to address why antitrust law matters to urban innovation, as I’ve done in addressing how municipal law and admin law matter to City 2.0. The Court’s decision reaffirmed some important constraints on local authority, but to explain the …

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Chicagoans can now complete most 311 tasks by text

As covered by Government Technology, Chicago has upgraded the ChiTEXT component of its 311 system to allow citizens to complete most 311 tasks via text. Texts will prompt a series of scripted questions to better identify the problem: For a pot hole, for example, you may get asked if it’s near a curb line or …

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How cities can cultivate genius

I just got the new Wired magazine in the mail (March 2012), and it has an interesting article called “Cultivating Genius” by Jonah Lehrer. (Sorry, no online link yet.) The article starts by essentially making the same point that Edward Glaeser makes in Triumph of the City about how innovators and creators tend to congregate, …

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What are the legal limits on government use of social media?

If a city has a Facebook page, can it remove distasteful comments? profane ones? racist ones? As professor Lyrissa Lidsky explains in her recent article, Public Forum 2.0, the answer to those questions isn’t always easy because the Supreme Court’s public forum and government speech is complex. As she points out, the Supreme Court has …

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Are cities America’s greatest laboratories of government innovation?

In 1932 Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote, “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that 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.” And indeed, the States remain a …

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Zoning for City 2.0

As I’ve written previously, city governments get their power from the state. Yet states almost always give cities authority to enact zoning laws, a legal device used to limit land use. (Interestingly, many states authorized zoning by adopting standard zoning-enabling legislation drafted by the U.S. Department of Commerce. So zoning, like wireless-infrastructure funding, is another …

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The FCC and incentive auctions (or why admin law matters to City 2.0)

As a follow up to why municipal law matters to City 2.0, I want to address a second source of law that affects local government in America—federal administrative law. Many agencies create regulations that help (or hinder) smart city growth, and I want to give one example of a federal initiative that I think might …

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Why Municipal Law Matters to City 2.0

Being a lawyer, I think it’s time I wrote a post about law. I want to address an important topic: Where does a city’s authority to innovate come from? And how much authority does it have? I’ve noticed that these questions are seldom addressed in discussions on city planning, even though they are key to …

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Census Tuesdays: The Basics

The U.S. Census Bureau website is one place cities can find data about their populations. Every Tuesday, I plan to highlight some aspect of Census data that may be particularly helpful to local communities. This week, I’m going to lay out some basic information provided by the Census Bureau. There is an impressive mapping feature …

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What is Vacant Property Registration

As the country continues to suffer the repercussions of the mortgage crisis, one consequence to many cities is a growing number of vacant properties (other cities, like my hometown of Flint, have been dealing with large numbers of vacant buildings for years—the county where Flint is located has set up a renowned landbank to help …

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