City Government
Budgets, property tax, procurement, and the math behind city policy.
The Only Way to Start Is by Starting
A short paper on how a state or local agency can get real value from AI in ninety days with one accountable owner, a handful of paid licenses, and one well-chosen piece of real work.
2026-09
Pricing the Fear of Data Centers
A town that says no to a data center gives up tax revenue, not jobs, and how much depends on the local tax regime. Opposition is not partisan, legislatures are choosing conditions over bans, and blocked projects go quiet more than they resurface. A national map of restrictions and conditions, a calculator for what one campus pays a town, and the terms to demand if the answer is yes.
2026-08
The New Math on NYC's Public Grocery Stores
Mayor Mamdani's stores will sell a core basket 30% below market, and nobody has priced that promise. This update does: about $167M over ten years, reaching roughly 12,000 households when the same money could reach six to fifteen times as many.
2026-08
High Floor, Low Ceiling: How Public-Sector Wage Compression Erodes Public Service
Public pay is compressed: a high floor and a low ceiling. Government holds its own at the bottom of the labor market but falls far behind at the top, exactly where elite private pay has soared — software, law, finance, engineering. A data piece tracing the public-sector pay gap by skill, by domain, by level of government, and over time, built from ACS PUMS microdata, BLS/BEA/Census series, and city and state payroll files.
2026-06
How to Save the Government from Microsoft Copilot
Why state and local government keeps defaulting to Microsoft 365 Copilot when the private sector won't, what the head-to-head numbers actually say, and a one-page procurement checklist for getting your agency onto AI tools that work.
2026-05
NYC Property Tax: Who Pays, Who Doesn't
An interactive parcel-level map of New York City's effective property-tax rates — plus the long answer to why two identical brownstones across the street from each other can pay wildly different bills.
2026-04
The Math on NYC's Public Grocery Plan
A per-store 10-year P&L for Mayor Mamdani's five city-owned grocery stores, a check on what nutrition a $40k income buys you in the Bronx, and a ranked comparison to what the same $70M would buy if the goal were to feed more people.
2026-04
Reducing Violent Crime Without New Budget, New Staff, or More Arrests
A pragmatic guide for city leaders on using environmental interventions and cross-department coordination to reduce violence, with Dallas's 2024–2025 implementation as a case study.
2026-03
Other categories: Public Safety, Music, Using AI, State Government, Healthcare Policy, NYC