By Thomas G. Dallessio Twenty-four years ago, the Governor’s Council on New Jersey Outdoors released a report that determined, “…the open space needs of our present and future generations greatly outweigh the resources we have been able to provide.”[1] The report added, “The public said that we are protecting too little open space, too slowly, [...]
by Jessica Cruz Angela Siefer, founder and executive director of the Ohio-based National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), has done digital equity work dating back to the ’90s. Up until 2019, Siefer was encountering many public officials who did not understand what digital equity was or why it mattered despite the increased digitalization of the government [...]
by Vishal Trehan Climate change is one of the wicked problems of our times. It is well established that human activity is the primary cause for drastic changes in the climate over the last seventy years.[1] However, public opinion on climate change is multidimensional, dynamic, and differentiated – these dimensions include beliefs about anthropogenic climate [...]
By Heather Butler and Aakanksha Deoli Telehealth use in the United States has skyrocketed among healthcare providers and patients since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of telehealth visits increased by more than 150 percent. Medicare beneficiaries constitute a substantial portion of telehealth users, and their usage has increased [...]
Maia de la Calle, Rutgers Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) The impact of the pandemic on poverty and inequality continues to be studied at a global and national scale.[1],[2] Although the U.S. Census data have yet to reflect the full extent of the pandemic on poverty, numbers are expected to rise [3] due to an economic [...]
Robert B. Noland The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), more commonly known at the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill will soon be delivering large amounts of transportation funding to the states, including New Jersey. The Bill extends beyond just traditional transportation funding, including funds for an electric vehicle charging network, broadband, and resilience, among other critical [...]
by Marilyn Rubin Government actions have the potential to make a substantial and lasting impact on equity for all residents. One of government’s most powerful levers for advancing equity is its budget, “the medium through which [flows] the essential life of support systems of public policy” (Wildavsky & Caiden 2001, p. xxvii). Advancing equity has [...]
by Shiya John, Snigdha Mishra and Jim Samuel Open data is expected to influence trillions of dollars in global value creation by 2030, as projected by McKinsey Global Institute: “The boost to the economy from broad adoption of open-data ecosystems could be as high as 1.5 percent of GDP in 2030 in the European Union, [...]
By Adam Scavette Last summer, then acting New Jersey Governor Sheila Oliver signed legislation to devote $42.5 million toward restoring the state’s Urban Enterprise Zones (UEZ) to full operation for fiscal year 2022. In this piece, I discuss the history and performance of UEZs and opportunities to increase their effectiveness. The UEZ program is designed [...]
By Rachel Brown For more than 50 years, community leaders and researchers have been drawing attention to disproportionate environmental burden and health disparities in low-income and communities of color. Here in New Jersey and as far back as 1998, the state has been working to systematically address Environmental Justice as an overarching public policy goal. [...]
