City Journal Audio

Aaron Renn  joins  Seth Barron  to discuss the divide between the country's economically-booming metro areas and its depressed suburban/rural areas, commonly known as the "rust belt." A new report  from the Empire Center released last month highlighted the disparity in job growth between "upstate" and "downstate" New York: of the 106,000 jobs created between April 2017 and April 2018, more than 85...

Max Eden  joins  Seth Barron  to discuss recent mass shootings in American high schools and how misguided approaches to school safety can play a role in some of these massacres. In the aftermath of horrific shootings at high schools in Florida and Texas, the political debate has focused largely on the role of guns in American society. Mostly ignored is how school districts fail to take action on s...

Howard Husock  joins  Seth Barron  to discuss the Fair Housing Act, racial discrimination in residential neighborhoods, and efforts to reinvigorate the law today. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark legislation signed by President Lyndon Johnson aimed to end housing discrimination and residential segregation in America. The Kerner Commission in...

Long-term, persistent joblessness is the great American domestic crisis of our generation.  City Journal  grappled with the problem in our 2017 special issue, " The Shape of Work to Come ," and our writers continue toexplore the topic. Last week,  City Journal  convened a panel of experts to talk about the future of work. Audio from their discussion is featured in this episode of 10 Blocks. The pa...

Rafael Mangual  and  Seth Barron  discuss plans to close the jail complex on Rikers Island, home to the vast majority of New York City's inmate population, including some of the city's worst offenders. Violence on Rikers has spiked in recent years, despite a marked decline in the city's inmate population. Last year, approximately 9,000 people were held on the island on an average day.  According t...

Nicole Gelinas  and  Brian Anderson  discuss recent disaster-relief efforts in the United States, the federal government's role in such assistance, and how national flood insurance and other recovery programs could be reformed. Since 2005, Washington has spent nearly $300 billion on disaster recovery, with state and local governments spending billions more. This figure doesn't even include last ye...

E.J. McMahon  and  Seth Barron  discuss recent corruption cases in New York and how the state government in Albany is attempting to revitalize struggling areas with "economic-development" programs. Last month, Joseph Percoco, a former top aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo, was found guilty on corruption charges for accepting more than $300,000 in bribes from two companies. Percoco's conviction reinfor...

Dennis Saffran  and  Seth Barron  discuss New York City's misguided family-reunification policies, which can have fatal consequences for children in distressed homes. In the Summer 1997 Issue of  City Journal , Saffran wrote an article entitled " Fatal Preservation ," which chronicled attempts by New York's social-services agencies to keep children with their troubled and abusiveparents. The polic...

Heather Mac Donald  and  Frank Furedi  discuss the hostility to free speech that has provoked disturbing incidents on campuses across the country and the ideology behind safe spaces, micro-aggressions, and trigger warnings. Their discussion, from a  Manhattan Institute event  held in June 2017, was moderated by  City Journal  contributing editor  Howard Husock . American universities are experienc...

Daniel DiSalvo  joins  Brian Anderson  to discuss public-sector unions, freedom of speech, and the upcoming Supreme Court case,  Janus  v.  AFSCME. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in  Janus  next week. If the justices rule for the plaintiffs, employees of state and local governments across the country will be able to opt out of paying union fees. Public unions are often powerful politic...

Amity Shlaes  joins  Seth Barron  to discuss the competing goals of economic growth and income equality, and to take a look at how American presidents in the twentieth century have approached these issues. Polls show that support for income redistribution is growing among younger generations of Americans, but such policies have a poor track record of achieving their goals. As Shlaes writes in her ...

John Tierney  joins  Seth Barron   to discuss the Trump administration's plans to reform how infrastructure projects are managed and funded. Civil engineers and other experts (including  here  at  City Journal ) have warned for years that the country's roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and rail lines are in serious need of repair. Thanks in part to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, infrastruc...

Max Eden  joins  Seth Barron  to discuss student discipline and suspension policies, and how discipline "reform" has led to chaos in many classrooms. In January 2014, in an attempt to reduce out-of-school suspensions, an Obama administration directive forced thousands of American schools to  change their discipline policies . Proponents of the new discipline rules say that teachers and school admi...

Nicole Gelinas  joins  City Journal  editor  Brian Anderson  to discuss how New York City saved its subway system after decades of decay and rampant crime from the 1960s to the early-1990s. This episode originally aired on October 20, 2016. Nicole Gelinas  is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of  City Journal , and a columnist at the  New York Post . Her story " How...

Nicole Gelinas  joins  City Journal  associate editor  Seth Barron  to discuss the recent bombing at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and how the city is managing the streets in midtown Manhattan to handle not only gridlocked traffic but also the threat of vehicle-based terrorist attacks on pedestrians. On Monday, December 11, New York City was stunned when a 27-year-old man from Bangladesh attemp...

Stephen Eide  joins  City   Journal  associate editor  Seth Barron  to discuss the New York Police Department's "crisis intervention team" (CIT), which trains police officers to respond to situations involving people with serious mental illnesses. In 2016, NYPD officers responded to more than 400 calls a day concerning "emotionally disturbed persons," some of whom are suffering major psychiatric e...

City Journal  managing editor  Paul Beston  joins  Matthew Hennessey  to discuss Paul's new book,  The Boxing Kings: When American Heavyweights Ruled the Ring . For much of the twentieth century, boxing was one of the country's most popular sports. Even long after the sport's heyday, the men who dominated the ring still hold a place in American culture. The Boxing Kings  chronicles the history of...

Judith Miller  joins  City Journal  associate editor  Seth Barron  to discuss the most recent Islamic terrorist attack in New York City. Shortly after 3:00 p.m. on Halloween, a 29-year-old man from Uzbekistan, Sayfullo Saipov, drove a rented pickup onto a Hudson River Park bike path in Lower Manhattan. Within ten minutes, eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured. NYPD officers respon...

Heather Mac Donald  joins  City Journal  associate editor  Seth Barron  to discuss the dubious scientific and statistical bases of the trendy academic theory known as "implicit bias." The implicit association test (IAT), first introduced in 1998, uses a computerized response-time test to measure an individual's bias, particularly regarding race.  Despite scientific challenges to the test's validit...

John Tierney  joins  Aaron M. Renn  to discuss the federal government's efforts to limit electronic cigarettes (vaping), and the corruption of the public health profession more generally. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, public health officials combatted epidemics of cholera and dysentery through improvements in water and sewage systems. In its modern form, however, this once-...

Seth Barron  and  Nicole Gelinas  join  Brian Anderson  to discuss the upcoming New York City mayoral election and some of the challenges facing the city today. Bill de Blasio won the New York mayor's office in 2013, pledging to take the city in a different direction from his successful predecessors, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. From policing and taxes to housing and welfare, the mayor has...

On Labor Day, we honor the American labor movement and the contributions that workers make to the strength and well-being of the country. It's been more than 80 years since Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) guaranteeing the right of private-sector workers to unionize and bargain collectively for better pay and working conditions. Today, the NLRA still governs the relationship...

Matthew Hennessey  joins  Aaron Renn  to discuss the fading of the baby boom generation, the rise of tech-savvy millennials, and the challenge for those in-between, known as Generation X. This 10 Blocks episode is based on Matt's essay from the Summer 2017 issue of  City Journal , " Zero Hour for Generation X ." While the baby boomers are finally preparing to depart the scene, "millennials could c...

Paul Beston  joins  Steven Malanga  to talk about the history of the American high school and making high-quality career training central in today's high schools. This Ten Blocks episode is the second based on  City Journal 's special issue,  The Shape of Work to Come . In 1910, less than 20 percent of America's 15-to-18-year-olds were enrolled in high school. By 1940, that figure had reached near...

Tevi Troy  joins the Manhattan Institute's  Paul Howard  to discuss a dreaded scenario: a bioterror attack in New York City. Gotham's status as a cultural and financial center makes it a more desirable target than any other city in the world. Of all the threats the city faces, a biological attack may be the most terrifying.  Due its size, density, and transportation complexity bioterror would pres...