Television news journalist Soledad O’Brien sees an industry around her in which policy is rarely a focus. Political coverage in the media latches on to popularity and personality. Producers think people just want short quips and politicians arguing.
She disagrees.
We are an applied research center at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, serving public, academic, and practitioner communities. Democracy is a process of governance. Politics is collaborative decision making. Democracy is community building. We share research and lead conversations exploring democratic ideals. democracy is a process Through […]
by Matthew Kredell The USC Price School of Public Policy partnered with the California Contract Cities Association (CCCA) to host the second annual City Managers’ Summit, which fostered important discussions around key policy issues such as climate change, economic development, leadership and the role of women in city management. Professor […]
This summer, a group of students spent a day volunteering to cook lunch and sort clothes at the Downtown Women’s Center, an organization dedicated helping women overcome poverty and homelessness. The service activity helped them gain “a sense of the social determinants of health,” according to USC Price School of […]
by Raphael Bostic In her new book How the Other Half Banks, Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of Georgia, tells the true story of three borrowers. The first, named Tanya, is a single mother of two. She had to take off work to take care of her son […]
by Raphael Bostic They say that twilight is the most dangerous time on the battlefield. Half day, half night, the light plays tricks on your eyes, and the time plays tricks on your body. It is in this moment of transition that you are most vulnerable to an attack. But this […]
Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife looks at our use and manipulation of water and water rights in the US and brings us to an ultimate conclusion.
Inglewood Mayor James Butts envisions a future in which people on every flight landing at LAX look out the small cabin windows and see a gigantic multilayered sports entertainment district – a city within a city – lit up like Las Vegas. With the NFL choosing the Hollywood Park site […]
by Raphael Bostic On the afternoon of August 15, 2015, Jamyla Bolden came home from Koch Elementary School in eastern Missouri to play with her friend Akeelah on Ellison Drive, where the Bolden family lived. They probably danced until the sun set. (Jamyla was known for making up new dance […]
Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist imagines what it means to be empathetic within the institutional violence of our system and the violence humans can commit against each other. Listen to our discussion about power and the necessity of protest within our democratic structure, and how protests should, and can, peacefully engage to solve the world’s “wicked problems.”
by Justine Dodgen We kicked off the spring semester last week with a Price Governance Salon, a program that creates opportunities for students and faculty to engage with top researchers and exchange ideas. Visiting scholar Brian Galle, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, presented the findings of his paper called, […]
by Donnajean Ward I’ve written a lot about Detroit these past few months. It’s my home town so almost every media mention gets my click and it seems like everyone from Jamie Dimon to National Geographic has weighed in on its rise, its fall, its hipsterization… On Thursday, October 15 […]
by Patricia Quintero Estades Last Tuesday September 22nd the Bedrosian Center welcomed Gloria Molina for our first Lunch with a Leader event of the school-year. USC students, faculty, and visitors had the opportunity to sit down for a lively and varied conversation with Molina, who, among other firsts, was the first […]
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is ostensibly a letter to his son about growing up a black male in America. This prize winning correspondent of The Atlantic tackles the very big questions of our time.
The US has used the War on drugs to create a racial caste system: a successor to the Jim Crow days we thought we left behind. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is one of the most important American books in the last decade. Alexander systematically explores the policy changes from the days of Nixon through the present – exploring how each decision has created and allowed a system which criminalizes blackness, brownness, otherness in way that both creates new racial biases and confirms them by incarcerating millions of young black and brown men (and to a lesser extent, black and brown women).
Policy at the Playhouse started as a creative project in 2015. USC Bedrosian Center recognized that conversations about governance take place in many different fora and are voiced by many different communities. The project has grown over the years and is now a partnership between the USC Sol Price School of Public […]
by Jeremy Loudenback In Los Angeles, a recent debate about street vending in the city has underscored important discussions about race, class, health, immigration, space, and the rule of law. As Los Angeles considers how to legalize street vendors, the Contesting the Streets II: Vending and Public Space in Global Cities […]
by Jeremy Loudenback At the Bedrosian Center’s Lunch with a Leader program last week, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Doane Liu recalled with pride how he first got a taste for public service. As a San Pedro resident, he helped broker a deal in the mid-1990s that turned surplus land in San […]
by Peter Robertson “Most voters still think Congress is doing a poor job and believe most of its members only get reelected because a fix is in.” Over 80 percent of those surveyed disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, and the majority of the respondents to a recent […]
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Civic participation efforts in Hong Kong and Scotland Scotland is usually overshadowed by England, its more prominent neighbor in the United Kingdom (U.K.). But last month, the land of bagpipes, unicorns, and the Loch Ness monster captured the world’s attention as it considered a […]
by Jeremy Loudenback Our conversation with Beltran Highlights the Need for Civic Engagement With rates of voter turnout in Los Angeles at a low ebb in recent elections, the city faces a crisis of civic participation. Local leaders remain perplexed at how to improve the city’s lagging civic culture, and ideas […]
This summer, we thought we’d bring you a different kind of summer reading list. We don’t know about you, but summer seems to be the only time we can catch up to things we’ve been meaning to get to. This list is brought to you by the Faculty, Students, and Staff […]
by Jeremy Loudenback In February, City Librarian John Szabo visited the Bedrosian Center to share his perspective on innovation and implementation in a setting not normally associated with governance studies: the public library. Szabo has had a long relationship with libraries, starting with his fond childhood memories of being dropped off […]
by Jeremy Loudenback After winning election in a contentious race to replace Steve Cooley as district attorney of Los Angeles County, Jackie Lacey hasn’t had the opportunity to rest on her laurels or celebrate the significance of being the first woman and African American to serve as head of the Los […]
by Jeremy Loudenback The public library may seem like a strange setting for discussions about governance. But these days, public libraries occupy an active and surprisingly commonplace role in the public policy arena, especially in urban areas. From helping citizens navigate the new healthcare marketplaces to dealing with homelessness, libraries are no […]