Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

The Double Character Of Daniel Webster, Irving H. Bartlett

New England Journal of Public Policy

Between 1815 and 1852, when people in New England wanted advice on matters of public policy, they sought out Daniel Webster. His extraordinary reputation rested in large measure on his ability to play a conservative role, to assure his followers that the federal Union was sound and that their role in a rapidly changing democratic society was consistent with their historic legacy. In 1850 the message failed and Webster fell.

Demographic Trends In Boston: Some Implications For Municipal Services, Margaret O'Brien

New England Journal of Public Policy

The City of Boston is gaining in population during the 1980s, after several decades of loss. During the current decade and beyond, population trends will bring increases in the number of children, adults between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four, and those aged seventy-five and over, along with declines among the older teenagers and college-age population, the more mature adults, and the younger elderly. A recent analysis of the income distribution indicates that while there were more well-to-do residents in Boston in 1985 than there were in 1980, there were also more poor and near poor. Average family income has …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In recent years, New England has done itself proud. The chronic post-World War II decline in its manufacturing sector has been replaced by what for the present at least continues to be a record growth in services directly and indirectly related to high technology and a continuing competitiveness in high technology itself. As a result, the region leads the nation in growth in per capita income and enjoys the lowest level of unemployment in the country as well. Self-congratulation, however, is too often a prescription for complacency, and complacency inhibits the kind of searching inquiry which assumes that economic miracles …

Managing Change: Reflections On Innovation In The Public Sector, Ira A. Jackson, Jane P. O'Hern

New England Journal of Public Policy

In January 1983, when Governor Michael S. Dukakis appointed Ira Jackson as commissioner of revenue, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was facing an estimated $300 million deficit. The state was also suffering from a severe loss of public confidence in the integrity of its tax administration. His first and most urgent priority being the restoration of that confidence, Commissioner Jackson implemented a three-part strategy to improve voluntary compliance with the tax laws: raising the stakes for evaders, treating honest taxpayers as customers rather than victims, and changing public attitudes about tax evasion. Productivity gains and innovative procedures at the Department of …

De Facto New Federalism And New England: A Discussion, Kenneth Curtis, Chester Atkins, Richard Licht, David Walker, Roger Porter

New England Journal of Public Policy

Using John Shannons paper as a broad frame of reference (see previous article), a panel discussion titled "The Changing Nature of FederalI State Relations: The Fiscal Impact on New England" took place on 18 November 1985 at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The discussion was sponsored by the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs and was presented in a roundtable forum. The members of the panel were Kenneth Curtis, former governor of Maine; Chester Atkins, member of Congress from the Massachusetts Fifth Congressional District; Richard Licht, lieutenant governor of Rhode Island; David Walker, professor of political science at …

War Stories--Defense Spending And The Growth Of The Massachusetts Economy, David L. Warsh

New England Journal of Public Policy

The defense industry has been an integral part of the Massachusetts economy since colonial days, and the Watertown Arsenal and Springfield rifle are virtually synonymous with the capital-intensive arms business of the nineteenth century. But after World War II, here as elsewhere, defense production became far more deeply embedded in the state 's division of labor, with the result that today it is hard to tell what is of military origin and what is not: the minicomputer and software industries, in their entirety, are properly viewed as a spin-off from the Cold War and the space race, for example. The …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Today much of public policy debate takes place in a social vacuum. This is so in part because policy issues are often rather arbitrarily assigned to particular and seemingly unconnected disciplines that put a premium on maintaining their separate baronies of intellectual hegemony, and in part because of our too-pervasive propensity to compartmentalize in order to simplify. One of the aims of the New England Journal of Public Policy is to invade, as it were, these baronies, to liberate the policy issues held hostage there and release them into a broader, more human context, one that accentuates the idea of …

De Facto New Federalism: Phase Ii?, John Shannon

New England Journal of Public Policy

1985 marked year seven for de facto new federalism, the fiscal decentralization process nudged along by strong public support for the Reagan administration's conservative policies and growing fiscal stringency at the federal level. New federalism is most dramatically illustrated by the national government retreat along the entire state-local aid front — a kind of "sorting out" — as an increasing share of the federal budget goes to strictly national government programs. The mounting public concern about massive federal deficits will quicken the federal pullback on the state-local aid front. The only question is whether it will be a ragged retreat …

Regionalism: The Next Step, Ian Menzies

New England Journal of Public Policy

Although the New England states have, over the years, been regionally cooperative, they have not formally advanced the process since the establishment of the New England Governors' Conference in 1937. There is still no regional government in New England; no body politic that can enact regionwide laws; no organization authorized to perform regionwide planning, or with the power to regulate or direct growth and development or manage natural resources. There isn't even a public forum or assembly where such issues can be discussed. This article reviews the history of regionalism in New England and proposes that the six states develop …

Book Reviews: The Endangered Metropolis, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Reviews of books by Anne Whiston Spirn, Jane Jacobs, George Gallup, Jr., Gary Gappert, and Richard V. Knight.

What all of these books have in common is the futuristic glimpse they give us into urban life in the twenty-first century. In approaching such a milestone, one can be either an optimist or a pessimist. These authors present a balanced mixture; they bring tidings of good news and bad news. As one of them aptly puts it: "In the present lies not only the nightmare of what the city will become if current trends continue, but also the dream of what …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Central to the evolution of public policy, since all subsequent processes flow from it, is the question of problem identification — or, more broadly, the question of definition. The importance of definition derives not only from the need to address the "right" problem but from the often greater need not to address the "wrong" one, since the subsequent misallocation of resources can alter the nature of the problem itself. More is not always better, whether in reference to federal largesse, nuclear power generating capacity, or the length of the school day. In fact, as the articles in this issue of …

Fiscal Paternalism And New England Cities: A Policy For The Year 2000, Mark S. Ferber, Elizabeth A. Ferber

New England Journal of Public Policy

The following commentary explores the future of urban public finance by focusing on the fiscal ills of New England's major cities. The impact of general revenue sharing, categorical grants, federal tax policy, state aid, and own-source city revenues is assessed in light of a city's ability to support itself. The authors conclude that a pattern of "fiscal paternalism" — the past and present policies for annual financial assistance to narrow the expenditure-revenue budget gap — must be altered if cities are to enter the twenty-first century as fiscally stable governments capable of providing the necessary services for a varied constituency.

The New England Economic Revitalization And Future Research Priorities, James M. Howell

New England Journal of Public Policy

New England's recent economic revitalization is largely attributed to the region's success in technological innovation and adaptation. This capacity to supplant older, maturing technologies with new technologies — a willingness to continually shed the old to make room for the new — has been a characteristic of New England since the early nineteenth century. At that time, as today, the critical factors in the process of technological development were the presence of investment capital, skilled labor, entrepreneurs, and, above all, preeminent colleges and universities that foster unconventional thinking and risk-taking. While the region's economy should continue to benefit from these …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Over the years, public policy issues have proliferated, and with proliferation has come the inevitable specialization. The result: fragmentation of effort and problems of communication not only between those who make policy and those who implement it, but between practitioners in general and the academic and research disciplines that complement them. Public policy constituencies have created their own languages, but too often the result is a confusion of tongues rather than a profusion of ideas.

The New England Journal of Public Policy is designed to create a profusion of ideas by providing a medium for practitioners, policy analysts, and academics …

The Demography Of New England: Policy Issues For The Balance Of This Century, George S. Masnick

New England Journal of Public Policy

New England's rapidly aging population, its traditionally low fertility rate, and the fact that net migration from other regions and abroad should continue to be close to zero means that only very slow population growth will characterize the region for the balance of this century. Nevertheless, New England's demographic metabolism is exceptionally dynamic: (1) the numbers of different age groups are growing at very different rates; (2) a redistribution of population is occurring from the southern to northern tier states; (3) within each state population is dispersing into non-metropolitan areas; and (4) metropolitan areas, both central and suburban, are quickly …