Miscellany

Here are some things I've been meaning to put up for a while. Watch out for the bullets:

• My analog reading material these days consists of economist Matthew Kahn's new book Green Cities, which seeks to evaluate global cities according to various measures of environmental health. It's got some good insights and with only a few equations it ought to be fairly accessbile to non-economists. Before you go to the library you can sample Kahn's writing and thoughts at his weblog: http://greeneconomics.blogspot.com.
  
  
• This sentence from Kahn's book caught my eye: "[One] hypothesis suggests that a nation is more likely to enact environmental regulation when its economy is growing and income inequality is falling." Which reminded me of themes discussed in the Brookings Institution's Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places, another bit of reading I've recently finished. The Brookings report makes note of big demographic and economic dichotomies in our state: north and south, working-class and college-educated, the young workforce and older retirees, wealthy newcomers and struggling old-timers. Income inequality is growing here as it is all over America, and politics have become more divisive and less productive. The Brookings report recommends harnessing the productivity and wealth of richer residents to grow the state's economy and extend opportunity to its working classes. If Maine is to protect its civic integrity, it must preserve its egalitarian spirit.
  
  
• Thanks to May Shrink Or Fade and The Adventures of a Geo-Geek for adding me to their prestigious lists of links, and thanks also to their readers who may have found their way here.
  
  
• Finally, The Bollard has published an essay of mine that started as a draft blog post and quickly outgrew this format. If all these whizzing bullets haven't yet shot your attention span to hell, check it out here.