If Próspera were a normal town, Jorge Colindres, a freshly cologned and shaven lawyer, would be considered its mayor. His title here is “technical secretary.” Looking out over a clearing in the trees in February, he pointed to the small office complex where he works collecting taxes and managing public finances for the city’s 2,000 or so physical residents a ... Show More
Yesterday
Sunday Special: Wicked, Good?
<p>“Wicked” was one of the biggest movies of 2024. It was culturally ubiquitous, a box office smash and an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Now, a year later, “Wicked: For Good” arrives in theaters to finish the tale of the complicated friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and ... Show More
51m 44s
Feb 2025
Where does the Mittelstand stand?
Could Germany benefit from drastic Javier Milei-style reforms? One business owner in Berlin thinks so, and many others want a reduction in the amount of bureaucracy bosses are responsible for. As a federal election takes place in Germany, members of the Mittelstand, Germany’s fam ... Show More
17m 30s
Mar 2025
S2 Ep1005: Michael Lewis: Government Workers Aren't the Corrupt Ones
<div>Trump loves to complain about the deep state while Elon claims he's rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse with all his mass firings. But DOGE should be looking higher up the food chain to target the graft: for example, the South African immigrant whose car company would not ha ... Show More
1 h
Jul 2024
Kevin Loughran, "Parks for Profit: Selling Nature in the City" (Columbia UP, 2022)
A new kind of city park has emerged in the early twenty-first century. Postindustrial parks transform the derelict remnants of an urban past into distinctive public spaces that meld repurposed infrastructure, wild-looking green space, and landscape architecture. For their propone ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 18
New York City's Manufacturing Renaissance
New York City's Brooklyn Navy Yard has evolved from a collection of warehouses into a model for 21st-century manufacturing, where climate-tech, smart city solutions, and advanced fabrication companies grow alongside distilleries, designers, and robotics startups. Now, the mission ... Show More
8m 23s
Apr 2025
The problem with running the government like a business
<p></p><br/><p>The idea that the government should be run more like a business isn’t new. But with two businessmen, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, now taking a proverbial chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy all in the name “efficiency,” this theory is being put to the test. While it ... Show More
35m 33s