Wonk, wonk, waaaaah.
Here's a few links for my fellow policy nerds out there.
Philadelphia Bicycle News goes ga-ga over the Streets Department's new online street defect reporting tools. My response... who designs the city's websites? If our tax dollars are going to pay for municipal websites that look like that when any Joe Sixpack can design a nice looking, easy to use blog for free...
Speaking of nice looking and easy to use websites, Policy Map from The Reinvestment Fund gets high marks from the godfather of on-line wonkery - Dan UA at Young Philly Politics.
Finally, the Daily News editorial page reminds us again how important cities are. Like Atrios often writes, there are some who would never, ever want to live in a city, but if our nation can just make it easier for those who are on the fence to give up their cars, their yards and their big box shopping centers, then everybody wins. The Brookings report referred to by the Daily News editorial makes it clear that most of us, whether we know or not, are living in "cities" which we now call "metropolitan areas."