The most commonly cited argument in favor of the expansion of multinational retailers is one of costs and benefits. Proponents argue that the cost of the proliferation of multinational corporations—displacing local retailers who create more employment per doll... More »
All WiFi signals travel over frequency ranges in the wireless spectrum, and those ranges are getting increasingly crowded as people use more internet-enabled devices and require more data usage. These frequency ranges, called “bands,” can only handle so much t... More »
Chicago’s history of low-income housing policy is complex. The Chicago Housing Authority used to manage 17 large housing projects for low-income residents, but during the 1990s, due to high crime, poverty, drug use, and corruption and mismanagement in the proj... More »
Video games are often cited as a cause of mass violence. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton asked federal agencies to investigate violent media. More recently, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre directed blame toward video games in the wake of the... More »
The 2016 presidential election was a watershed moment in American politics. Political polarization reached its highest ebb in decades, fueled in part by individuals’ self-guided consumption of media matched to their own political ideologies. During and after t... More »
In recent years, over 100 cities have committed to transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. Two states, Hawaii and California, have also adopted 100 percent renewable energy goals, which they aim to achieve by 2045. As cities and states move towa... More »
During the 1960s, the Johnson administration sought to address civil disorder and calm race riots as part of its War on Poverty. In pursuit of that goal, it established the Neighborhood Legal Services Program (NLSP), which funded local legal agencies through f... More »
Extremist groups have a new recruiting tool: online media. Organizations including hate groups, violent jihadist groups and far-right political groups have increasingly turned to the web—and to social media, in particular—for the purposes of identifying sympat... More »
Chicago is well known for its food culture, from Harold’s Fried Chicken to deep dish pizza to ‘Chicago-style’ hot dogs. It is difficult to spend time in this Midwestern city without spotting a sausage stand and developing a fondness for the many uniquely Windy... More »
The effective design, implementation and evaluation of public policies rely on accurate socioeconomic data. It would be impossible, for instance, to implement a poverty alleviation program without knowing who the relevant target populations are, where they liv... More »
Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s most extensively researched ecological zones. In addition to its rich biodiversity and economic importance to Brazil, the Amazon is also one of the largest land-based sinks of atmospheric carbon in the world. A ... More »
In 2018, West Virginia became the first state in the U.S. to test blockchain-enabled internet voting on mobile devices for a federal-level general election. Overseas voters from 24 West Virginia counties were able to cast their votes via an app instead of requ... More »