Boston 101 Lecture Series

To add your name to our Boston 101 e-mailing list for a reminder about the next Boston 101 lecture or changes and additions to the lecture series, please send an email to Polly O'Brien.

Fall 2008 Boston 101 Series

Reviewing Chapter 40B: What Gets Proposed, Approved, Appealed, and Built?
Monday, November 17, 5:30 p.m.
Allison Dining Room, 5th floor, Taubman Building, 15 Eliot St.

Lynn Fisher, Associate Professor of Real Estate, Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Center for Real Estate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For almost 40 years, Chapter 40B, a unique Massachusetts law, has allowed the state to overrule local land use decisions for housing projects that include subsidized units in communities that lack such housing. Because Chapter 40B is so important for multi-family housing production and because 40B projects often are controversial, it is critical to understand how the law actually works in practice. Which projects are built with little controversy, which are substantially delayed, and which never get built?

Cosponsored by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies

Reforming Juvenile Justice: Lessons from Missouri’s Award-Winning Program
Monday, December 1, 5:30 p.m.
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, Eliot and JFK Streets

Tim Decker, Director, Missouri Division of Youth Services, which won the 2008 Annie E. Casey Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform
Gary Stangler, Executive Director, Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative
Zuline Gray Wilkinson, Vice President for Clinical Multi-Cultural Family Practice, The Home for Little Wanderers

Moderated by Julie Wilson, Harry Kahn Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Director, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Recognized as "the guiding light for reform in juvenile justice" by the American Youth Policy Forum, the Missouri Division of Youth Services (DYS) has developed a promising new philosophy in treatment of youth offenders. Instead of more common punitive practices, DYS takes a therapeutic approach, viewing youth as a direct product of their experiences and capable of turning their lives around through a step-by-step process of change.

Cosponsored by Harvard’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, HKS’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and HKS’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation

For more information, contact Polly O’Brien at polly@rappaportinstitute.org.

Past Boston 101 Events

Housing Prices and the Current Fiscal Crisis: How Will the Market Clear?
September 22, 2008

Karl Case, Katherine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, Wellesley College

Moderated by Ed Glaeser, Director, Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston and Taubman Center for State and Local Government

What can we learn about housing and the economy from previous downturns in real estate markets? In recent work, Karl ‘Chip’ Case has found that if the current decline in housing starts and residential investment are similar to previous downturns, they may directly reduce growth in the Gross National Product by about 3 percent. Housing’s actual impact on the economy may be even greater, however, because of housing-related turmoil in financial markets.

Powerpoint Presentation by Chip Case

This free event was co-sponsored by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, the Joint Center for Housing Studies, and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government.

Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation
10/2/2008

Tom Kane, Professor of Education and Economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education

In earlier research, Kane and his colleagues have found little difference in the overall performance of students taught by teachers certified in traditional ways, alternative ways, or without any certification at all, but wide varience in the performace of students taught by teachers from each of the three groups. In new research, Kane and his colleagues are using similar methods to assess promising strategies for improving school performance, particularly ways to identify effective teachers while weeding out ineffective ones as well as strategies that identify and analyze promising alternative models for how to structure our schools.

Cosponsored by the Program on Education Policy and Governance

Putting Crime Data on the Web:  Obstacles, Opportunities, and Impacts
Lessons from Chicago’s Award-Winning CLEARMAP Program
10/15/2008

Jonathan Lewin, Commander, Information Services Division, Chicago Police Department, which was awarded an Innovations in American Government Award in 2007 for its Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting (CLEAR) program.

Comments by Archon Fung, Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; co-author, Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency and author, Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy

In Chicago and a few other major cities, citizens can go online and learn about reported crimes and arrests that occurred in the last 90 days in or near specific addresses, intersections, and neighborhoods. How, if at all, has this program changed policing? What, if any, effects has it had on police-community relations or on the city's neighborhoods? What can other localities learn from the programs' successes and problems?

Cosponsored by Harvard’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, HKS’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and HKS’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation

Urban Issues and the Campaign
10/22/2008

Alan Altshuler, Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Policy and Planning; Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
Paul Peterson, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government Dept of Government
Kim Williams, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government; Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow

Moderated by Edward Glaeser, Professor Economics and Director, Rapport Institute for Greater Boston and Taubman Center for State and Local Government, Harvard University

Are American cities getting the attention they deserve in the current election?  The question is critically important because our cities continue to be both economic engines for the country and places of serious economic deprivation.  Given the importance of urban issues, what are the presidential candidates saying, why are they saying it, and what else might they say that would offer hope to those who live and work in our cities?

Cosponsored by HKS’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government.

To add your name to our Boston 101 e-mailing list for a reminder about the next Boston 101 lecture or suggestions for the lecture series, please send an email to Polly O'Brien.