City Journal.
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City Journal Spring 2013. City Journal Spring 2013.
Table of Contents
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.

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[2013] [2012] [2011] [2010] [2009] [2008] [2007] [2006] [2005] [2004] [2003] [2002

December 2009

Stephanie Hessler
A New Guantánamo | President Obama adopts the Bush detention policy in a different locale.
31 December 2009

Claire Berlinski
Less-than-Splendid Isolation | The world is vanishing from Americans’ awareness.
22 December 2009

Jamie Glazov
Fort Hood Denial | Why the hard Left can’t accept the Islamic roots of Nidal Hasan’s shooting spree
22 December 2009

Max Schulz
Environmental Blackmail | The Obama administration’s EPA ruling is an attempt to force Congress’s hand.
16 December 2009

Marc Epstein
A Coming Diploma Drought? | New York high schools are setting themselves up for plunging graduation rates.
15 December 2009

Marcus A. Winters
Teachers’ Unions vs. Progress—Again | New York resists reforms that would bring in millions and improve teacher quality.
14 December 2009

Tevi D. Troy
Cornell’s Straight Flush | Forty years after the student center was occupied, the destructive effects linger.
13 December 2009

Judith Miller
Apple-Pie Jihad | Homegrown terror takes root.
11 December 2009

Kay S. Hymowitz
Wise Guys in Cambridge | What Cornel West and Larry Summers actually agree about
4 December 2009

Andrew Apostolou
Slow Clean in Tehran | The limits of an Iranian purge
2 December 2009

November 2009

Max Schulz
Say Goodbye to Big-Screen TVs | The latest environmental nonsense enacted by California’s tireless bureaucrats
24 November 2009

Steven Greenhut
Plundering California | Public-sector unions have brought the state to its knees.
23 November 2009

Fred Siegel
1919: Betrayal and the Birth of Modern Liberalism | Disillusionment with Woodrow Wilson changed the American Left forever.
22 November 2009

Larry Sand
We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now | —that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed.
20 November 2009

Peter Cove
Three Proposals on the Black Family | How to encourage more fathers to stick around
20 November 2009

Paul Howard
Bending the Health-Care Cost Curve—Upward | The president’s efforts to fix health care are destined to make our problems worse.
18 November 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Arguing the Economy | A recent debate highlights the weaknesses of Obamanomics.
18 November 2009

Sandra Stotsky
Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway? | The ed schools' pedagogy adds up to trouble.
13 November 2009

Pete Peterson
More Than Zero | Often derided as cynical and disengaged, Generation Xers have plenty of public spirit.
13 November 2009

Nicole Gelinas
The Bear Truth | Criminal prosecutions won’t fix finance.
11 November 2009

Claire Berlinski, Daniel J. Flynn, Judith Miller, Roger Scruton, Guy Sorman
Communism’s Defeat, 20 Years Later | Have we learned the right lessons?
6 November 2009

Guy Sorman
Lévi-Strauss, New Yorker | The great anthropologist’s rarely noted debt to the city
6 November 2009

Walter Olson
Revolt in Westchester | After a coercive housing settlement, angry voters toss out their county executive.
4 November 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Bloomberg at the Warning Track | There are no indispensable mayors.
4 November 2009

Michael Anton
The Devil You Know | Three terms for Bloomberg beats one term for Thompson, though it’s nothing to celebrate.
4 November 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Crime-Fighting, Beyond Black and White | Big cities are ignoring race baiters and hiring the best police chiefs, whatever their color.
3 November 2009

Clark Whelton
Hope’s Last Hurrah | John Lindsay’s 1969 reelection triumph, a political version of the Miracle Mets
2 November 2009

October 2009

Scott Harrington
The Adverse-Selection Problem | Current Democratic health-care proposals will have unintended consequences—bad ones.
30 October 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Root Causes Uprooted | A down economy doesn’t mean more crime and homelessness.
29 October 2009

William Voegeli
Time Is on California’s Side | . . . but time isn’t.
28 October 2009

Judith Miller
War by Other Names | Twenty-six years after the Beirut bombing, the struggle against militant Islam continues.
23 October 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Our Subprime Federal Government | President Obama’s mortgage plan imitates the lenders who inflated the housing bubble.
20 October 2009

Andrew M. Manshel
A Place Is Better Than a Plan | Revitalizing urban areas is best done through small improvements, not grand designs.
19 October 2009

Walter Olson
Where Did You Get That Keychain? | New guidelines on freebies target bloggers but go easy on traditional outlets.
16 October 2009

Harry Stein
The Boys Who Cry Racism | Will Jimmy Carter and company expose the hollowness of the tired old charge?
15 October 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
Intrusions | In Britain, private arrangements are less and less private.
14 October 2009

John P. Avlon
Democracy in Name Only | Election reform in New York is long overdue.
13 October 2009

Edward Jay Epstein
A Nobel Perspective | How the Peace Prize is decided
13 October 2009

Fred Siegel, Harry Siegel
New York’s Two-Party System | Public-sector unions on one side, billionaires on the other
7 October 2009

Alphonse Crespo, Philip Stevens
Health Care’s Swiss Solution | Fostering competition among insurers has empowered consumers and controlled costs.
2 October 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
It’s Only Anti-Social | In Britain, the seriousness of an offense depends on who the victim is.
1 October 2009

September 2009

Sol Stern
School of Crock | The Bloomberg administration and the UFT have increasingly joined forces on the schools.
30 September 2009

Heather Mac Donald
The Truth About Policing and Skid Row | Summer 2009 proved that poor people’s best friend is the LAPD, not homeless advocates.
28 September 2009

Marcus A. Winters
Charters’ Promise | New York State should remove restrictions on charter schools’ growth.
28 September 2009

Guy Sorman
Economics Still Doesn’t Lie | Whatever its predictive powers, the dismal science remains a science.
25 September 2009

Judith Miller
Don’t Close Gitmo | We will need detention centers as long as the War on Terror lasts.
24 September 2009

Benjamin A. Plotinsky
The Pharmaceutical Umbrella | One reason European health care works: America
22 September 2009

Andrew Klavan
The Art of Corruption | The National Endowment for the Arts violates its founding principle.
21 September 2009

Harry Stein
Beck Bashing | Glenn Beck is good for America—and bad for the Left
18 September 2009

Myron Magnet
The Godfather, R.I.P. | Irving Kristol, realist, humanist, institution-builder, friend
18 September 2009

Guy Sorman
Death of a Humanist | Norman Borlaug, R.I.P.
14 September 2009

Judith Miller
The Week of 9/11 | Three reminders of terrorism’s enduring threat
11 September 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Krugman, Keynes, and Ketchup | The Times columnist offers exactly the wrong fix for the financial crisis.
9 September 2009

John P. Avlon
Obama’s Medical-Malpractice Opportunity | In his speech tonight, the president shouldn’t forget tort reform.
9 September 2009

Daniel J. Flynn
In Step with Ted | As Kennedy tilted left, the Democratic Party generally followed.
4 September 2009

Paul Howard
It’s the System | The real health-care problem isn’t moral, as the president claims, but structural.
3 September 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Failing Up | The government is endangering the FDIC’s crucial role in market discipline.
1 September 2009

August 2009

Guy Sorman
Paying for Le Treatment | Nothing is free—certainly not French health care.
24 August 2009

Guy Sorman
In Memoriam: Rose Friedman | The “other Friedman,” who has passed away at 98, exerted her own formidable influence.
20 August 2009

Sahil Mahtani
The Wrath of Khan | A Bollywood icon’s detention at Newark wasn’t a cultural misunderstanding.
20 August 2009

John P. Avlon
Repairs for Broken Systems | Citizens in California and New York are pushing for constitutional conventions.
12 August 2009

Robert P. Murphy
The Golden State’s Golden Tax Opportunity | How California can prevent a sequel to its budget bust.
11 August 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Proactive Policing, Lax Jailing | As William Bratton leaves the LAPD, a horrific murder case highlights the importance of his reforms.
7 August 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Express Track to New York’s Tomorrow? | Mayor Bloomberg makes a fresh start on transit.
6 August 2009

Eamon Moynihan
The Poorest Place in America | Welcome to New York!
6 August 2009

Stephen T. Parente
Another Trillion? | The CBO may have underestimated the cost of health reform.
5 August 2009

July 2009

Marc Epstein
The Regents, Re-dunce | Another year, another hopelessly manipulated exam
31 July 2009

André Glucksmann
A Hot Summer in Europe | The continent’s sovereignty, such as it is, depends on containing Russian ambitions.
30 July 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Obama’s Ignorant Attack on Cops | The president ought to know how much inner-city neighborhoods owe to good policing.
29 July 2009

Harry Stein
Unteachable | The racial-grievance industry won’t learn anything from the Gates affair.
27 July 2009

David Gratzer
Bigger Is Healthier | The problem with U.S. health care is its cost, not its size.
22 July 2009

Guy Sorman
The Two Joseph Stiglitzes | One is a serious economist. The other isn’t.
22 July 2009

Paul Howard
The Reaper Is Cheaper | Preventing disease is praiseworthy, but it may not reduce health-care costs.
21 July 2009

Richard Greenwald
Making Prisoner Reentry Work | Reforms at the local level can help reduce recidivism.
20 July 2009

Matthew Shaffer
Obama vs. New York | The president’s health-care plans will have a disastrous economic impact on state and city.
17 July 2009

Marcus A. Winters
Compstat for Teachers | Public schools can join the same data revolution that transformed urban policing.
14 July 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Ricci and the Skills Gap | What leads to unequal results between blacks and whites isn’t racism.
7 July 2009

Judith Miller
Timely Warnings | A new NYPD report reminds us that Gotham is still al-Qaida’s and other terrorists’ Number One target.
2 July 2009

Guy Sorman
Revolution Fatigue | Events in Honduras and Argentina point to a continent weary of socialism.
1 July 2009

June 2009

James R. Copland
Defeat Cloaked in Victory | The Supreme Court’s commendable Ricci verdict won’t change the Catch-22 logic of discrimination law.
30 June 2009

Sol Stern
Win/Win/Lose | A new pension deal serves the interests of the mayor and the teachers’ union, not the kids.
25 June 2009

Daniel J. Flynn
The Fire Last Time | Those looking hopefully to the Iran uprising should remember the harsh lessons of 1979.
24 June 2009

Nicole Gelinas
A Better, Simpler Financial Fix | Markets don’t need more regulatory discretion; they need clear limits on risk-taking.
19 June 2009

Guy Sorman
Destroyed By Communism | Twenty years after Tiananmen, China and some of its Asian neighbors still suffer under Marxist ideology.
16 June 2009

Stephanie Hessler
Sotomayor and National Security | America’s safety shouldn’t be in the hands of judges.
16 June 2009

Heather Mac Donald
A Harlem Tragedy and Its Exploiters | Police officer Omar Edwards’s death had nothing to do with NYPD racism.
2 June 2009

Marc Epstein
Not Worth the Paper . . . | New York’s public schools have replaced social promotion with universal promotion.
1 June 2009

John P. Avlon
California Agonistes | The budget crisis in Sacramento should serve as a warning to other states.
1 June 2009

May 2009

Kay S. Hymowitz
Burying the Lead | The New York Times runs a piece on Hispanic poverty dressed up in happy talk.
29 May 2009

David Gratzer
Dr. Meddlesome | Obama’s new CDC head accomplished little worthwhile in New York.
27 May 2009

Pete Peterson
Tocqueville Surfs | Lessons in self-governance from Obama’s home state
22 May 2009

Daniel J. Flynn
Drinking Harvey Milk’s Kool-Aid | Lionized by Hollywood and California state legislators, the real Milk was a demagogue and pal of Jim Jones.
21 May 2009

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Three | A visit to Saddam’s chamber of horrors
14 May 2009

David Gratzer
Health-Care Hardball | “Reconciliation” could backfire on the president.
13 May 2009

Claire Berlinski
Peaceful, Boring, and Newsworthy | Turkey’s tranquil May Day was a story in itself.
4 May 2009

April 2009

Paola Sapienza, Luigi Zingales
Stop Subsidizing the Street | Bailouts hurt much-needed entrepreneurship in the banking sector.
29 April 2009

Benjamin A. Plotinsky
Poetic Justice | The shocking truth about Shakespeare and John Paul Stevens
28 April 2009

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part Two | Socialism on top, Milton Friedman on the bottom
22 April 2009

Andrew Klavan
The Little Red Wagon That Can | What I saw at the Tea Party
17 April 2009

Marcus A. Winters
KIPP vs. the Teachers’ Unions | In New York, a key battle to preserve charter schools’ effectiveness
16 April 2009

Paul Howard, Gualberto Ruaño
“GPS” for Health Care | Washington needs to understand the promise of gene-based treatments.
15 April 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
The Rosenbergs, Always | Liberals remain soft on Communism.
9 April 2009

James Kirchick
Lebanon on Tenterhooks | With June elections looming, hope coexists with fear.
8 April 2009

Nicole Gelinas
The Perils of P-PIP | Waste, fraud, and abuse: not just for defense contractors any more
7 April 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
The Two Frances | One a bourgeois paradise; the other, an urban fear zone
7 April 2009

Patrick J. McCloskey
Catholic-School Comeback? | Inner-city kids would be the big winners.
6 April 2009

Lawrence J. McQuillan
Putting Drug Research in Legal Jeopardy | California’s Wyeth ruling endangers pharmaceutical innovation.
3 April 2009

Jerry Weinberger
Iraq Journal, Part One | My arrival in Sulaimani, Kurdistan
2 April 2009

March 2009

Luigi Zingales
A New Regulatory Framework | Three agencies, based on the three main goals of financial regulation
31 March 2009

Adam D. Thierer
Socializing Media in Order to Save It | Another misguided proposal from John Nichols and Robert McChesney
27 March 2009

Max Schulz
Three Mile Island’s Three-Decade Mark | It’s time to end the nuclear industry’s 30-year sentence.
26 March 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Baying for AIG Blood | A bankruptcy—even a brutal one—could have been better than this.
23 March 2009

Max Schulz
Green Hustler | Meet Van Jones, a “Ph.do” in Environmentalist Sound Bite.
16 March 2009

John M. Murtagh
Some Wine with Your Pork, Congressman? | In Washington, New York, and all over the country, it’s business as usual, as usual.
6 March 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
Slip of a Lip | In Britain, people’s words show their acceptance of everyday violence.
5 March 2009

Marcus A. Winters
Money for Nothing | Billions of federal dollars subsidize the same failed education policies.
4 March 2009

John P. Avlon
Save D.C.’s Voucher Program! | It’s popular and it saves money; now Democrats want to axe it.
4 March 2009

Jim Manzi
The Innovation Squelch | Obamanomics is bad news for American entrepreneurs.
3 March 2009

Paul Beston
The Media’s Coffin Politics | Blame the networks for the now-lifted ban on showing military caskets.
3 March 2009

Max Schulz
Presidential Petroleum Prejudice | Obama’s budget discriminates against oil and gas producers.
2 March 2009

February 2009

Paola Sapienza, Luigi Zingales
Anti-Trust America | A trust deficit is driving our economy down.
27 February 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Jindal’s Missed Opportunity | Who better to offer a lesson in what government should do?
25 February 2009

Nicole Gelinas
The Developers’ Bailout | Propping up politically connected real estate won’t help New York.
24 February 2009

Benjamin A. Plotinsky
Obama and “Me” | The president’s adulators praise even his bad grammar.
24 February 2009

John P. Avlon
The Great GASB | A new provision discloses how much we really spend on public-sector employees.
24 February 2009

Pete Peterson
Obama’s One-Way Social Networking | “Stimulus house parties” tend to invite just one kind of guest.
20 February 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Nation of Cowards? | So says Eric Holder, but what’s really cowardly is racial dishonesty.
19 February 2009

James Kirchick
Downplaying Hamas | The persistence of rationalizing terrorism against Israel
18 February 2009

Pietro Veronesi, Luigi Zingales
Geithner’s AIG Strategy | Its costs could be higher than advertised—and catastrophic.
18 February 2009

Harry Stein
Selena Roberts Has No Shame | The reporter who broke the Alex Rodriguez steroids story smeared the Duke lacrosse players.
13 February 2009

Walter Olson
The New Book Banning | Children’s books burn, courtesy of the federal government.
12 February 2009

Michael Knox Beran
Lincoln and the Moral Imagination | Our 16th president, neither a Bismarck nor a Darwin
11 February 2009

John M. Murtagh
Pack the City, We’re Moving! | Each year, one Yonkers leaves New York for friendlier climes.
11 February 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Public-Private Peril | Under Geithner’s plan, the private sector leaps into bed with the feds.
11 February 2009

André Glucksmann
The Crack of the Whip | Moscow fiddles while Europe freezes.
9 February 2009

Adam Nicholson
In Vino . . . | Culture and cocktails in the nation’s capital
9 February 2009

David Billet, Michael Davis
Pay for Performance | A modest proposal for reforming how banking products are sold
5 February 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Cap and Bail | The government’s new limit on executive pay is a symptom, not a problem.
5 February 2009

Paul Howard
$100 Billion of Bad Medicine |
4 February 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Stimulating Some Thinking | Get the infrastructure part of the recovery package right.
2 February 2009

January 2009

Guy Sorman
The New American Soldier | David Petraeus, savior of the surge, turns to Afghanistan.
30 January 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
When Hooligans Bach Down | Strike up Johann Sebastian and watch them scatter.
29 January 2009

Sahil Mahtani
Telescopic Philanthropy | First World urbanites and their contempt for Third World urbanization
29 January 2009

Heather Mac Donald
The Times’s Weak-Willed Women | How else to explain female absence from the sciences?
28 January 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
Riders or Citizens? | Multinational passengers on a French train hold little in common.
27 January 2009

Daniel Freedman
Wanted: Offense with a Touch of Class | Prince Harry and his contemporaries need to study the great ones.
26 January 2009

Max Schulz
Obama’s California Dreamin’ | The new president’s granting of an emissions waiver to California is the height of irresponsibility.
26 January 2009

Howard Husock
Build Big, Mr. President | Obama should look past mere improvements and plan transformative infrastructure projects.
23 January 2009

Nicole Gelinas
The President’s First Roadblock | Yes, we can invest wisely in infrastructure—but how?
23 January 2009

Fred Siegel
As The Clans Turn | New York’s decrepit political culture receives a jolt with the senate appointment of Kirsten Gillibrand.
23 January 2009

Bruce Bawer
Submission in the Netherlands | The trial of Geert Wilders represents another blow against Dutch freedom.
22 January 2009

Stefan Kanfer
Another for the Stuffed Owl | Elizabeth Alexander manages to compose history’s worst inaugural poem.
21 January 2009

Marcus A. Winters
Stemming the Tide | Let’s pay science and math teachers more.
16 January 2009

Heather Mac Donald
Profiling Eric Holder | What does Obama’s attorney general–designate believe about cops and race?
14 January 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Stalling Out | Good leadership—from someone willing to address public-sector benefits costs—can save New York from Detroit’s fate.
14 January 2009

Daniel J. Flynn
Like Uncle, Like Niece | Caroline Kennedy’s candidacy mirrors Ted’s 47 years ago.
13 January 2009

Heather Mac Donald
What’s in a Name | When it comes to schools, a reflection of our future
12 January 2009

Michael Shermer
Irrational Economic Man | If human beings are naturally risk-averse, then what the heck happened on Wall Street?
11 January 2009

Brian C. Anderson
A Priest in Full | Father Richard John Neuhaus, R.I.P.
9 January 2009

André Glucksmann
On “Disproportion” | In Gaza, as everywhere, the word is irrelevant.
9 January 2009

Ruth Graham
Pennies Earned | A timely new reminder of the importance of thrift
8 January 2009

John P. Avlon
Obama’s Infrastructure Opening | The president-elect can rally support for public works, homeland security, and government transparency at the same time.
7 January 2009

Theodore Dalrymple
Reading the Signs | Gestural politics and disturbing reality at a Paris Metro stop
6 January 2009

Nicole Gelinas
Gotham’s Problems Are Camelot-Proof | Neither Caroline Kennedy nor Washington, DC can solve New York’s fiscal crisis.
6 January 2009

Heather Mac Donald
The Times’s Crime Confusions Persist | Error and distortion at the paper, Heaven help us, of record
5 January 2009

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