CenLamar | Est. 2006

  • Archiving CenLamar

    Earlier today, all 474 posts and 5,788 comments from CenLamar’s former home on BlogSpot were imported to its new location here on WordPress. If you have the time, energy, interest, and patience, you can now wade through over a year’s worth of news and commentary– including CenLamar’s coverage of the Alexandria mayor’s race and the notorious series of threads on Bolton High School (which accounts for nearly 15% of the comments generated on the old blog). You can search this blog by keyword using the search function on the right sidebar. (Because it’s not labeled, it may not appear to…

  • Does Smart Growth Matter to Public Finance?

    Hat tip: Geoff Clegg. I was recently directed to a paper co-authored by two scholars, John Carruthers of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Gudmunder Ulfarsson of Washington University in Saint Louis, regarding the relationship between smart growth concepts and public finance. Their article contains substantive empirical data that backs up an argument frequently made by champions of smart growth: Expansive, low-density development costs the public more than higher-density, “in-fill” development. Quoting from the article: The results of the analysis link one of the main ideas behind smart growth—namely, that low-density, spatially expansive development patterns are…

  • Remember

    At the end of last week, the U.S. Congress passed an Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, more fondly known as the Iraq Supplemental, to extend funding the war in Iraq for another few months. Regardless of your opinion on the war, Louisianians must remember that this bill included $6.4 billion for Gulf Coast recovery. It delivers the much needed waiver of the Stafford Act, which will release communities from paying a ten percent match to federal recovery dollars. Emergency spending to make up for previous shortfalls is the purpose of Emergency Supplementals. Government spending like fulfilling the federal commitment to the…