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Blog
Read the latest on the Southern California wildfires
State Budget Watch: Lawmakers Should Heavily Scrutinize LA’s Wildfire Funding Ask
Included in the city’s requests are expected relief items, such as a $291 million state loan to help the city pay for debris removal and repairs to damaged city property pending FEMA repayment. But some of LA’s funding list shows city leaders haven’t yet learned their lessons from decades of ...
Blog
Counting the Cost of Single-Payer
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is back on the road promoting Medicare for All. “We are the only major nation on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a human right,” he complained in a recent speech in Nevada. But the Vermont senator failed to explain how ...
Blog
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets By Thomas Irwin | March 28, 2025 As the father of two young children, one of my primary roles is to be a sounding board for all kinds of desires from my children. These run the gambit from the ordinary and ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Freedom v. efficiency: Hangzhou’s City Brain Can Improve Efficiency, But Raises Many Questions
Editor’s Note: In Part 3 of the Free Cities Center series, Serlet looks at an AI program that offers some benefits, but raises much more serious questions. Hangzhou’s City Brain In 2020, the city of Hangzhou in China announced that it had developed a “City Brain.” Hangzhou is an ancient ...
Blog
Should the Dodgers Have to Cancel their Phillips 66 Sponsorship? A Lawmaker Says Yes.
In a March 11 letter, Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, asked owner and Chairman Mark Walter “to end the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies.” “Ending the sponsorship with Phillips 66,” which owns the 76 brand (formerly Union 76) that partners with the ...
Blog
Will Trump’s Anti-DEI Order Cure the Woke Flu Infecting U.S. Medical Schools?
More than two decades ago, I co-authored a Pacific Research Institute report entitled “Facing the Classroom Challenge,” which analyzed the teacher-training curricula at schools of education in the California State University system. Many of these schools openly stated their left-wing bias. At California State University Dominguez Hills in the Los ...
Blog
Imposing Price Controls on U.S. Drugs Won’t Level the Playing Field
The cost of capital for developing a new drug is $2.9 billion, including post approval research and development costs. Meanwhile, the process to develop a drug takes 10 years and only 12 percent of drugs make it to market. These costs do not change simply because governments impose price controls ...
Blog
As EV Sales Lag, California Cities Double Down on Charging Stations
As EV Sales Lag, California Cities Double Down on Charging Stations California leads the charge to switch from petroleum-guzzling vehicles to electric cars. Cities and counties are grappling with the many problems involved in setting up charging stations in single-family homes, multi-family units and separate charging stations in shopping centers. ...
Blog
California’s Policy Responses Risks Worsening a Bad Situation
Based on the bills legislators are considering, policymakers are learning the wrong lessons. Consider SB 222 (the Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act) introduced by state Sens. Scott Wiener and Sasha Renée Pérez. By allowing plaintiffs to sue oil and energy companies for the costs created by natural disasters, SB ...
Blog
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Freedom v. efficiency: How automating driver’s licenses offers benefits, but creates some risks
Editor’s Note: In Part 1 of Serlet’s series on municipal automation, he looked at a generally unobjectionable use of AI technology: Chicago’s restaurant-inspection program. As he explained: There are countless mundane things that municipal governments do. These might include processing building permits, collecting residential taxes or distributing school supplies to ...
Read the latest on the Southern California wildfires
State Budget Watch: Lawmakers Should Heavily Scrutinize LA’s Wildfire Funding Ask
Included in the city’s requests are expected relief items, such as a $291 million state loan to help the city pay for debris removal and repairs to damaged city property pending FEMA repayment. But some of LA’s funding list shows city leaders haven’t yet learned their lessons from decades of ...
Counting the Cost of Single-Payer
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is back on the road promoting Medicare for All. “We are the only major nation on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a human right,” he complained in a recent speech in Nevada. But the Vermont senator failed to explain how ...
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets
Single-Family Homes Don’t Fulfill Everyone’s Dreams – Or Budgets By Thomas Irwin | March 28, 2025 As the father of two young children, one of my primary roles is to be a sounding board for all kinds of desires from my children. These run the gambit from the ordinary and ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Freedom v. efficiency: Hangzhou’s City Brain Can Improve Efficiency, But Raises Many Questions
Editor’s Note: In Part 3 of the Free Cities Center series, Serlet looks at an AI program that offers some benefits, but raises much more serious questions. Hangzhou’s City Brain In 2020, the city of Hangzhou in China announced that it had developed a “City Brain.” Hangzhou is an ancient ...
Should the Dodgers Have to Cancel their Phillips 66 Sponsorship? A Lawmaker Says Yes.
In a March 11 letter, Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, a Long Beach Democrat, asked owner and Chairman Mark Walter “to end the Los Angeles Dodgers’ sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies.” “Ending the sponsorship with Phillips 66,” which owns the 76 brand (formerly Union 76) that partners with the ...
Will Trump’s Anti-DEI Order Cure the Woke Flu Infecting U.S. Medical Schools?
More than two decades ago, I co-authored a Pacific Research Institute report entitled “Facing the Classroom Challenge,” which analyzed the teacher-training curricula at schools of education in the California State University system. Many of these schools openly stated their left-wing bias. At California State University Dominguez Hills in the Los ...
Imposing Price Controls on U.S. Drugs Won’t Level the Playing Field
The cost of capital for developing a new drug is $2.9 billion, including post approval research and development costs. Meanwhile, the process to develop a drug takes 10 years and only 12 percent of drugs make it to market. These costs do not change simply because governments impose price controls ...
As EV Sales Lag, California Cities Double Down on Charging Stations
As EV Sales Lag, California Cities Double Down on Charging Stations California leads the charge to switch from petroleum-guzzling vehicles to electric cars. Cities and counties are grappling with the many problems involved in setting up charging stations in single-family homes, multi-family units and separate charging stations in shopping centers. ...
California’s Policy Responses Risks Worsening a Bad Situation
Based on the bills legislators are considering, policymakers are learning the wrong lessons. Consider SB 222 (the Affordable Insurance and Climate Recovery Act) introduced by state Sens. Scott Wiener and Sasha Renée Pérez. By allowing plaintiffs to sue oil and energy companies for the costs created by natural disasters, SB ...
Read the latest from PRI's Free Cities Center
Freedom v. efficiency: How automating driver’s licenses offers benefits, but creates some risks
Editor’s Note: In Part 1 of Serlet’s series on municipal automation, he looked at a generally unobjectionable use of AI technology: Chicago’s restaurant-inspection program. As he explained: There are countless mundane things that municipal governments do. These might include processing building permits, collecting residential taxes or distributing school supplies to ...
