In City Journal, Steven Malanga recounts how two very different New York mayors – Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg – recognized how harnessing detailed data could dramatically improve the effectiveness of civic services ranging from fighting crime to locating storm-downed trees. New York’s past record of success offers lessons for Canadian cities – but only those with a mayor driven by an uncompromising sense of purpose.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
