News List
Improving How We Measure Cumulative Regulatory Impact
A new blog post by Dean Stuart Shaprio discusses the challenges and importance of measuring the cumulative impact of regulations in the United States.
The Road Well-Traveled: Jon Carnegie Retiring
“Stay optimistic, forward-thinking, and interested in advancing the things that are important to you and to VTC, which are equity, quality research, technical assistance, and expertise to the parties who need it.”
NJSPL: New Jersey Policy Priorities Survey Results
The survey presented 23 policy issues for participants to consider. Housing emerged as the top concern, with more than half of respondents identifying it as the highest priority for New Jersey
Henry Coleman and Jermaine Toney participate as members of the Economic Justice Committee within the New Jersey Reparations Council (NJRC)
Henry Coleman and Jermaine Toney participate as members of the Economic Justice Committee within the New Jersey Reparations Council (NJRC). The NJRC Economic Justice Committee held its Public Session on Thursday, December 12, 2024.
Assembly panel approves overhaul of New Jersey primary ballots
“My concern would be not that they would be misleading by saying they’re endorsed and they’re not. My concerns there would be that it overtly puts the endorsement on the ballot, and the ballot should not be a way of communicating the endorsement,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers professor who has studied the line’s impact on election results.
NJ lawmakers vote to reform primary ballot
“Candidates could put, ‘Endorsed by Mercer County Democrats,’ says Bloustein School Professor Julia Sass Rubin. “There’s nothing in the bill I could find that prohibits that. And so it becomes a very visible cue on the ballot — which is the whole point of eliminating the county line.”
Dr. Grafova Examines Financial Hardships for Cancer Survivors
A new publication from Dr. Irina Grafova: Household income and county income inequality are associated with financial hardship among cancer survivors in New Jersey
Exploring Postsecondary Outcomes of Dual-Enrollment
A new study from the New Jersey Statewide Data System (NJSDS) explores the educational pathways of New Jersey high school graduates from 2014 and 2015 who participated in dual-enrollment programs.
“Rutgers Then and Now:” A Discussion with the Authors
Stuart Shapiro discusses the new book by University Professor and Bloustein School Dean Emeritus James W. Hughes and Distinguished Professor David Listokin, “Rutgers Then and Now.” If you missed the book release event held on Thursday, December 12, this podcast is your chance to hear more about the events that led to the creation of the book.
Montclair Holiday Party to Honor Town Manager Raises Eyebrows
“On this surface, this appears to strike a balance. It’s something they’ve done before,” Pfeiffer said. The employees likely have been buffeted by management changes with the governing body changes over the last year. You always have some people who may not like the idea. But here, the phrase ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good applies.”
Intelligent Informatics @ Bloustein: Emerging AI Ascendancy and Shifts in Health Informatics Careers
This panel, with eminent experts from industry and academia, will address the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on healthcare and health informatics careers. These experts will present their views on topics of growing importance of AI in healthcare. They will also provide insights into the advanced data science, analytics and AI education and preparation needed for health informatics jobs and careers.
NJSPL Report: Transportation Priorities for Camden County
This report offers recommendations around enhancing reliability, expanding coverage and access, improving the infrastructure and access to information, and promoting environmentally sustainable practices in Camden County’s transportation system.
Why are more and more local governments communicating through public relations firms?
“It has become more difficult for responsible and caring elected officials to have trustworthy relationships with the press,” Pfeiffer said. “The degradation of that relationship has contributed to the decisions made by some government agencies to have third-party representatives or communications professionals to face the press.”
Matthew Rivera (MHA ’25) Wins ACHE Student Associate Award
Matthew stated, “I’m looking forward to continuing my dedication and passion to the healthcare industry, as well as my commitment and participation in ACHE-NJ.” The awards were presented at the 2024 Annual Meeting & Awards Dinner on December 9, 2024 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ.
Residents want Lakewood Township Committee meetings to be in person again. Town says no.
Pfeiffer has said holding meetings online risks technical problems, as well as online infiltration: “You should carefully consider the risks of meeting disruptions and make sure you balance the interests of people.”
Pfeiffer Discusses Modernizing Legal Notice Requirements
While the need to modernize legal notices has been discussed in policy circles for years, we now face a hard deadline to update state law. However, rushing to implement permanent changes would be a mistake.
N.J. voters set a record this election. But not in a good way.
“As with the 2021 governor’s race, the expectation was that Democrats would win so there was not a pressing need for Democrats to turn out,” Rubin said.
Notes from Central Taiwan: Taiwan’s urban ‘planning’: from crisis to crisis
A Rutgers-based scholar, Mi Shih (史宓), has written a series of papers on planning and the conversion of the domestic economy to a real-estate based economy.
Drs. Porumbescu, Walsh and Hetling on SNAP Learning Costs
Our findings demonstrate that enhancing the SNAP information structure lowers learning costs and indirectly improves public support and perceived deservingness of beneficiaries. We discuss implications for theory and practice.
New Jersey’s ballot is supposed to look different next year. How exactly, though, is a lingering question.
“The sad thing is that in New Jersey, for the most part, our politicians — especially at the legislative and county level — they don’t know what campaigning means,” said Julia Sass Rubin
NJSPL Rethinking School Zone Safety Metrics
School zone safety improvements should incorporate the Safe System Approach, meaning that vehicle speeds must be addressed. Infrastructure improvements, such as sidewalk additions, should be coupled with traffic calming measures in order to improve safety.
Newark public schools superintendent’s ‘staff fun day’ squandered $33,000 in state aid
Rutgers policy expert Marc Pfeiffer highlighted that, in such circumstances, districts have alternative means of funding staff appreciation events — such as through independent foundations — rather than dipping into the public coffers for extravagance.
American Dream mall says East Rutherford owes it $183M. Here’s why
“This is a property tax appeal,” said Marc Pfeiffer, a municipal finance expert and assistant director at the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers University. It boils down to “what is the calculation for square footage.”
Leigh Ann Von Hagen Named VTC Executive Director
“Twenty years ago, I joined VTC to work on bicycle and pedestrian projects, and I seized the opportunity to pursue my passion for urban planning and research. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of leading impactful research and initiatives that have driven significant policy and practice changes. As Executive Director, I remain committed to advancing safety, promoting health and equity, and enhancing access through research, education, training, and community engagement. I deeply appreciate the leadership of my predecessors, Jon Carnegie and Martin Robins, and I look forward to building on VTC’s legacy of innovation.”
Building the Clean Energy Workforce in New Jersey
What your 2025 primary ballot might look like
“Anything they’re doing, they’re doing to maintain some favoritism for them, some advantage on the ballot, which means it’s not a fair ballot,” said Rutgers Professor Julia Sass Rubin, whose research was cited in overturning the county line. “The point of the ballot is to have a fair way for voters to indicate their preference.”
What the 2nd Trump administration might mean for health insurance
The last time he held office, Donald Trump “was one vote away from repealing the Affordable Care Act,” said Cantor. “So, it’s likely that he will, at the very least, seek to reduce funding for subsidies in the ACA coverage exchanges and make other changes likely to undermine affordability and market stability in the exchanges.”
Tech Updates: Local Government Technology Policy
Without a usable plan, you can’t manage your agency’s technology needs, resources, and risks. How you develop this plan depends on your specific circumstances, but it should balance spending, available time and effort, and competing priorities.
NJSPL Report on LMI Community Solar Program in NJ
Report Release: Examining Low- and Moderate-Income Community Solar Program and Energy Justice in New Jersey: An AI-Based Crowdsourcing Study
Opinion by Rubin | Is New Jersey now a swing state?
“One of the biggest surprises of the election was how close the presidential race was in New Jersey. A state that President Joe Biden had won by 16 points four years ago gave Vice President Kamala Harris only a six-point margin of victory.”
Bloustein project supports local literacy initiative with book drive
“I feel like what this mission is doing is it’s sort of … embracing the community from the back and just giving it a big hug from Bloustein,” Richardson said.
NJSPL: Identifying & Examining NJ Corporate Home Ownership
The phrase “corporate landlord” is often used to refer to large corporate entities backed by private equity funds and Real Estate Investment Trusts. In researching corporate home ownership throughout seven municipalities in New Jersey, researchers found that some areas exhibited high and increasing levels of corporate ownership, broadly defined, but most corporate entities owned just a few properties and most of these appeared to be locally based.
New Williams et al. Research on Improving Survey Inference
Dr. Sharifa Z. Williams, Assistant Professor, and colleagues found nonresponse in probability surveys creates challenges, but their new 2-step method leverages continuous auxiliary data for better estimates—while protecting confidentiality.
Heldrich Policy Brief: Approaches to Workplace DEI Policies
A new policy brief by Jessica Starace, Survey Research Manager at the Heldrich Center, summarizes two approaches in which the project findings may be used by policymakers, researchers, employers, and workers for their own research needs:
Prof. Toney and Lina Moe Named St. Louis Fed Fellows
Toney said, “I will be using the IEE fellowship to advance my current work that examines the effects of historical redlining and racially restrictive housing covenants on households and neighborhoods.”
Prof. Joel Cantor Reflects on Dr. Oz’s Nomination
But big government systems take a long time to change, Cantor and others agreed, given the level of detail involved in implanting complex social service programs. “Inertia is on our side” when it comes to protecting changes New Jersey has made in Medicaid, Cantor said.
The Virtues of Public Service with Bob Gordon
As a former New Jersey legislator and BPU Commissioner, Stuart Shapiro asks Senior Policy Fellow Bob Gordon about his path to public service. Bob talks about his early days as a policy analyst and how he discovered he wanted to be less behind the scenes and move into the policymaking side.
Bhuyan Co-Authors New ABCD UrbanSat Study
This comprehensive dataset provides an important tool for advancing neurobehavioral research on urbanicity during the critical developmental periods of childhood and adolescence.
Listokin, Hughes, Edwards New Book: Rutgers Then and Now
The project was developed through conversations with James W. Hughes, then dean of Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and David Listokin, professor at Bloustein’s Center for Urban Policy Research, and an expert in historic preservation. Chats about their shared interests in history, community development and Rutgers, inspired the trio to channel their knowledge into a book that charts the architectural trajectory of College Avenue Campus from its Old Queens origins in 1808 to the present.
Shapiro quoted: EPA in Elon Musk’s crosshairs
Bloustein Dean Stuart Shapiro is quoted in a POLITICO article discussing the ramifications of Trump’s announcement that billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new government efficiency commission aimed at overhauling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal offices.
What ballot design would make NJ elections fair?
“The [elected] position would be at the top; there would be the names of all the candidates beneath that,” said Rubin. “It would be clear visually for people to look at it and understand what the position is, how many people they should vote for.
University of Alabama grapples with traffic safety amid record enrollment
“We can all agree that too many pedestrians die on our streets, but a misplaced focus on distracted walking will hamper our efforts to save lives and improve safety for all users,” Rutgers public policy professor Kelcie Ralph said in the study.
The bigger N.J. hospitals get, the harder it is for people to escape medical debt
“If you’re the dominant health system, it puts you in the driver’s seat when you go to negotiate prices or rates — you have a lot of leverage in that situation,” said Joel Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. “If you’re the hospital, that’s good. But if you’re the insured or the person paying the premiums, it isn’t great.”
Charter school salary revelations spur lawmakers to scrutinize
“More transparency, more oversight is necessary before we really know how widespread these abuses are. It’s not to say that district schools don’t have things like this happen. It’s just a lot easier to find them because there’s greater required transparency and greater oversight,” Rubin said.
How jittery are NJ lawmakers about ballot design?
“Do you want a horrible ballot, or do you just want a terrible ballot, I guess is what you’re asking me,” Rubin replied to Barlas. “I would say, let’s go for a fair ballot.”
NJSPL Blog: SNAP Websites’ Chatbot Services
Only 11 out of 56 state sites featured chatbots, with just four offering Spanish support.
SRTS Report: Bicycle and Pedestrian Involved Crashes in NJ
Pedestrians and cyclists face a higher risk of severe injury or death in crashes compared to motorists. In New Jersey, there were nearly 6,000 crashes that involved pedestrians and cyclists under the age of 18 years old between 2016 and 2020.
Two MCRP Alumni Earn Planning Excellence Awards
The New Jersey Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA New Jersey) has announced the recipients of the 2024 Planning Excellence Awards, and two Bloustein School alumni are recipients. Courtenay Mercer AICP, PP (BA ’01, MCRP ‘ 02) was selected as the Budd Chavooshian Award for Outstanding Professional Planner and Alexander Dougherty, AICP, PP (MCRP ’19) as the Distinguished Emerging Planner.
NJ’s ballot design: What’s fair for all?
“Anything that’s not a clean ballot in terms of just a list of candidates in an office block style — nothing differentiating them — is not ideal,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers associate professor who has done extensive research on the ballot design’s impact.
Members of the public chime in on lawmakers’ push to redesign ballots
“I think it’s still a very unfair ballot,” Rubin said. “I would say let’s go for a fair ballot.”
Election Aftermath: The Path Forward for Democracy
In a special post-election episode of EJB Talks, Dean Stuart Shapiro and Elizabeth Matto, Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, offer post-election insights on the impact of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential win.
Heldrich Report: Examining Student Outmigration in NJ
The New Jersey Statewide Data System (NJSDS), formerly the New Jersey Education to Earnings Data System (NJEEDS), is the State of New Jersey’s centralized longitudinal data system for public administrative data.
NJ Commute Relief May Hinge on US Election With Funds in Limbo
“The ball is really in Amtrak’s court,” said Michael Smart, associate professor of urban planning at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
Tech Updates: Essential Technology Budgeting
Without a usable plan, you can’t manage your agency’s technology needs, resources, and risks. How you develop this plan depends on your specific circumstances, but it should balance spending, available time and effort, and competing priorities.
NJSPL Blog: Who Attends Virtual Schwartz Rounds?
Irina Grafova and colleagues launched two surveys about Virtual Schwartz Rounds, a program offered by the New Jersey Nursing Well-Being Institute to connect with their peers for emotional support.
Communicating Environmental Issues to the Public
Alumnus Kati Angarone RU ’98, MPAP ’04, discusses her career journey from studying natural resource management to her pivotal roles at NJDEP, including her work on climate policy, watershed and land management, and local environmental initiatives.
Rent-control measure’s changes to SF clear, but its effects aren’t
“Things like rent control are mainly going to redistribute profits from builders and existing landlords to tenants,” said Paul, who called San Francisco’s own measure a “common-sense approach” for boosting housing affordability.
Payne: Not All “Review Bombing” Is Bad for Business
Payne found that Yelp’s automated and human review filtering systems largely responded the same way to each incident, but with considerably different effects.
Stamato Op-Ed: Immigrants can revive cities and towns across America
“New Jersey will benefit from a portion of what the Congressional Budget Office projects immigrants will contribute to the U.S. gross domestic product over the next decade — $8.9 trillion.”
Emily Guskin (MPP ’09) Covers Washington Post Election Polls
Emily Guskin, a 2009 Rutgers graduate who is the deputy polling director for The Washington Post, is on the frontlines reporting on the numbers and key issues facing voters this election.
New Research on Residential Solar Panel Adoption
The results suggest that the relative advantage factors – electricity prices and solar irradiation – play the most significant role across all regions and market segmentations. Statewide policy indicators are the second most significant factor, followed by socio-economic variables on employment status, remote working, car ownership, and property value.
Innovative Summer Climate Data and Literacy Workshop
Teachers learned about local climate change data, conditions and impacts and explored NJ ADAPT digital tools, with Rutgers experts Dr. Marjorie Kaplan of the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute and NJ Climate Change Resource Center, and Lucas Marxen and Dr. James Shope of the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center.
NJSPL Blog: Unlocking Energy Efficiency
Age Bias and Algorithms Are Keeping Older Workers Out Of The Workforce
Public policy expert Carl Van Horn of Rutgers University highlights a big issue: automated tracking systems and hiring algorithms often work against older candidates.
Researchers Deploy Technology to Find High-Risk HIV Populations
“We use big data, including GPS, survey, network data, to identify optimal sets of venues for HIV prevention,” Chen told Medscape Medical News. Venue-based affiliation networks could help identify areas to reach the priority population or connect many other venues frequented by the priority population, she said.
New seating at Grand Central Madison for LIRR riders draws focus to why there isn’t more of it at transit hubs
“It is 100% the case that the lack of seating in new facilities is because of the homeless,” said Smart, who has studied how transit agencies address homelessness in cities throughout the world. “The bosses of the designers of the station … when they look at that issue of balancing their passengers’ comfort and homeless folks using the space, they tilt immediately in the direction of providing no seating.”
Hetling and McFarland (PP ’24) Acknowledged for TANF Research
The authors conducted an analysis to
determine the extent to which Maryland‘s TCA program incorporates trauma-informed principles into the program. Tables 21 and 22 segment results by trauma-informed domains that were introduced in the Assessment Tools chapter. These domains are part of the Trauma-Informed TANF Evaluative Toolkit based on Dr. Andrea Hetling’s 2019 research.
Freyja Quinn (PP ’25, MPP ’26) Featured on MSNBC
As Quinn says, “There’s just something about the aura of the presidential election that is heightened in ways we do not fully get to understand until we are able to cast our ballot.”
What is property speculation — and who’s doing it in Detroit?
“Speculation is often correlated with historical processes like racial disinvestment and segregation,” Seymour said. “Detroit is such a highly segregated, racialized place, which is one reason why there’s so much of it.”
Newman, Gerlofs named Urban Affairs Book Review Editors
Intelligent Informatics @ Bloustein: Influence of AI in Public Administration: The Finnish Experience
Opinion: The county line is dead. So why is the Legislature revisiting NJ ballots? | Stile
“The line is just one of the ways you can distort the ballot,” Julia Sass Rubin said. “So I think we just have to be incredibly vigilant, and there’s good reason to be concerned.”
Education Outcomes and Funding in the 21st Century
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has released a new article analyzing wage disparities between workers with and without college degrees and the rising costs of higher education co-written by Carl Van Horn.
NJ lawmakers say they should design ballots themselves
“The line is just one of the ways you can distort the ballot,” Julia Sass Rubin said. “So I think we just have to be incredibly vigilant, and there’s good reason to be concerned.”
Ashley Caldwell (PP ’26) Fills NB Board of Education Seat
“I knew that being on the board, I would be able to help with the policies of education in New Brunswick. I’ve been here my entire life, literally from pre-K through college. So, my whole educational career has been in New Brunswick and I just really want to give back.”
Barkha Patel (MCRP ’15) Introduces JC STEAM Library
“In addition to focusing on technology and education, we designed the new library to also serve as a gathering place for the community, offering comfortable reading areas, study rooms, and spaces for community meetings and events,” said Barkha Patel, Director of the Department of Infrastructure. “The building reflects Jersey City’s commitment to sustainability, with energy-efficient features and a welcoming, modern aesthetic.”
New Research on Young Europeans’ Employment Decisions
Why do young adults in Europe choose work over unemployment or staying in school? Our study of 15,000+ individuals across 9 countries reveals key insights.
Prof. Rubin: Redefining the Meaning of Disability
My daughter’s experiences at Rutgers have made me more sensitive to the negative impact of such taken-for-granted practices on neurodivergent students, an awareness that I plan to share with other faculty members.
Homelessness in New Brunswick and Programs to Address It
This report identifies the challenges that emergency service organizations and their clients are experiencing as they attempt to access, or consider accessing, the existing service infrastructure and to identify areas of unmet need.
New Research on Car-Ownership During and After COVID-19
Using a multilevel Hurdle model with month and state random effects, vehicle ownership trends are separately modeled for car-owning and carless households within the same modeling framework, while accounting for endogeneity and unobserved heterogeneity.
NJ manufacturing doing better than you think, making these things you’d never imagine
“It’s really been a long-term slide,” Hughes said. “We are one of the most expensive places to live, one of the most expensive places of doing business, and we have a highly unionized labor force, so we have to overcome all those costs to be successful.”
Rent Control Is on the Ballot Again. Here’s What to Know
“We can design smart rent control policies to deliver both affordability and stability for renters while also maintaining a healthy market for people to continue building.”
Promoting Business-Friendly Regulations
“Local governments have been expanding their role into employee benefits and rights,” said Marc H. Pfeiffer, Assistant Director at the Bloustein Local Government Research Center. “In many cases, cities are establishing minimum wages.”
EJB Talks: Irina Grafova on Medical Debt & Provider Burnout
Stuart Shapiro interviews Associate Professor Irina Grafova about her research on medical debt and its impact on family finances, as well as her work on provider burnout, particularly among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Flat, falling soda tax revenues have both positive and negative impact
In large cities like Philadelphia, soda tax revenues may stabilize over time and serve as consistent funding sources, as residents who continue to buy soda are unlikely to leave the city limits to stock up, said Michael Lahr, co-author of the 2021 Rutgers University study.
NJSPL Survey: What Policy Issues Interest You Most?
Dockworkers’ fight a warning about the future of work
JD Vance and Tim Walz battled over health care during the debate. Here’s where they stand
Dr. Joel Cantor, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, said while transparency is important, it’s unclear how that might reduce drug prices.
Newest Community Development Graduate Fellows
Miranda Alperstein (MCRP ’25) and Saul Ruddick-Schulman (MCRP ’25) were recently selected as 2024-25 Morgan Stanley Community Development Graduate Fellows.
What is your Municipality’s Cybersecurity Posture?
In this latest installment of Tech Fitness for Local Elected Officials and Administrators, Marc Pfeiffer explains that there is no one-size-fits-all set of controls for every technology environment.
Stamato Commentary: Books, back in the crosshairs
The astonishing rise of gray divorce
“Every year you’re out of the workforce, that gets entered into the complex Social Security formula for benefits as a zero — that you basically did nothing that year, even though you were raising your children,” Crowley says. “As you might imagine, when women emerge from a gray divorce, they are hammered in comparison to men.”
Mark Paul – Proposition 33 Would End State Limits on Rent Control
“Most mainstream economists are taught these theoretical models where perfect competition exists, there’s no such thing as market power, you know where landlords have more power than renters”
Who Really Owns The U.S. Housing Market? The Complete Roadmap
According to GSU professor Taylor Shelton and Rutgers professor Eric Seymour, all three of these companies used an “extensive network of more than 190 corporate aliases registered to 74 different addresses across ten states and one territory.”
Dr. Will Payne Examines Consequences of Review Bombing
This article uses spatiotemporal analysis of Yelp review activity to depict and analyze the shifting catchment areas of local businesses, as measured through the locations of their reviewers over time and across review categories (Recommended, Not Recommended, and Removed).
Cannabis Policy Impacts Public Health and Health Equity
A new report from the NASEM Health and Medicine Division explores the public health implications of changes in cannabis policy. The report calls for leadership at the federal level, makes specific recommendations for needed research, and more
Redlining helped spur disinvestment in Wichita’s urban core. How much is an in-fill plan changing that legacy?
“Redlining, broadly understood and not limited to the use of HOLC maps, is an important but partial part of the story, one that has shaped continuing processes of racialized disinvestment and marginalization,” Seymour said of the demolition trend in Wichita.
Hispanic Heritage Month: Maria Del Cid-Kosso, MPAP ’20
Bloustein School alumnus Maria Del Cid, MPAP ’20 is passionate about expanding the educational opportunities available to undocumented youth and amplifying marginalized voices in politics. In 2021 Maria was appointed by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy as a Commissioner on the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
EJB Talks: Mi Shih on Urban Development & Density
Stuart Shapiro interviews Professor Mi Shih, the director of the school’s nationally-ranked urban planning program, about her work on urban development globally, with a focus on Taiwan.
Barkha Patel (MCRP ’15) Leads Revival of Jersey City Reservoir
Barkha Patel (MCRP ’15) was interviewed by CBS New York’s Vanessa Murdock about the completion of phase 1 of the historic Jersey City reservoir, which recently reopened to the public.