To End the Stigma Around America’s Poverty Crisis, Teach It in the Classroom

Instruction on the Nature, Extent, and Causes of Poverty Will Challenge Entrenched Narratives Around It—And Open the Door for Policy Change

Just as our ignorance of science puts us at risk from disease or environmental disaster, our ignorance of poverty creates real dangers for people and societies. Which is why, just as children take classes on health or climate science, educators should teach poverty. Indeed, we believe that instruction in the nature, extent, and causes of poverty should be a high school graduation requirement in the United States.

Education in poverty is urgent. As the U.S. seeks to recover from 2020’s economic shocks, we need to understand which policies will help poor …

Can Restaurants Become Drivers of Opportunity—Not Inequality? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Can Restaurants Become Drivers of Opportunity—Not Inequality?

To Prosper in a New Era, Eateries Will Have to Reckon With Issues Left to Simmer on the Back Burner

Thousands of restaurants have closed for good across America since WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic last March. Many others remain temporarily shuttered; the remainder limp by with sales a fraction …

The Pain of Surviving the San Fernando Valley Can Make You Powerful

In Two Memoirs, Activist Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Comedian-Actress Tiffany Haddish Reveal How ’90s L.A. Shaped Them

How can Californians rise from horrific local circumstances to national influence?

Two recent books offer one answer: It may help to have grown up amid the racism and institutional failures of …

Is Our Culture of Empathy Perpetuating Inequality?

Feeling Others’ Pain Lets Us Ignore the Power Structures That Really Divide Us

We desperately need more empathy. At least, that’s what we are told—in political rhetoric, in bestselling popular science books, in international development discourse, in feminist and anti-racist activism. Among current …

Californians Want Much More From Our Neighborhoods

We Love Our Communities but Think They Should Make Us Healthier, and Even Find Us Jobs

California is a state of large things: A 1,100-mile coastline and giant mountain ranges and big roads, bigger cities, and the biggest vistas. In such a sprawling place, with so …

How Will Public Libraries Serve an Increasingly Unequal Society?

Let’s Focus on the People Affected by Libraries Rather Than the Collections Contained Within Them

Trying to predict the future of anything—let alone public libraries—is a tricky task. But unequivocally we can say this: Libraries are not about to become purely digital endeavors. The notion …