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Policy Wonk, Defined [repost]

Originally posted on September 15, 2009.

Since I created this website, I’ve been asked on several occasions what the term ‘policy wonk’ that is on my header means. Admittedly, it’s an insiders term, used mainly by those who work for governments organizations and the odd NGO. However, the official term, ‘policy analyst‚’ is pretty dry and boring as a way to describe how I’ve spent over a decade of my life, so I decided to reclaim ‘wonk’ from the silos of bureaucracy and wear it with pride.

Basically a wonk is to public policy what a nerd is to math and a geek is to computers. For those looking for a more detailed definition, check out description below that I found online.

I have attempted to write my own description, but nothing I have written could match the bang-on description than the folks at policywonk.com have come up with. If I have learned nothing else as a wonk, it’s that, when possible, borrow, and borrow liberally. So read on, and by the end you should have a better idea of what makes me tick (albeit with funkier eyeglasses than they typcial wonk).

What is a Policy Wonk?

Policy Wonks are kinda hard to explain. However, you know one when you hear one. Above all else, Policy Wonks are smart… really smart. And they like to talk and listen, but mostly to debate. They’re the ones who seem to enjoy pontificating endlessly on subjects that most people are more than happy to know that someone else cares about. Policy Wonks often ruin a perfectly good party or football game with a discussion of the trade deficit, agricultural subsidies, or welfare reform. And once they get going, they have an annoying habit of throwing around arguments, statistics and examples that leave the uninitiated feeling, well… dumb.

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Friday 5: Urban miscellany from Sept 4th-10th

Here is this week’s installment of urban miscellany:

The Power of Density: Richard Florida looks at why the geographic concentration of firms, industries, technologies, people, and other economic assets plays a powerful role in innovation and economic growth. (The Atlantic)

Flickr: pencrush

Clinging to a vision: A look how architect Paolo Soleri’s 40-year endeavor to erect an earth-friendly city at Arcosanti is inspiring ideas to come. (Arizona Republic)

What Seinfeld Teaches Us About Parking: From an urbanist perspective, Seinfeld highlights a lot of the great things about cities. (Extraordinary Observations)

Naked: How life in Manhattan is like living inside a gigantic Twitter stream. (The New Yorker)

The Rise of ‘DIMBYism’: Open Data Is the Key to Smarter Communities: There’s simply no reason that we can’t design tools to bring city-dwellers into a closer relationship with information that can inform their choices. (Huffington Post)

Friday 5: Urban miscellany from Sept 4th 10th

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Friday 5: August 21st -27th

Arcade Fire’s new album tackles suburban sprawl, providing compelling city planning commentary: With Arcade Fire’s latest album, urban planning has officially gone ‘pop’. (SPUR)

Aesthetics and the City: Building Community: How a city’s aesthetic experience can amuse, start dialogue, inspire creative and, ultimately build community. (Huffington Post)

Wrestling With Jane Jacobs: Bill Barnes of the National League of Cities argues that “we don’t need acolytes of Jane Jacobs; we need people who will think as hard and as well as she did about ‘the kind of problem a city is.’” (National League of Cities)

Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say: How and why the era of ‘real restate as investment ‘is over… for good. (New York Times)

Great Good Places: New restaurants that look like they’ve been part of their neighborhoods forever all share a subtle but ambitious social agenda: to create and celebrate community.(MetropolisMag.com)

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Saturday 6: August 14-21st

Ooops. I missed my weekly Friday 5 post this week! To make it up, I’ll include a bonus article this week. So here is the ‘Saturday 6’: a selection of the articles I found interesting over the past week.

Free Parking Comes at a Price: Economist Tyler Cowan reminds us that free parking, which many people see as an entitlement, is actually a subsidy that wastes space and money. (New York Times)

Planning, Not Just for Planners: Why the future of our cities should not be confined to file cabinets in municipal offices, or at best, grad school charrettes. (Next American City)

Use it (transit) to lose it (weight): How light rail help communities lose weight. (NRDC Switchboard)

A Scene for City Life: Not a traditional post, but an evocative description of city life. (Streaka Institute)

Tolerance and a mosque: Tolerance is an essential aspect of urban life and western democratic principles. (Chicago Tribune)

Libraries Advance Against All Odds: Returning to their forgotten roots may help libraries succeed in the future. (Citiwire)

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Friday Five: August 7-13

Five article that I think you’ll enjoy:

Image: Amy Casey, Courtesy of Zg Gallery, Chicago (via NYT)

Home for Life. Allison Arieff takes a look how resale value has hijacked home design, and how the real estate meltdown may allow us to again think of our houses not as investments but as homes. (NYT Opinionator Blog)

What Would Get Americans Biking to Work? How decent bike parking could revolutionize American cities. (Slate)

Economic development gets sustainable. Evidence shows we’re rapidly evolving toward sustainable economic development as the norm (Cooltown Studios)

How much do you spend on transport? A new application gives homebuyers and renters a more realistic picture of what it costs to live in auto-dependent neighborhoods. (Grist)

Spontaneous order on the road. What happened when a small town in Britain turned its traffic lights off (video below). (Marginal Revolution)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi0meiActlU

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Friday 5: June 19th-25th

The latest installment of what I’ve been reading online.

Photo Credit: Mario Zamarripa (Flickr)

Connecting With Neighbors Online: Dispelling stereotypes about Internet-addicted shut-ins: “daily Internet users are more likely to know their neighbors’ names, and talk with them face to face, than non Internet users.” (Next American City)

Are we there yet?: A look at the impact that small factors—such as gas prices—have on major decisions—such as where one lives. (The Economist’ Free Exchange Blog)

The War for Jane Jacobs: How both the left and right are laying claim to the legacy of Jane Jacobs. (ArtVoice)

Cars, Community, and Crime: Do cars increase crime rates? (How We Drive)

Is The Homeownership System Broken? Why the mortgage interest tax deduction may actually hurt homeownership and household equity. Click here for an audiocast of an interview with David Wessel, economics editor at the Wall Street Journal. (NPR)

“The Homeownership Mirage” and related posts (creativeclass.com)
The Surprising Reason Why Americans Are So Lonely (euraeka.com)
Jane Jacobs’s great ideas have morphed into pettiness (theglobeandmail.com)

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Friday 5: June 12th – 18th

Here are five of the more interesting posts I’ve read this week.

“Human civilization has systemic problems” Excerpts from an interview with Leon Krier, one of the most influential architectural thinkers and urbanists. His ideas are becoming more relevant as we think about how to build next generation cities. (The Urban Vision)

Transmobility: The City as a Networked Resource: Here’s one for the urban geeks out there. The post discusses urban mobility and coins highlights the term ‘cloud commuting.’ It definitely provides food for thought. (How We Drive)

Tall is Beautiful: A controversial article on why environmentalists should embrace dense development and high rises, and how “NIMBYs’ feel-good environmental objections to development can be proxies for less politically correct fears.” (Mother Jones)

Driving Makes You Fat, Urban Sprawl Bankrupts You, Other Life-Saving New Urbanist Epiphanies: How urbanism may just save your life; or at least hep you be healthier. (Fast Company)

Bruce Sterling Interview: Cities: Science fiction guru, cultural observer, and futures provocateur, Bruce Sterling answers some questions about cities. (Boing Boing)

And, because you all are awesome readers, here’s a cool little video on creating the ideal human settlement based on the adage that “the city is too important to put it into the hands of the architects.”

New Urbanist Leaders Rave About Saltworks 50/50 Balanced Plan (eon.businesswire.com)
Kids These Days (theoverheadwire.blogspot.com)
Frank Gruber: Good Urbanism — Not Just Good for You: A Report from the American Planning Association’s Meetings in New Orleans (huffingtonpost.com)

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Friday Five: May 22nd-28th

After a several week hiatus, the Friday Five is back with a sample of the most interesting articles I’ve read this week.

Cars Suck: A look at some reasons why our love affair with the automobile must stop. (Daily Kos)

Could Social Media Revolutionise the Planning System? How social media could open up the planning system through the vast amount of data being generated by social media interactions. (This Big City)

Ten Things I Have Learned: A list of ten important things that graphic designer Milton Glasser, has learned about the world of work. Milton is perhaps best known for the I ‘heart’ NY logo. Originally part of an AIGA talk in London November, 2001. (Milton Glasser)

Livable Cities and Political Choices: Why people need to stop looking at cities as technical problems to solve and how they would live in different type of cities, from car free to suburbia. (Planetizen)

New Urbanism for the Apocalypse: The founder of new urbanism has declared that its time has past. What is going to replace it? (Fast Company)

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Friday Five: my favorite reads from the past week

Lots of great material to choose from this week. Here are five of the best:

Newspapers: The Search for a Killer Savior and How to Fix Local News I’ll kick things of with a double pick. These two articles take a look at the sorry state of our local news institutions. They both look at different models for the successes and failures, but come to very different conclusions.

How Trying Too Hard Messes Up Main Street A look at the challenges of creating vital urban areas, especially after . I especially appreciate the author calling out the current preference for constancy in look and signage that infect most urban revitalization project. Key quote that should become a mantra for all city planners: “Simplicity trumps over-thinking. Diversity beats consistency. Many hands outperform controlled authority.”

A Question of Nomenclature: What is a Neighborhood? Neighborhood is one of those wordsthat is used often but eludes a precise definition. This somewhat lengthy post takes a look as the various aspects of what a neighborhood is, and whether a precise definition even really matters?

Why the anti-urban bias? Harvard prof and noted commentator Ed Glaeser, takes a look at the anti-urban bias in the United States that is continuing even despite President Obama’s supposedly pro-city agenda.

Lessons in Learning for the Future Prosperity of Cities How cities can use both formal institution and informal structures to adapt to the systemic changes that they are facing. It discusses how cities can bridge the gaps between different players, skills and insights to create prosperous cities.