WEIGAND: Reinvesting in neighborhoods is essential
Our city is about to engage in a high-stakes gamble to avert a death spiral—or
accelerate it and make it much more of a certainty.
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GROSSMAN: Bill Gates wants to spend your money
Just as the government built an atomic bomb during World War II, the government should spend billions of dollars to create
the energy innovations for a low-carbon economy, according to Gates and friends.
CORLEY: Help a child and who knows where he’ll go?
Consider these alarming statistics: More than 6,700 Marion County students drop out of school every single year. Dropouts
earn $9,200 less per year than high school graduates, and earn $1 million less over a lifetime than college graduates.
CHEN: Indiana needs to become Asia-savvy
Our state needs to learn how to effectively engage with the emerging economies of the 21st century in order to be successful.
HENDERSON: On civility and donning the brain bucket
Some of the things I was warned as a young man that I should never get into arguments over
were—in no particular order—religion, politics, which hand in a card game wins, and whether there should be a
motorcycle-helmet law.
SLAUGHTER: Do you let the telephone control you?
The telephone has incredible
value. It’s also among the most effective ways to destroy productivity.
OWEN: Why I rethought riding my bicycle to work
One day last spring, I put on a helmet, climbed on my bike, and rode to work with a
co-worker. For a guy who had only recently gotten on a bike
after more than 15 years away from two-wheelers, it was monumental.
ROWLAND: Monument Circle is all about traffic
Time and again, communities have tried pedestrian plazas in downtown areas and have failed because, without cars, there are few people, and businesses failed.
SHOBERT: Could new model save manufacturing?
On my most recent trip to China, it was not without some heaviness of heart that I again found myself comparing the newness
of the country’s infrastructure—and the teeming activity that seems to have enveloped this part of the world—with
much of what I see, or do not, around Indiana and the United States.
BOULET: Has civility become a quaint and obsolete concept?
Americans are not as civil as they used to be. Daily, there are doses of uncivil behavior reported by the media. And bad behavior isn’t limited to highly visible
people.
BURNEY: Keep drive for high-ability education
In 2007, the Indiana General Assembly unanimously put into place the requirement for all Indiana schools to identify students
with advanced potential from all groups and provide them with appropriate curriculum and instruction needed to develop their
potential.
DUNN: Let’s utilize Indiana’s energy resources
Recent events in the Gulf of Mexico have placed considerable focus
on the everyday contributions the men and women in the oil and natural gas industry make to help fuel and power our way of
life.
JOSEPH: Beware of screening job applicants with social media
Tech-savvy employers are turning to social-media tools to locate and
screen applicants for positions. And with increasing competition for jobs, employers are trying to both find the best applicants
available and know as much as possible about them.
THIES: Get ready for state’s finest hour
I am a sucker for a good story. During the NCAA men’s basketball
championship last month, when that ball, or as the CBS color commentator Clark Kellogg called it, the “pumpkin,”
arched into the air from the hands of central Indiana’s now second-most-famous “babyface,” I thought, “This
is it!”
COOK: Restoring buildings revitalizes communities
I got involved in restoration projects more than 30 years ago when a serious cardiac illness sidelined me from my medical-device
business.
GIGERICH: Happiness is factor in location choices
State-by-state comparisons ranking residents’ satisfaction levels are gaining traction in economic development circles. While rankings do not drive site-selection decisions, they do play a role.
HENDERSON: The real reasons not to merge utilities
Part of the overall utility problem is that lack of government oversight and public policy vision has made Indianapolis one
of the highest-polluting and just plain ugliest cities in the Midwest.
SLAUGHTER: Why you should kill the operations manual
You’ve
probably forgotten entirely about your company operations manual.
WEIGAND: Let’s rethink fixes for urban poverty
The message to neighborhoods couldn’t be clearer: It’s absolutely essential to attract and retain middle-class
homeowners with the resources to invest in—and maintain—their own homes, as well as support surrounding businesses.
GUY: Do you want to travel or truly vacate?
How does a busy person vacate, as in the dictionary reference, “to vacate one’s mind
of worries?” One answer is to take a vacation, but an important choice remains: place or event?