Category: US News

Month in Review: April, 2013

5 June, 2013 (15:26) | arcologies, Cambridge, Cyprus, Development, Eurozone, Global news, GSEs, Housing, Innovations, Month in review, New York City, Non-Profits, Rent control, Uncategorized, US News | No comments

[Previous Month in Reviews available here: Mar 13, Feb 13, Jan 13]    By:David A. Smith   Lately many of my multi-part posts have sought to make visible the linkages between things that sectoral policymakers seem to see as entirely unrelated.  Thus in the Big Apple, I connected the dots between a sudden urban interest [...]

A Grand Unified Theory of municipal insolvency: Part 2, Headed for the brambles

5 June, 2013 (09:00) | Bonds, Cities, David Unkovic, Harrisburg, Infrastructure, Litigation, Loopholes, Markets, Municipal bankruptcy, Municipal Finance, ratings agencies, SEC, solid waste, US News | No comments

  [Continued from yesterday's Part 1]   By:David A. Smith   If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull. – W. C. Fields  Yesterday’s post present part of former Harrisburg receiver David Unkovic’s extraordinary speech to a national symposium on Distressed Municipalities, in which he laid out clearly why he believes that [...]

A Grand Unified Theory of municipal insolvency: Part 1, Nothing but a poor man with money

4 June, 2013 (09:00) | Bonds, Cities, David Unkovic, Harrisburg, Infrastructure, Litigation, Loopholes, Municipal bankruptcy, Municipal Finance, Rating agencies, SEC, solid waste, US News | No comments

  By:David A. Smith     Hangman: Have you any last wish? W. C. Fields: Yes, I’d like to see Paris before I die. (Pause) Philadelphia will do.   Philadelphia lawyer David Unkovic, a public-finance bond counsel for thirty years, is an unlikely urban theorist – but then, he recently had an unlikely experience. As I [...]

Harrisburg’s quest for the Holy Grail: Part 5, Now we see the violence inherent in the system

24 May, 2013 (09:27) | Bonds, Cities, Harrisburg, Infrastructure, Litigation, Loopholes, Markets, Municipal bankruptcy, Municipal Finance, ratings agencies, SEC, solid waste, US News | 1 comment

[Continued from yesterday's Part 4 and the preceding Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.]   By:David A. Smith   In late November, 2011, as the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was moving to appoint a receiver for its state capitol, Harrisburg, the city council by a 4-3 vote abruptly filed a bankruptcy petition, which was immediately [...]

Harrisburg’s quest for the Holy Grail: Part 4, How’d you get to be king?

23 May, 2013 (13:27) | Bonds, Cities, Harrisburg, Infrastructure, Litigation, Loopholes, Markets, Municipal bankruptcy, Municipal Finance, ratings agencies, SEC, solid waste, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday's Part 3 and the preceding Part 1 and Part 2.]   By:David A. Smith   After a decade of borrowing, the latter half of which consisted of borrowing to pay debt service on previous unwise borrowing, the voters of Harrisburg had had it – in 2010, they voted out Mayor Reed, and [...]