Urban Affairs

What will the Republicans do with their golden opportunity to reshape state government in America?Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

Empty out prison cells? Bring non-violent criminals back intothe community? Stress drug ''rehab'' instead of drug dragnets?Politically, those ideas seem off the map. Politicians are spooked by the specter of the Willie Horton television ads of 1988. Candidates trumpet ''law-and-order'' rhetoric. But as Adlai Stevenson said, ''Let's talk sense to the American people.'' Surely Americans are bright enough to understand the elements of a reform criminal-justice strategy, designed to keep our communities safe while also saving some of the billions of scarce dollars now flowing to cops, courts and prisons.

Charlotte, North Carolina. -- Too many of today's newspapers and broadcasters, says Edward Fouhy of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, ''exhibit the attention span of a hummingbird.''Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

SALZBURG, Austria -- Is the nation-state at the end of its 500-year run? Is it about to succumb to economic globalization, resurgent regions or ethnic and tribal rivalries?Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.Pub Date: 4/03/97

Chattanooga. -- On a USAir flight into town, steward Mike Piland enthuses about Chattanooga's electric buses and downtown transit, interesting restaurants, the restored Warehouse Row selling designer clothes at discount prices and the Tennessee Aquarium.Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

Could America be on the verge of a thaw in the ice age of antagonistic distrust between suburbs and cities that has choked off, for two generations, any straightforward debate about metropolitan governance or sharing of tax bases?Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

Led by second-term Gov. Lawton Chiles and Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay, twin proponents of reinvented government, Florida has launched the 50 states' most ambitious effort yet to expunge unneeded and intrusive regulations from the law books.Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

CHICAGO -- The big highway builders are back, pushing a series of ring roads, metro-area bypass routes and tollways as their answer to the end of interstate highway construction.Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

Chicago. -- This city's school reform, investing major power in popularly elected councils for each school, may well be what University of Chicago Professor William Ayers calls it: ''the most far-reaching change in governance ever envisioned in a modern big-city school system.''Neal R. Peirce writes a column on state and urban affairs.

U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes was listed in stable condition last night at Johns Hopkins Hospital for an undisclosed medical ailment. A hospital spokesman confirmed last night that Sarbanes was being treated at the hospital but declined to provide details about his condition or the reasons for his admission. Sarbanes was being held for observation last night as a precaution after minor surgery at the hospital on Thursday, according to broadcast reports. Sarbanes, 69, of Baltimore, was elected to the Senate in 1976 and serves as chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.