Public Management, Services

The U.S. Postal Service, once the centerpiece of American commerce and communications, is fighting for its life. The Urban Institute's Nancy Pindus scans the Postal Service's varied benefits and asks, What are Americans willing to pay or give up to keep it afloat?

The objective of this study, commissioned by the Postal Regulatory Commission, was to identify the array of benefits provided by the United States Postal Service—through its mail service and post offices—that contribute to the social value of the post. We provide a framework that categorizes benefits, beneficiaries, and measures. We also identify possible metrics and methods for estimating the value of these benefits. Research in community and economic development supports the concept of post offices as community assets and of the value of social connectedness and civic engagement, two social benefits frequently associated with postal services. This study provides an organizing scheme for detailed analysis and quantification in the future.

City and county governments, caught between escalating and costly criminal justice populations and strapped budgets, are searching for ways to control costs without compromising public safety. In testimony before the U.S. House Crime Subcommittee, the Urban Institute's Nancy La Vigne explained how justice reinvestment -- a process for identifying the drivers of criminal justice costs and developing new ways of reinvesting those scarce resources – can benefit localities.

Institute Fellow Olivia Golden, the former head of the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency, offers the region’s subway and bus system five management lessons for turning around the problem-plagued agency.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), signed into law on November 19, 1997, was the most significant piece of legislation dealing with child welfare in almost twenty years. The ambitious new law aimed to reaffirm the focus on child safety in case decision making and to ensure that children did not grow up in foster care but instead were connected with permanent families. Twelve years after the law was enacted, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) in partnership with the Urban Institute co-sponsored this series of papers to examine effects of the ASFA law and its implementation.