Access to social services, especially for the poor, continues to concern numerous public policy scholars and practitioners. This recent 19-page report from the Brookings Institution (authored by Scott Allard, a professor at Brown University) takes a closer look at this phenomenon by looking at the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Released in August 2004, the report...

Recently released, this annual report on the state of world development (written by staff members at the World Bank) is an important document that adopts as its main thesis that broad improvements in human welfare around the globe will not occur unless "poor people receive wider access to affordable, better quality services in health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity." From this main...