Blame pension problems on the ancient Romans, and other lessons from 2015

The highlights of Keystone Crossroads’ coverage this year, in no particular order.

The highlights of Keystone Crossroads’ coverage this year, in no particular order:

Keystone Crossroads probed how infighting impedes progress and policy with our “Gridlock and grudges” story. I detailed other states’ efforts to prevent political toxicity as well as some particularly wicked bickering among officials in Reading and Harrisburg.Tune out the relatively universal phenomenon of political squabbling in Harrisburg, and you’re left with historic buildings, modern murals and river views. Lindsay Lazarski traced Harrisburg’s transformation “from Hardscrabble to City Beautiful.”Lindsay explored another city’s unfolding transformation with a piece on the mixed reviews and results of revival efforts in South Bethlehem, as part of our latest series Locked out: Pennsylvania has a housing problem. The city’s economic stimulation endeavors have been commercially-focused, but success might deplete the affordable housing stock in some neighborhoods.

Irina Zhorov reported on the unintended consequences of a federal program responsible for improving a Pittsburgh public housing property once notorious for crime and violence.  How much money do people need to make to cover rent, anyway? And what if they can’t? My colleagues broke it down very well, although it’s truly tough to top what can only be described as an audio romp through the history of pensions.  Some of our best work didn’t use sound to tell the story. Kevin McCorry mapped state aid to Pennsylvania public schools, with telling and surprising results.  Marielle Segarra visited German cities this summer, and blogged about some important lessons for Pennsylvania.

But we used it all — sound, video, photos, etc. – to explore Pennsylvania’s waterfronts.

Also, I like data. One number-crunching binge revealed the city of Lancaster resettled more refugees last year than 20 states. We also found things started changing in the longtime refugee hub after the Paris attacks prompted the majority of U.S. governors to say they don’t want newly-arrived Syrians as residents.