In 1973, John Darley and Daniel Batson conducted the Good Samaritan experiment at Princeton University’s Theological Seminary, where participants were studying to become religious leaders. The parable of the Good Samaritan is about a traveler who is beaten and robbed and left half dead alongside the road. Two separate religious leaders pass by and avoid…

When the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, and the Vermont Dept. of Economic Development’s Community Recovery and Revitalization Program pool their resources and commit to spending $536,000 per apartment to build a 25-unit mixed-income development, the last thing they want to experience is an obstacle. From my perspective, the Wilco…

“A problem well-stated is half-solved.” Charles Kettering In 1173, construction began on a bell tower, or campanile, for a cathedral in the Italian city of Pisa. Within five years, it reached a third of its current height when a war broke out, and construction was halted for about a century. During that time, the tower…

Chip and Dan Heath, in their book “Switch,” tell the story of a young MBA who ran a chunk of the Brazilian railroad after it was privatized and broken into pieces. The newly minted railroad CEO ended up with a share that included steam locomotives and infrastructure in dire need of repair and maintenance, with…

In 1995, Chicago experienced a heat wave in which the temperature reached 106 degrees, which translated into a heat index of 126, the temperature that the body felt. Within a week, the streets were buckling, the power grids failed, and over 700 people were dead. By all accounts, the cause of death was the heat.…

One of the most significant factors in failed landlord-tenant relations is simply unmet expectations and differing understandings of tenants’ and landlords’ rights and responsibilities. And yet, the current strategy for keeping tenants housed is to delay evictions by having Legal Aid kick the can down the road, postponing the inevitable and burning bridges along the…

If the state of Vermont is fully committed to confronting the current housing crisis head-on, its most powerful move would be to partner with landlords and look for ways to support them. One-third of all Vermont households rent their homes. Of those homes, the vast majority are owned by mom-and-pop landlords, who, on average, own…

The state of Vermont is in charge of transportation restrictions, with one big exception. The state has empowered local municipalities to regulate parking within their areas of jurisdiction, provided the restrictions are posted. Brattleboro does not have overnight street parking anywhere in the city, and the streets are littered with signs declaring the restriction. West…

The State of Vermont is one of the biggest housing developers in the state. Seven state departments qualify as housing developers, and the University of Vermont is a housing developer. Seven public housing authorities also qualify as housing developers. Add to the list the seven homeownership organizations that are housing developers, and then there are…

In the late ‘80s, the rock band Van Halen was taken to task when journalists discovered that their concert contract contained a clause stating, “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.” Immediately dismissed as the excess of party-band celebrity and unrestrained hubris,…