Readers may have noticed some teething problems with our new comments system. No, Mark did not get fed up with the odd ill-mannered reader and erase everything. Our wonks are on it: sorry, patience!
Author: Michael O'Hare
Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, Michael O'Hare was raised in New York City and trained at Harvard as an architect and structural engineer. Diverted from an honest career designing buildings by the offer of a job in which he could think about anything he wanted to and spend his time with very smart and curious young people, he fell among economists and such like, and continues to benefit from their generosity with on-the-job social science training. He has followed the process and principles of design into "nonphysical environments" such as production processes in organizations, regulation, and information management and published a variety of research in environmental policy, government policy towards the arts, and management, with special interests in energy, facility siting, information and perceptions in public choice and work environments, and policy design. His current research is focused on transportation biofuels and their effects on global land use, food security, and international trade; regulatory policy in the face of scientific uncertainty; and, after a three-decade hiatus, on NIMBY conflicts afflicting high speed rail right-of-way and nuclear waste disposal sites. He is also a regular writer on pedagogy, especially teaching in professional education, and co-edited the "Curriculum and Case Notes" section of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Between faculty appointments at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he was director of policy analysis at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. He has had visiting appointments at Università Bocconi in Milan and the National University of Singapore and teaches regularly in the Goldman School's executive (mid-career) programs. At GSPP, O'Hare has taught a studio course in Program and Policy Design, Arts and Cultural Policy, Public Management, the pedagogy course for graduate student instructors, Quantitative Methods, Environmental Policy, and the introduction to public policy for its undergraduate minor, which he supervises. Generally, he considers himself the school's resident expert in any subject in which there is no such thing as real expertise (a recent project concerned the governance and design of California county fairs), but is secure in the distinction of being the only faculty member with a metal lathe in his basement and a 4×5 Ebony view camera. At the moment, he would rather be making something with his hands than writing this blurb. View all posts by Michael O'Hare
i don't know if anyone else who comments here more or less regularly has felt this way but i've been staying away from the comments until you guys can decide what your final direction is going to be. i've felt that the comments here have been some of the best of any blog i read and the dearth of commenting since your change, first to disqus, then back to the original, and now to this have made my visits here more sporadic and forlorn. i hope everything comes together soon.
is there a preview function or a way to edit one's own comments if you login with either wordpress or intensedebate?
Uh, don't put your wonks on it - that's a job for nerds.
I quite agree. My long fingernails get stuck in the keyboard.
I guess they'll come along. Better now than a week ago.
It would be good if one could get from the end of an article to the start of the next one (in either direction, older or newer) rather than having to go back to the home page and scroll down to the one to be read.
I wonder if Keith H is enjoying writing ex cathedra. I find I'm less likely to read his stuff now there are no comments. Anyone else having that reaction to his pulling up the ladder after Himself has spoken?
as i said in a comment during the brief time of disqus commenting, i have no time to read a blogger who refuses to accept either criticism or praise. dr. humphrey's posts without comments get no traffic from me.