Articles on a bouquet of topics

One of the day-job hats I've been wearing recently--one that's kept me busy--has been guest editor of a magazine on community development, mainly in New England. The first issue with me as guest editor is out! The cover story is "Growing Inequality in Life Expectancy and Benefits for the Elderly"--basically, protections that are in place to help people in their old age end up benefiting the wealthy more than the poor, because the wealthy live longer. Even taking into account their greater inputs into the system, the wealthy benefit more. This is important to know because it affects how we try to shore up the system: if you decide to raise the age at which people receive benefits, for instance, you're going to be penalizing poorer elderly folks, because they have lower life expectancy.

More cheering is "Welcoming Immigrants and Refugees to Rhode Island," which showcases the work of an organization with a 95-year history of work in the field. I like the current focus on the power of story to change people's perceptions of newcomers. The author writes:

Facts rarely change how people think and feel ... We have found that presenting facts to people who do not already agree with us does not change what they think. People have to be ready to hear our information and be primed to believe it in order to actually process it. We use personal stories to prepare a more fertile foundation for our information. Through stories, we get people to process, remember, and share our information.

There are also two articles on rural development, one focusing on new economic forces in what's known as the Northern Forest, and one on restoration ecology (restoring sites after, for example, mining), which tends to take place in rural areas. There is also an article on using mobile technology to prompt people to save for college, an article on high school internships, one on revitalizing small and medium-sized cities, and more. Here's a link to a PDF of the issue (table of contents on page 3), and here's a web link. Maybe they'll be of use to you or someone you know for work, school, advocacy, or just interest.