SwatTalk: Michael Pollack '08

Public infrastructure is essential to our communities, yet easily overlooked. Just consider the sidewalk: always taken for granted, yet intrinsically linked to nearly every pressing issue of local governance in urban, suburban, and rural areas alike. From commerce, taxes, and property rights to policing, homelessness, and surveillance — and from free speech and socioeconomic equity to public health and climate resilience sidewalks are, surprisingly, at the core of many major debates. 

Please join Michael as he speaks with Keith Benjamin ’09, former associate administrator of the Federal Highway Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation, about this humble yet vital facet of our lives and politics.

Michael Pollack ’08, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, explores all this and more in his new book,Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource. Offering a holistic vision for improving local infrastructure, Michael argues for reforms that ensure local governments have both the obligation and the funding to give sidewalks the attention they deserve.