"We need to change the way we think about infrastructure in America," says Rob Puentes. It's not just about the federal government fixing roads and bridges anymore. In this podcast, Puentes, a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, explains how our states and metropolitan areas, through public and private partnerships, are moving forward on the nation's infrastructure goals.

Show Notes:

• Beyond Shovel-Ready: The Extent and Impact of U.S. Infrastructure Jobs (interactive)• The Future is Now: What’s Next in American Infrastructure (event)• Infrastructure Jobs, They're More than You Think (blog)• Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative (project resources)

Economic issues are prolific in the public sphere, from taxes and inequality, to jobs and productivity and more. Even Thomas Piketty's book on wealth distribution is now a bestseller. How can a person make sense of the terms and of the discussion? One way is to talk to an economist, like Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at Brookings. In this podcast, he offers his expertise to explain issues such as middle-class income gains, wealth distribution and Piketty's book in ways that both surprise and enlighten.

Show notes:

• Income Growth and Income Inequality: The Facts May Surprise You• Big Payroll Gains and Anemic Labor Force Growth• Potential Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Income Inequality• Impact of the Great Recession on Retirement Trends in Industrialized Countries• Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

As nations across Latin America have become wealthier and more stable in recent years, they are seeking to engage with the world, including the United States, on a more level playing field. In this podcast, Harold Trinkunas, senior fellow and director of the Latin America Initiative at Brookings, describes Latin America's economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities, with particular attention given to Brazil's rise as a potential major power.

Show notes:

• Brazil's Rise: Seeking Influence on Global Governance• Four Steps Brazil Can Take to Influence Global Governance More Effectively• Changing Energy Dynamics in the Western Hemisphere: Impacts on Central America and the Caribbean• Global Trade Negotiations at a Crossroads: How Does Latin America Fit In?• Venezuela Breaks Down in Violence

Forty-four states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics. Despite initial enthusiasm, criticism of and outright opposition to the standards are beginning to arise. Tom Loveless, a senior fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, explains how the Common Core came about, why some are opposed to it now, and what his research shows about its impact on student achievement.

Show notes:

• A Progress Report on the Common Core (Loveless)• Predicting the Effect of the Common Core State Standards on Student Achievement (Loveless, in 2012 Brown Center Report)• In Defense of the Common Core Standards (West and Bleiberg)• Common Core Aligned Assessments: You Get What You Pay For? (Brown Center event)• 3 Technical Choke Points that Could Sink the Common Core Tests (West and Bleiberg)• Standardized Testing and the Common Core (Brown Center event)• NAEP and the Common Core Standards (Loveless)• The Common Core State Standards Initiative

The Arctic is changing. As the polar ice cap recedes, new shipping routes are opening up and access to Arctic energy resources is expanding. John Banks, a nonresident senior fellow with the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings, explains what these changes mean for Arctic governance and for U.S. leadership of the Arctic Council in 2015.

Show notes:

• Offshore Oil and Gas Governance in the Arctic: A Leadership Role for the United States: Policy Brief | Public Event

• Finland Trip Report: Harnessing Offshore Opportunities in the Arctic• Energy, Indigenous Communities and the Arctic Council• The Arctic Council

"Happiness." "Contentment." "Subjective well-being." Can we measure how happy people are and if so, what can we do with this information? In this podcast, Carol Graham, the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow and author of The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being, explains how happiness/well-being research works and why it matters for public policy in the U.S. and globally.

In the podcast, Graham explains two dimensions of understanding well-being, the "Benthamite/hedonic" and the "Aristotelian/eudemonic." She explained them in this earlier publication:

Those of us involved focus on two distinct dimensions: hedonic well-being, a daily experience component; and evaluative well-being, the way in which people think about their lives as a whole, including purpose or meaning. Jeremy Bentham focused on the former and proposed increasing the happiness and contentment of the greatest number of individuals possible in a society as the goal of public policy. Aristotle, meanwhile, thought of happiness as eudemonia, a concept that combined two Greek words: "eu" meaning abundance and "daimon" meaning the power controlling an individual’s destiny.

Show notes:

• "Why Aging and Working Makes us Happy in 4 Charts," Carol Graham• Happiness Around the World, Carol Graham• "The Decade of Public Protest and Frustration with Lack of Social Mobility," Carol Graham• "Evidence for a midlife crisis in great apes consistent with the U-shape in human well-being," Andrew Oswald and others• "You Can’t Be Happier than Your Wife: Happiness Gaps and Divorce," Cahit Guven and others• Aristotle's definition of happiness• The life of philosopher Jeremy Bentham• Gallup World Poll

Pork barrel spending has traditionally been understood as the exclusive domain of Congress. Yet recent presidents are highly engaged in the practice, too, as John Hudak demonstrates in his illuminating new book, Presidential Pork: White House Influence over the Distribution of Federal Grants (Brookings, 2014). In this podcast, Hudak, a fellow in Governance Studies, explains how presidents dole out over $100 billion per year in discretionary federal grants through scores of federal agencies, often in service of improving his electoral prospects. In one example, Hudak examined why the National Park Service delivered more grants to Pennsylvania than to California, even though the former has fewer residents and fewer federally protected sites. One explanation he offers is that, during the course of his study, Pennsylvania has been a swing state while California has not.

Show Notes:

• Presidential Pork: White House Influence over the Distribution of Federal Grants• Pork Barrel Politics is Kosher for Presidents too - Except Obama• Live from CPAC: The Most Important Panel Everyone Missed • FixGov blog

"More than half of Arab children are not learning," says Senior Fellow Hafez Ghanem in this new podcast about learning in the Arab world. He joined Liesbet Steer, a fellow also with the Center for Universal Education at Brookings, in this discussion about their findings on and solutions for a range of education issues in the region, including number and quality of teachers, accountability, gender, curriculum, and whether Arab world children are learning the skills they need to compete in the 21st century.

Show notes:

• The Arab World Learning Barometer• Africa Learning Barometer• Seven Facts about Global Education Financing• Learning Metrics Task Force

From East Asia to Africa, through Afghanistan to Syria and the greater Middle East, Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon guides us on a brief tour of the good, the bad, and in some cases, the ugly challenges facing our world today. Find out why he says, despite all the challenges, the global order is remarkably healthy right now and what that means for America's role in the world.

Show notes:

• Solidify the U.S.-Afghanistan Alliance (Big Bets & Black Swans presidential briefing memo)• Strengthen Stability in Africa (Big Bets & Black Swans memo)• Healing the Wounded Giant: Maintaining Military Preeminence while Cutting the Defense Budget• Understanding Tahrir Square: What Transitions Elsewhere Can Teach Us about the Prospects for Arab Democracy• Toward a Successful Outcome in Afghanistan

Poverty in the United States looks different now than it did when President Lyndon Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty" 50 years ago. With the publication of their book, Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube brought to the fore of the national conversation the experience of the 16.5 million people living in poverty in the suburbs. In a new podcast, Kneebone, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, says that the landscape of poverty is "dramatically different" than it was a half century ago. A third of the poor population lives in the suburbs, and during the 2000s, the poor population there grew larger and faster than in cities.

While many programs from the war on poverty have been effective in keeping millions of people out of poverty, Kneebone says in this podcast that the shifting geography of poverty to suburbs means that we need to "reassess what's working" and "better adapt our policies to a new reality of suburban poverty."

Learn more about the book, get case studies about communities facing suburban poverty, and download an Action Toolkit at Confronting Suburban Poverty in America.

Also read "Does the Suburbanization of Poverty Mean the War on Poverty Failed?" by Kneebone and Berube.