Politics correspondent
Tiago Mendes is the magazine’s politics correspondent, covering public works, budgets, and the slow arithmetic of how roads, pipes, and bridges get paid for. Before journalism he spent eight years as a budget analyst in the Corran city treasury, and his book Line Items argues that a government’s real priorities live in its appendices. He lives in Corran, attends more public hearings than most council members, and keeps a borrowed hard hat on his coat rack in case anyone offers him a tour.
Public works
A “fix it first” rule sounds like common sense. In three provincial districts it rewired local politics, and not always in the way its backers expected.
Government
Public works departments are funded like afterthoughts and blamed like villains. A year inside one shows why.
Water
Under every city is a network nobody has seen in full. When the bill for replacing it arrives, the question of who owns it becomes the only question.
