Colin Greer
Colin Greer is the president of the New World Foundation. He was formerly a professor at the City University of New York, a founding editor of Social Policy magazine, a contributing editor at Parade magazine for almost 20 years, and the author and coauthor of several books on public policy. He is the author of three books of poetry, including Defeat/No Surrender (2023).
Released for Syndication:
06/05/2026
If we are to understand the conditions facing vulnerable children, we have to begin with a difficult truth: poverty remains the central force shaping their lives. It is not the only factor, but it is the most consistent one—structuring access to health, education, safety, and...
Released for Syndication:
05/07/2026
In Peoria, Illinois, children living in federally subsidized housing have been getting sick in the very places meant to shelter them. An investigation by ProPublica documented that apartments at the city’s Taft Homes were plagued by mold, water damage, pest infestations, and peeling paint—conditions...
Released for Syndication:
03/08/2026
Introduction: When “Protection” Becomes Punishment
Does your community care about children? This deceptively simple question carries profound moral, social, and civic weight. Across the United States, children are too often treated not as developing citizens deserving care and opportunity, but as problems to be managed. Systems...
Released for Syndication:
02/19/2026
What do we mean, in a social and political sense, by “we”? Generally, we’re referring to our shared identity as a community: the collective understanding that enables us to discuss, deliberate, and arrive at decisions on matters that affect all of us.
...
Released for Syndication:
12/22/2025
[Editor’s Note: This article is the first installment of “Does Your Community Care About Children?”, a four-part series by Colin Greer and Reynard Loki. The series examines overlapping crises facing vulnerable youth in America—and the opportunities to create systems of care, safety, and empowerment. At...
Released for Syndication:
10/23/2025
“Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know,” the 18th-century British writer Lord Chesterfield advised his son. But common sense doesn’t stay that way. While it appears to most people to be something solid and steady, it changes from age to...
Released for Syndication:
06/18/2025
Social movements are powerful engines for change, and they coalesce around a vast range of issues, causes, and communities. But they fall into two basic categories: inclusionary and exclusionary.
...
Released for Syndication:
09/10/2024
The U.S. and many other societies are cycling into situations of toxic polarization today; discussion, let alone consensus, often appears impossible and the advantage goes to exclusionary social movements built on malignant rather than goodwill impulses. As Heritage Foundation president Keith Roberts stated...
Released for Syndication:
04/02/2024
Political polarization—the inability of groups such as political parties, religious sects, and cultural identity groups to cooperate even in basic, essential matters—has been a worry and a threat since American democracy began, and for many centuries before. James Madison called it “faction,” and in The...
Released for Syndication:
04/21/2023
What do we know, and what can we support about the following?
1. The Psychology of the Scarcity Experience
...