Brookings Today, 2/24/14

A roundup of some of the content published on brookings-edu-2023.go-vip.net today.

• Cities lead economic-equality revolution. Bruce Katz explains why cities and metro areas are leading the way to address poverty and inequality.

• Syrian civil war and the Middle East’s borders. Itamar Rabinovich reflects on the Syrian civil war and regional stability.

• Obama needs to do more. E.J. Dionne, Jr. writes of the importance of making government work better, which he says should be a top priority for President Obama during his remaining time in office.

• The 2008 Federal Reserve transcripts. Sarah Binder puts the FOMC transcripts from 2008 into the context of the Fed as a political institution trying to grapple with global financial meltdown.

• New student financial aid systems. Susan Dynarski predicts that Oregon’s and Michigan’s “Pay It Forward” student lending systems would collapse as currently proposed.

• More effective ways to spend financial aid dollars? Isabel Sawhill asks some fundamental questions about federal financial aid for college and its purposes.

• Nigeria sacked its central bank governor. Amadou Sy tells us why it matters and how much it will cost the country.