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Aspen Ideas To Go Podcast: Will Violence Be Our Legacy?

June 4, 2015  • Tricia Johnson, Guest Blogger

The “Aspen Ideas to Go” podcast is a weekly show featuring fascinating speakers who have presented at the Aspen Ideas Festival and other public programs offered by the Aspen Institute—including Aspen Words, the Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series, and various events around the country. For a curated listening experience subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or listen to each episode on the Aspen Ideas website. 

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu says that nowhere is America’s crisis of violence more evident than in the African American community. In this talk, he asks: What’s the real cost of violence? And how do we change it? 

Since taking office in 2010, Landrieu has reformed the city’s police department and launched NOLA for Life, an initiative to reduce murders. And it seems to be working, at least incrementally: The murder rate in New Orleans has dropped for the third straight year. So what can the rest of the country learn from New Orleans? 

We found this talk to be so compelling we decided to take a deeper look at violence in America at the Aspen Ideas Festival this summer. 

Visit our podcast page to listen to past podcasts. 

Tricia Johnson is editorial director of public programs at the Aspen Institute.