For a region scarred with high unemployment and a struggling education system, free money from the federal government for community colleges to retrain unemployed workers for high-wage, high-skill jobs would seem like a perfect fit for Southern Nevada. So college officials had that covered, right?

Who keeps more of Southern Nevada’s federal tax money — Washington, D.C., or Carson City? Turns out it’s a toss-up. So how do we fix the problem? With D.C., we need to get in the game. With Carson City, we need to change the game.

Las Vegas City Manager Betsy Fretwell says Las Vegas has the potential to be a “sleeper city,” that is, one that surprises the rest of the country and the world with its innovation and industry.

Gerald Gardner, the governor’s chief of staff, told the Nevada Senate Finance Committee on June 2 that he “disagrees that there is disparity in the distribution of (highway) construction money (between Clark County and the rest of the state).” Rudy Malfabon, head of Nevada’s Department of Transportation, echoed this claim and submitted data that showed a rough parity based on taxes paid in the “state highway construction funds in the past five years.” These misleading statements suggest the appearance of equity in state road construction money, ignore huge disparities in highway maintenance funds and exclude massive expenditures of federal dollars.

The latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index says Las Vegas has enjoyed 24 percent increase in prices over 2012. But that may not all be good news. What if the city is facing another housing bubble? What if this is destined to collapse again after another flurry of speculation? When is the time to buy?

House prices are going up. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller house price index in March, prices were up nearly 11 percent over the past year in the 20 cities surveyed. That's the fastest increase in seven years.

The nation's big cities are riding out the first years of the post-downturn era with plenty of company — boosting their population via a youth movement.

Once more into the breach. Once more a failure.

Constructing the $600 million freeway between Reno and Carson City sticks in the craw of Clark County officials who maintain the highway needs of Southern Nevada are being ignored.

As Nevada continues to grow, we need to revise and reform the way we govern the Nevada Department of Transportation.

As one of the co-authors of the Brookings-SRI study that led to the state’s current economic development plan, I am concerned that Nevada is sending the wrong message to businesses in its new brand: “A world within. A state apart.”

An uneven economic recovery continues in the Mountain West, with Colorado Springs struggling to make gains on all fronts, according to a report from the Brookings Institution.