Cities have always been the world’s nerve centers of commerce, culture, and communication. And New York is Exhibit A. We’re also a city whose people have a long and proud tradition of striving to create what Robert Kennedy once called “communities of security, achievement, and dignity.”
That’s precisely the goal of the Center for New York City Affairs: Improving the way government works with low-income communities by identifying fixable problems and practicable solutions, in areas ranging from education to immigration to child welfare.
Urban Matters is our newest outlet for ideas and insights on such issues – derived from work on the streets of New York, and from cities around the world.
Bodega Culture’s Local Appeal And Global Reach
Bodega culture still rests on the quick transactions that turn into familial encounters; these brick and mortar strongholds exist at the intersection of community center, public forum, and corner store. But what was once a hyperlocal cultural experience is now reproduced globally via marketing and social media. Each customer that steps inside the bodega is participating in networks that – whether analog, digital, or social – spread the bodega’s influence farther than the corner where it stands.
A Renewed Focus on Families, While Following the Money: We Talk with the New Head of InsideSchools
Tom Liam Lynch – high school English teacher, online learning architect for the New City Department of Education, academic researcher and scholar, and public school parent – is the new director of education policy at the Center for New York City Affairs and editor-in-chief of the Center’s InsideSchools project. He’s putting finishing touches on a “1,000-day” action plan for that work, and this week previews it for Urban Matters.
Are de Blasio’s Rezonings a Trojan Horse for Gentrification? Probably Not.
By Alex Schwartz
Critics have argued that the City's rezonings have the perverse effect of exacerbating housing affordability problems. On balance, however, the evidence just isn’t there.
Bad Medicine: Arbitrary Caps and Cost Shifts Won’t Heal Medicaid
By James Parrott
New York State’s Medicaid-induced $6.1 billion budget gap for the coming year stems from reliance on rigid spending caps and fiscal smoke-and-mirror maneuvers intended to project an appearance of smart and disciplined spending control. Now a day of reckoning is at hand.
A System that Sets Families Up To Fail Badly Needs Reform
By Jim Purcell
The New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) recently announced new contract awards to nonprofit agencies to provide preventive services to support families who have experienced challenges in caring for their children. The contracts were awarded through a rigorous request for proposals (RFP) process mandated by the City Charter and applicable laws. And therein lies a major problem.
The Daunting Math of Solving New York's Housing Crisis
By Alex Schwartz
New York City’s unprecedented and ongoing efforts in the realm of affordable housing show what cities can – and can’t – do strictly on their own to solve a deep and persistent affordability crisis.
In the Bronx, Does Holistic Criminal Defense Make a Difference?
By James M. Anderson, Maya Buenaventura, and Paul Heaton
An exhaustive study of holistic defense of criminal cases in the Bronx found that it reduces the likelihood of a custodial sentence by 16 percent and expected sentence length by 24 percent. The researchers found that it "offers considerable potential to reduce incarceration without harming public safety,
Love and Death on the Streets of New York: Why West Side Story Is Back
A radically new production of West Side Story will open on Broadway next month. And a new West Side Story movie is to come to the screen later this year. We asked Julia Foulkes, a professor of history at The New School and author of the acclaimed A Place for Us: West Side Story and New York, about the new life and enduring meaning of this musical theater classic.
The Phantom Menace: Job Losses Follow Medicaid Drop-off among Fearful Immigrants
By Barbara Caress
Since the summer of 2017, the number of New York City residents enrolled in Medicaid managed care has declined by some 180,000. What seems to be driving this decline is a proposed but not yet implemented new standard for denying Green Cards to immigrants seeking permanent legal resident status, a key step on the path to citizenship: Having received or being approved to receive non-cash public benefits, including housing assistance and food stamps as well as Medicaid.
A Mirror of Our Times: 2019 Fiction from The New School Community
Compiled and edited by Sierra Lewandowski and Bruce Cory
This week we conclude our yearend wrap-up of published works from New School faculty and alums with a selection of fiction and poetry titles.
A Year Of Writing Truthfully: Great Nonfiction Titles from The New School Community
Compiled and edited by Sierra Lewandowski and Bruce Cory
Here are some of the nonfiction books of 2019 from New School faculty, graduates, and former students that impressed us. Next week: our fiction picks.
Keep Our Children Healthy. End the Use of Solitary Confinement.
By Julia L. Davis and Raysa S. Rodriguez
In June, press reports revealed that a 17-year-old with mental illness had been held in solitary confinement for seven months at New York State’s Hudson Adolescent Offender Correctional Facility in Columbia County. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.The “Raise the Age” reforms enacted in 2017 promised to establish developmentally appropriate settings for all justice-involved youth.
Food for Thought: Five Ways New York Is Ready to Increase Organic Recycling
By Justin Wood
The New York City Department of Sanitation wants to raise the number of restaurants, stores, and other businesses required to source-separate organic waste for composting or other environmentally acceptable disposal. The impact of this expanded recycling mandate can be magnified by the transition to the “zoned” commercial waste collection system legislated by the City Council.
Why Older Workers’ Wages Are Flat - And What to Do About It
By the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis
Older workers have experienced almost no real wage growth since the peak of the last economic boom. One factor is the proliferation of alternative work arrangements (AWAs), including on-call work, employment in contract firms, temporary agency work, independent contracting, and gig work.
Local Governments Can Afford To Pay a $15 Minimum Wage
By James A. Parrott
A new report, “The Impact of Increased Minimum Wages on Local Government,” released by The Century Foundation, examines the likely effects on local government budgets of a $15 minimum hourly wage. It finds that the cost is manageable. And as with higher minimum wages in the private sector, it will also foster greater workforce retention, improve the quality of service delivery, and significantly benefit the incomes and well-being of millions of families and their communities.
My Art Got Me Through My Time: Portraits from Solitary Confinement
By Five Mualimm-ak
I have served over 40,000 hours in isolation at the New York City corrections facility on Rikers Island and in State prison facilities in Upstate New York. During my time in solitary confinement, I produced many portraits. By drawing faces, I tried to draw attention to others who were suffering as well and their reasons for being confined from humanity.
When Separate Isn’t Equal: What Accounts for Health Disparities
By Barbara Caress
Sharp differences in Black and White life expectancy, infant mortality, and premature death in New York City are due to racism and its most vicious manifestation, poverty. For just about every leading cause of death in the city, there is a disadvantage by color and by neighborhood -- the consequences of a malignant double whammy of being Black and being poor.
Of Poverty, Prison, and the Legacy of Slavery
By Jennifer Jones Austin
On a wall in my office at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA) hangs a photograph of protestors marching with placards bearing the now-famous declaration, “I Am a Man.” The iconic image comes from the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike in 1968, where the road to civil rights joined the path to economic equity. It was an intersection that our country had been careening towards for nearly 350 years. In many ways, neither of those destinations – equality or equity – has yet been reached. The harsh effects of the criminal justice system are a major reason why.
It’s Personal: Changing How White People Think About Racism
By Marcia Ely
Welcoming audiences to our evening programs is one of my tasks at the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). In my words of greeting, I often try to dispel the associations many have of historical societies as dusty places of White perspectives, telling one-sided histories. “Brooklyn Historical Society is not like that,” I say, with urgency. I really want people to get that. I know that distrusting institutions of historical authority is entirely reasonable. Especially in matters of race.
Jamestown+ 400 Years: What Stories of Remembrance and Resistance Mean to Us All
By Mindy Thompson Fullilove
This year, 2019, marks the 400th anniversary of the first landing of Africans at colonial Jamestown, to be sold into bondage. Such an historic moment raises challenges of open and honest observance of the full ramifications of that pivotal event – an observance that embraces remembrance and reparation, resistance and reform, contrition and correction.
The Effects – Intended and Not –
Of Ending the Specialized High School Test
By Nicole Mader, Melanie Quiroz, and Carmen Cheung
New York City is in the midst of an intense debate about opportunity and racial and socioeconomic fairness in determining which students get to attend which public schools. Last month, the School Diversity Advisory Group appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio recommended phasing out elementary school “gifted and talented” programs and curbing “screened” admissions to middle schools – both long-criticized as reinforcing economic and racial segregation in City schools.
The Boogie Down Brigade: Celebrating Bronx Fashion Superheroes
By Mikaila Brown
New York Fashion Week officially wrapped up on Sept. 14. But on the streets of the Big Apple, the fashion show never really stops. In that spirit, the Common Thread Project, the creation of fashion anthropologist Mikaila Brown, has published a comic book-style celebration of what she calls The Boogie Down Brigade. In panel after panel, she spotlights the latest generation of fashionista superheroes shaped by, and shaping, the look and vibe of the borough that brought the world hip-hop: The Bronx. Here’s a sample of that work.
Even As a $15 Wage Floor Kicks In, Big Apple Eateries Flourish
By James A. Parrott
In July, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first increase in the federal minimum wage in 10 years. While that bill's fate in the Senate is doubtful, the House approval has given renewed attention to the question: What has been the economic effects in the cities and states where higher minimum wages are already being phased in? New York is one of those cities, with a $15-an-hour minimum wage now in effect for employers with more than 10 employees.
Fair Workweeks Remain Elusive Despite New York’s Reform Laws
By Harold Stolper and Nancy Rankin
Nearly two years ago, New York City’s Fair Workweek laws went into effect. The goal: Giving workers in large retail stores and fast food chain restaurants the right to predictable week-to-week work schedules. The laws set limits on a range of problematic employer practices that are all too common in these industries. Those practices include last-minute shift changes and “clopenings” that oblige workers to report for both the last, late shift of one workday and the first, early shift the following morning.
Great Expectations – But Will Funding Match a More Ambitious Vision of Family Child Care?
By Kendra Hurley
As New York City’s Department of Education (DOE) assumes responsibility for the City’s publicly funded early education system, it has been articulating its vision in a series of Requests for Proposals (RFPs). These RFPs solicit providers for the entire City-contracted early education system, which the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) historically oversaw, and which includes child care and preschool programs ranging from Head Start classes to home-based child care services.
It’s Time to Fix Workers’ Comp in New York
By James A. Parrott and Nicholas B. Martin
New York was the first state to adopt workers’ compensation and was once a national leader in safeguarding the interests of workers injured on the job. However, these protections have seriously eroded. Despite having one of the highest costs of living and the highest statewide average wage in the country, New York’s workers’ comp minimum and maximum benefits rank poorly compared to neighboring states.
School’s Out, Books Open: Students Give Summer Reading Recommendations
Urban Matters asked students we know and work with about the books that broadened their horizons and that the rest of us might enjoy, too. Here are their picks.
Single-Payer Plan? It's Not The Only, Or Best, Way To Improve New York's Health
By Barbara Caress
The New York State Legislature expects to wrap up its regular annual session today. Left on the cutting room floor: Assemblyman Richard Gottfried’s proposed NY Health Act, designed to create a single-payer State-administered health insurance system. It’s a bill that has been introduced in one form or other since 1992, has been passed several times in the Assembly, but has not yet come up for a vote in the Senate. Without it, can New York City and State do anything to improve access to affordable health insurance? Answer: Yes, a lot, by paying attention to reforms that are both bold and more careful in reforming health care than the NY Health Act would be.
‘The Big Problem Now Is the Gross Inequalities in the School System’:
Part Two of Urban Matters’ A Q&A with InsideSchools founder Clara Hemphill.
Urban Matters: Last week, we talked about the school-by-school reporting you oversee at InsideSchools. You also direct education policy at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Did that role grow naturally out of what you do with InsideSchools?
‘Our Readers Feel We Are on Their Side’
A Q&A with InsideSchools founder Clara Hemphill.
Clara Hemphill, who directs the InsideSchools project at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School and is the Center’s director of education policy, passes those batons this summer. This week and next, Urban Matters picks her brain about both roles, and about reporting on the nation’s largest school system.
Surging Job Expansion Sets New Big Apple Records
By Thomas P. DiNapoli
New York City is experiencing its largest and longest job expansion since the end of World War II. Not only is the city flourishing, it remains a beacon for immigrants from around the world seeking new beginnings and a better life.
A report I released in April in my capacity as New York State Comptroller showed that the city added 820,400 jobs between 2009 and 2018, more than every state in the nation outside of California, Texas and Florida, and, of course, New York. The current job expansion is also the fastest, with an average of 91,200 jobs added each of those years. The vast majority were private sector jobs.
Raising the Age in New York City: The Story Thus Far
By Julia L. Davis
Last Oct. 1, New York State’s “Raise the Age” (RTA) provisions took effect for 16-year-olds statewide. Designed to end the presumptive criminal prosecution and confinement of 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, RTA brought New York into line with 48 other states. Only North Carolina persists in making 16 the default age of criminal responsibility—and it ends that practice later this year. A little over six months into the law’s implementation, New York City is at the center of the reform.
The Path to Salary Parity in Early Childhood Education
By Mai Miksic
Decades of research have demonstrated the importance of early education, especially for children from economically and historically disadvantaged backgrounds. Researchers have also cautioned that the financial returns on investments in early childhood are contingent on the quality of programming. High-quality early childhood education programs require high-quality teachers. By July this year, EarlyLearn, the City’s subsidized early childhood education program, will be merged with Pre-K for All under the City Department of Education, creating a birth-to-high-school continuum of education that includes a truly unified early childhood system. That system should include pay parity for all qualified teachers.
Whose Healing Hands? For African Americans in New York City Medical Schools, No Progress in 40 Years
By Barbara Caress
Last year, 78 African Americans graduated from a medical school in New York City. The 47 women and 31 men were seven percent of the 1,225 people awarded MD degrees from those seven schools. In 1975, the same seven schools conferred degrees on 75 African American students.
A Tale of Two Latino Communities: More Diplomas on the Other Side of the Hudson
By Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps
Among the most persistent human development challenges for Latinos is educational attainment; Latinos have the lowest Education Index not only in New York City, but in the New York metro area and in the country as a whole. (The Index is calculated using a combination of school enrollment rates and adult high school, bachelor’s, and graduate degree attainment rates.) But important differences exist among neighborhoods in the metropolitan area.
Creating Environmental Justice at the Local Level
A Q&A WITH ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY EXPERT DR. ANA I. BAPTISTA
With Earth Day approaching, Urban Matters spotlights a new report, “Local Policies for Environmental Justice,” from the Tishman Environment and Design Center (TEDC) at The New School. It reviews a growing movement to enlist local governments in stopping and reversing environmental health and safety hazards in low-income areas and communities of color that the report also calls "environmental justice communities." We asked Dr. Ana Baptista, TEDC’s associate director and the report’s principal author, about it.
Rebalancing Housing Court’s Scales of Justice: The First Year of New York’s ‘Right to Counsel’ Law
By Oksana Mironova
A right to free legal representation in eviction cases – combined with other important tenant protection measures – is significantly rebalancing the scales of justice in New York City Housing Court and helping keep low-income residents in their homes.
What Nonprofits Must Do to Eliminate Barriers Faced by Women of Color
By Ofronama Biu
By virtually every measure – including number of registered organizations, total employment, and overall social and economic impact – the nation’s nonprofit sector continues to grow in size and influence. Nevertheless, this steadily rising tide has not lifted the boats of all those who work for nonprofits. Specifically, women of color working in the nonprofit sector encounter systemic obstacles to their advancement, over and above the barriers faced by White women and men of color.
