With A Long-awaited Contract, Hope Is On The Horizon
By Amanda Grannis As a new school year begins, New York City public school teachers, school nurses, and guidance counselors will work under a new contract. The teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), approved the nine-year, $5.3 billion contact this past June, agreeing to an 18% pay raise, as well as a back […]
Creating Affordable Housing “9 x 18” Feet At A Time
By Jared Gans Mayor Bill de Blasio has voiced concern over the affordable housing dilemma and has announced his plan for 200,000 subsidized units to be built or preserved over the next decade. However, he has yet to explain how this will happen. Miriam Peterson, Sagi Golan, and Nathan Rich, three young architects and fellows […]
New York City’s Vision Zero Overcomes Legal Hurdles
By Carlos F. Ugalde On January 2014, upon his inauguration as mayor, Bill de Blasio announced his intention to adopt a road traffic safety program, known as Vision Zero, aimed at eradicating all traffic fatalities in New York City by 2024. In 2013, New York City had one of the highest traffic mortality rates in […]
Manhattan’s Poor Door Policy: Designing for the Income Gap
By Henry Parr This past summer, New Yorkers were shocked to read that a new development on the Upper West Side of Manhattan was given the green light to build separate entrances for its market-rate condo owners and affordable housing renters. The “poor door” was likened to racially segregated bathrooms of the pre-Civil Rights era […]
Moving Towards a “Greener” Commute
By Andrea Bonvicino Commuting via personal vehicles has long been the scourge of sustainable development. When addressing the issue, however, lawmakers must choose between two very different regulatory approaches: incentivizing or developing “green” methods of commuting to lure people away from driving, or imposing burdens on those who choose to drive their own cars. A […]
Home Rule Provisions Bolster City Arguments for Traffic Law Autonomy
By Chris Bosch “Home Rule Provisions” in the constitutions of some states provide cities with the authority to adopt local laws and regulations, so long as they do not directly conflict with general state laws that uniformly target statewide actors and activities. Three ongoing debates in Ohio, Iowa, and New York consider the impact of […]
Growing Buildings and Falling Ice
By Nicole Beletsky Even on clear winter days, the danger of falling ice has snarled rush hour for commuters arriving in Manhattan. The New York Times recently chronicled how the main entrance to the PATH train station at the base of 1 World Trade Center was closed twice in a week because of this risk. […]