Topics

Topic of the Day...
Land Use
The mayor has announced plans for a unique planning effort for a more populated New York of 2030. But, Tom Angotti asks, is the plan itself sustainable beyond 2008, when voters will elect a new mayor? Read more ...

Land Use Links In The News
Council Members Choose Locations For New Street Toilets; Some Don't Want Them; City Subsidy Of Atlantic Yards More Than Doubles, To $205 Million; Robert Moses Exhibit Highlights Dispute Between Two Chroniclers of the City;

Complete Topic Archives | Email Us

Arts
The mayor�s preliminary budget proposes changes to funding for the arts that are making normally glum arts advocates do a little dance.

Children
The mayor�s announcement of �the most significant restructuring of our juvenile justice system in decades� gets a mixed response from some people who know the system best.

Civil Rights
�There seems to have been a shift � and a reduction -- in rhetoric around civil rights from New York�s leaders,� Andy Humm writes. �But does this mean they do not care about racial and other kinds of discrimination?�

Community Development
Developers in many parts of Manhattan and the Brooklyn would get a property tax exemption only if one fifth of the apartments in a new project are affordable, according to a bill passed by the City Council this month and awaiting the mayor's signature, and approval by the state legislature. The law would also create a fund to finance affordable housing.

Crime
The shooting of Sean Bell on his wedding echoes other shooting of unarmed black men by police. A look at the reactions, the issues raised and what some say should be done to prevent similar tragedies.

Demographics
They inspire resentment and fascination, but little is known about the "idle rich" -- New Yorkers who live off investment income. Andrew Beveridge pieces together an admittedly incomplete profile of them based on new census data.

Education
After four year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is reorganizing the schools again, but do the changes address the problems that still persist in the city�s public schools?

Environment
Buying a better refrigerator not only saves money; it helps save the world. The government of the City of New York has been doing its part to promote energy efficiency in several ways. New York City shoppers can as well.

Finance
The mayor says his property tax relief plan will benefit individual New Yorkers and spark the economy, but economists say it will hardly be noticed.

Health
Which New York City neighborhood has the most binge drinking? Which the highest rate of obesity? Which the most deaths from heart disease? The answers are in the health department�s Community Health Profiles. Cari Olson of the health department explains what the numbers tell us and how citizens can use them.

Housing
No one is sure what Governor Eliot Spitzer will do about the housing issues in New York City.

Immigrants
With a new administration in Albany, many immigrant New Yorkers are hoping that a policy that has denied drivers� licenses to hundreds of thousands of state residents who lack immigration status will be reversed. Many are now wondering what kind of driver�s license proposal they can expect to see from the new governor.

Land Use
The mayor has announced plans for a unique planning effort for a more populated New York of 2030. But, Tom Angotti asks, is the plan itself sustainable beyond 2008, when voters will elect a new mayor?

Parks
A deal to give 20 private schools near-exclusive use of much of the recreational space of Randall�s Island in exchange for funding is the latest controversy arising over an increasing practice � �the reliance on private organizations to support what traditionally has been a taxpayer-funded service.�

Social Services
If they want to help the working poor, newly elected Democrats in Albany and Washington could take bold steps to improve education and housing, says Nancy Rankin of the Community Service Society.

Tech
A look at the possibility that New Yorkers will start getting Internet access from regular electrical power lines � a practice already common throughout Europe and in cities like Cincinnati.

Transportation
Financing is in place for the construction of the No. 7 subway line. Bruce Schaller looks at the lessons for getting other big transportation projects done.

Voting
A look at the four voting machines that are in the running to replace the lever machine with which New Yorkers have been voting since 1962.

Waterfront
Three years later, the crash that killed 11 people remains a continuing and costly drama for those involved, including City Hall.

Special 9/11 Topic Pages:

9/11/01-/02: Our topic page columnists analyze a year of changes in New York City, in everything from arts to civil rights to technology to the environment.

Arts
Martha Hostetter explains how the arts institutions suffered economically, even while artists helped build community.

Civil Rights
Andy Humm assesses the state of civil liberties since 9/11. Also: the 12 vacant seats on the human rights commission; the new local law about same-sex marriages.

Crime/Justice
Julia Vitullo-Martin attempts to answer the question: Are New Yorkers right to feel as safe in the city as anywhere else in the country?

Demographics
Andrew Beveridge looks at the numbers to present a portrait of those who died at 10048, the zip code that was the World Trade Centerƒs alone.

Environment
Eric Goldstein looks at "the World Trade Center cough" and the other environmental health impacts of the World Trade Center attacks.

Finance
Glenn Pasanen explains what he sees as two major results of 9/11: compounding the "long-ignored structural budget deficit," and exposing the "insider decision-making" in the budget process. It is a process, he says, that has resulted in a reduction of funding for education at a time when education is supposed to be a priority.

Health
Maia Szalavitz reports on how New Yorkers have been coping in the year since 9/11, and offers tips from mental health counselors on how to handle the anniversary.

Housing
Some rents are lower, Rebecca Webber points out, but otherwise the story of housing in the past year is one of more homelessness, fewer vacancies, canceled plans for affordable housing, and unknown consequences in the future.

Immigrants
A special section on the anniversary of Sept 11, which affected immigrants in special ways.

Land Use
Laura Wolf-Powers details the land use rebuilding issues that New Yorkers should be watching to figure out where we are going to go from here -- the swap, the lease, the governor, the Olympics, etc.

Parks
"This September 11, people will again find their way to the parks," as they did a year ago, Anne Schwartz says. But if the parks are more important than ever to New Yorkers, one result of 9/11 is a further reduction in their funding.

Social Services
In the year since the terrorist attack, 70 percent of Americans are said to have offered some kind of aid -- and that includes donations of more than $2.2 billion so far. But, as Linda Ostreicher relates, this outpouring of charity is now accompanied by sharp disagreements over what to do with it, stirring up almost as much passion as the disaster itself.

Tech
Laura Forlano reveals the many important lessons that the rebuilding and recovery effort has taught us about the functioning of technological systems during times of crisis.

Voting
Most people have probably forgotten that September 11, 2001, started out as a day when New York City held primary elections. This year's primary election is not just a calendar year away from the attacks, but it comes at the end of a year when the political fortunes of many candidates have been deeply affected by the implications of the tragedy. The attacks were the background of political life in New York starting with last year's mayoral race and continuing through this year's race for governor.

Browsing? Try the complete Topic Archives.