Topics

Children
By educating teenage foster children on how to be better parents, several city programs hope to stop the cycle of abuse.

Civil Rights
New Yorkers who complain to the State Division of Human Rights have had to wait three or more years for a case to be resolved. But in an interview with Andy Humm, Kumiki Gibson, the new head of the agency, promises that that is about to change.

Community Development
�Just as Starbucks knocked out independent coffee shops and Wal-Mart killed the corner store, media conglomerates have devastated locally produced newspapers, television stations, and radio programs throughout the country.� A talk with Eric Klinenberg, who explains how this has affected New York.

Crime
In the wake of the shooting death of two of its officers, great changes may be underway in the way New York City's 4,500-member volunteer police force is trained, deployed, supervised...and protected.

Demographics
Women in New York City are much more likely to be single, earn more money, and have more education than women living in the rest of the United States. In most fields, New York men out-earn New York women, but in three fields, it's the reverse.

Environment
A new apartment complex in the Bronx aims to prove that housing can be both friendly to the environment and the pocketbook.

Finance

Health
From rats to fats, city officials are battling the unhealthy ways of the fast food industry.

Housing
High-interest loans with hidden terms are behind the surge in housing foreclosures in the city, writes Joe Lamport.

Immigrants
Housing services don�t reach many of the immigrant families that need them most.

Land Use
A dispute over whether to make part of Sunnyside a historic district is partly an argument over what in the area deserves to be protected.

Law
The state�s judges hope they can revive efforts to give them their first pay hike in eight years.

Parks
Coastal areas, marshes, ponds and the like are key to New York City's rich ecosystem. But development and pollution threaten to wipe out many of these areas

Social Services
The Nurse Family Partnership tries to help at risk children � before they are even born.

Tech
With New York lagging behind many other cities on broadband access, a new effort seeks to bring high-speed Internet to low-income New Yorkers.

Transportation
The mayor�s veto of a pedicab bill continues the debate over what role the cabs can play in the city�s transportation mix.

Voting
Efforts to stop voter fraud � an often exaggerated problem � may prevent legitimate voters from casting ballots, write Doug Island and Andrea Senteno.

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.

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