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Urban Matters

Our weekly journal of ideas and opinion

New Yorkers have a long and proud tradition of striving to create what Robert Kennedy called “communities of security, achievement, and dignity.”

That’s precisely the goal of our weekly journal of insights and ideas: Urban Matters. Its goal: to identify fixable problems and practicable solutions – arising from the streets of New York.

Latest Urban Matters

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Urban Matters
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To Meet New York’s Childcare Crisis, Cut Red Tape and Increase Wages

We need to do better meeting the needs of a shamefully underpaid profession.

Lauren Melodia
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February 15, 2023
Urban Matters
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Governor Hochul’s Budget Under-invests in the ‘New York Dream’

New York State’s proposed tax and spending plan continues a decade of disinvestment in its people.

James A. Parrott
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February 8, 2023
Urban Matters
Children and Families
Narrowing the Front Door
From Surveillance and Control to Family Assistance and Support

It’s time to end policies that result in harsh and racially biased disruption and harassment of families living in poverty.

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February 1, 2023
Urban Matters
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Enough to Make You Sick: Curbing High Private Hospital Costs

Why is health care in New York City so expensive? The high and rapidly growing cost of private hospital care is the prime cause.

Barbara Caress
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January 25, 2023
Urban Matters
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America Has a Retirement Crisis. It Needs a Universal Retirement Plan.

Despite Social Security, millions of Americans face economic hardship once their work lives end. We need to strengthen our retirement system.

Siavash Radapour and Eva Conway
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January 18, 2023
Urban Matters
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New York’s Housing Is Falling Apart. Here’s How to Stop That.

By almost every measure, basic housing maintenance is spiraling downward. The City has the tools to turn that around.

Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein
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January 11, 2023
Urban Matters
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2022 Fiction and Poetry from The New School Community

This year’s titles include a multi-generational family saga intersecting with environmental apocalypse, a re-imagined Jazz Age crime story, and a YA novel of the Jersey Shore written in verse.

Andrea Patricia Llinás-Vahos
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December 14, 2022
Urban Matters
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Great 2022 Nonfiction From the New School Community

The street art that helped change the direction of Chilean politics, the folk music revolution that helped change American life, and more.

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December 7, 2022
Urban Matters
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An E-Commerce Warehouse Boom Imperils Communities of Color. Here’s How to Protect Them.

Strengthening New York City’s zoning requirements for last-mile warehouses will better protect the health and safety of workers and nearby residents.

Rami Dinnawi
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November 30, 2022
Urban Matters
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Post-Pandemic, Let’s Fix How We Rate Public School Performance

An “emergency” remedy adopted by the State Board of Regents does no harm – but doesn’t do enough good, either.

Roberta Lenger Kang
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November 22, 2022
Urban Matters
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To Meet Our Housing Crisis, Build We Must

Throughout the city, demand for housing outstrips supply. The Queens borough president’s answer is: We must build. Now.

Donovan Richards
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November 16, 2022
Urban Matters
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The Migrant Bus-lift Volunteers Need City Support and Recognition

City agencies could do a far better job matching the volunteers helping a flood of asylum seekers.

Ruth W. Messinger
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November 8, 2022
Urban Matters
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Affirmative Action Is About Inclusion, Not Exclusion

At the Supreme Court, the future of equal access to higher education hangs in the balance.

Dwight A. McBride,
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November 2, 2022
Urban Matters
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The Migrant Crisis Can Bring Needed Change to NYC’s Housing Problem

A comprehensive plan is needed to help migrants, and longstanding New Yorkers too, meet their housing needs.

Gustavo Rivera
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October 26, 2022
Urban Matters
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Should City Government Report New York’s True Cost of Living?

Public benefits try, (and may fail) to meet survival needs. But what does a life with dignity require?

Jennifer Jones Austin
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October 19, 2022
Urban Matters
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‘We Need to Make Sure Landlords Are Held Accountable’

After the deadliest residential fire in decades, a borough president helps a community recover – and proposes policy changes to prevent future tragedies.

Vanessa Gibson
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October 12, 2022
Urban Matters
Education
FAFSA
‘I Hate FAFSA. I’m Going to Start Crying.’

The process of applying for college financial aid regularly produces freakouts and meltdowns. But there may be help on the horizon.

Kim Nauer
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October 2, 2022
Urban Matters
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Will a Failed City Retiree Health Scheme Get a Second Chance?

A money-saving move to take City government retirees off Medicare appeared to have crashed and burned. But now a rescue plan has emerged from the wreckage.

Barbara Caress
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September 28, 2022
Urban Matters
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A Borough President Makes Healthier Childbirth a Priority

A “terrifying” insight into maternal health risks leads to action.

Antonio Reynoso
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September 21, 2022
Urban Matters
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‘Mobile Health Services Work!’

A q&a with the co-founder of Bronx Móvil, a “project of radical love” involving unhoused people who use drugs.

Tamara Oyola-Santiago
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September 14, 2022
Urban Matters
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Public Sector Workers Have Been Pushed to the Brink

An exodus from frontline service agencies is creating a crisis in local governments across the nation.

Megan Tackney
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September 7, 2022
Urban Matters
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The (Low) Wages of Misclassification: What One in 10 New York Workers Face

Some 873,000 workers in major New York State low-paid industries are misclassified as independent contractors.

James A. Parrott
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June 22, 2022
Urban Matters
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A Summer Dozen: New Books From the New School Community

Our suggestions of new works from New School faculty and graduates to take with you this summer.

Andrea Patricia LLinas-Vahos and Bruce Cory
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June 15, 2022
Urban Matters
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An Interactive Map Shows Where Cities Still Burn Waste

Nearly 4.5 people in the U.S. are still exposed to pollution from municipal waste incinerators.

Adrienne Perovich
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June 8, 2022
Urban Matters
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Community Land Trusts Protect Housing Affordability – and Democracy

A call to counter speculation and displacement with community-controlled housing and neighborhood development.

DEYANIRA DEL RIO
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June 1, 2022
Urban Matters
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NYC’s Proposed Citywide Curriculum Is About Democracy, Not Just Academics

Honoring young people’s diverse cultures and lived experiences will help them learn – and also prepare them to be adults who civilly debate, advocate, and vote.

TOM LIAM LYNCH
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May 25, 2022
Urban Matters
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For a Just Post-Covid Recovery, Make Five ‘Fair Fares’ Reforms

Transit costs often overwhelm the budgets of low-income New Yorkers. Many don’t even know that they’re eligible for half-price fares.

DAVID R. JONES
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May 18, 2022
Urban Matters
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A Foot on the Ground, And Steps to Fairer Taxes

There’s a way to make “billionaires’ row” absentee condo owners pay a fairer tax share – and provide relief to lower-income homeowners, too.

James A. Parrott
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May 11, 2022
Urban Matters
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Nail Salon Workers Assert Their Rights

A campaign for fair pay and safe working conditions reveals how being classified “independent contractors” denies workers fundamental protections.

L.K. Moe
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May 4, 2022
Urban Matters
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Let’s Really Transform NYC’s Private Waste System

The City should dramatically decrease pollution and increase safety and environmental justice in overhauling its massive commercial waste system.

Justin Wood
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April 27, 2022
Urban Matters
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Rikers Island Today: Part Two. Will ‘3-3-3’ Be A Formula for Peace?

A new policy breaks up cellblock “gang houses” and injects credible messengers to deescalate violence.

CINCERE WILSON
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April 20, 2022
Urban Matters
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Rikers Island Today: Part One. A Culture of Callousness Seems ‘Unbreakable’

I’ve worked at Rikers Island. I’ve been detained there, too – twice. And a “let them loose on each other” attitude prevailed.

William M. Evans
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April 13, 2022
Urban Matters
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Pandemic Retirements: Older Workers Didn’t Jump. They Were Pushed.

There has been a flood of what look like involuntary retirements of workers age 55 and up since March 2020.

BARBARA SCHUSTER
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April 6, 2022
Urban Matters
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Home Care in Crisis: Part Two. In a Privatized System, Who Fails and Who Flourishes?

As non-profits stumble and for-profits soar, what does that mean for patients and home health aides?

Barbara Caress
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March 30, 2022
Urban Matters
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Home Care in Crisis: Part One Will State Inaction Doom ‘Fair Pay?’

In a privatized system, public officials have regularly ducked tough choices. Will that now include fair pay for home care workers?

Barbara Caress
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March 23, 2022
Urban Matters
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For Youth in Crisis, Why ‘Raise the Age’ Still Matters

Locking up more kids on longer sentences didn’t make us safer in the past, and it won’t now. It just intensifies our problems.

KERCENA A. DOZIER
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March 16, 2022
Urban Matters
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Freeze Food Waste Collection Again? We’ve Got to Do Better Than That.

The City’s stop-and-start pattern of curbside organic waste is self-defeating. Instead, it’s time to rethink the way we collect our waste.

CLARE MIFLIN
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March 9, 2022
Urban Matters
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New York Has New Leaders. Can They Solve the City’s Housing Problems?

What housing policies can New Yorkers expect from Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul?

Alex Schwartz
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March 2, 2022
Urban Matters
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An Overlooked Bronx Tale Gets a Fresh Telling

It’s the biggest housing development in the nation – and it played a surprising role in New York City’s near-death fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

ANNEMARIE SAMMARTINO
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February 23, 2022
Urban Matters
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For Non-Profits in Racial Transition, It Can Be ‘Welcome to the Glass Cliff’

What special burdens do people of color take on when they assume leadership of nonprofit organizations?

SEAN THOMAS-BREITFELD
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February 16, 2022
Urban Matters
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Could Penn Station Plans Go Off the Rails?

Is this the bold new project New York needs now? Or could it leave us with a nasty financial hangover?

RACHAEL FAUSS
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February 9, 2022
Urban Matters
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New York Has a Jobs Problem. Let’s Help the People Who Can Fix It.

Investing in workforce training and placement is the next, crucial phase of recovery from Covid-19’s job disruptions.

L.K. Moe
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February 2, 2022
Urban Matters
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Heightened Suffering, Dwindling Supplies: Meeting the Crisis at Rikers

With supplies for detainees running low, community donors stepped in.

CINCERE WILSON
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January 26, 2022
Urban Matters
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Flush With Cash, Faced With Covid: Albany Ponders Budget Choices

In the best, and worst, of times, State officials face some decisions.

James A. Parrott
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January 19, 2022
Urban Matters
The New Hood
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Four Steps to an NYC ‘Healing Revolution’

New York City should beef up mental health resources instead of building up systems of enforcement and punishment

HERNÁN CARVENTE-MARTINEZ
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January 12, 2022
Urban Matters
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Great 2021 Nonfiction From New School Writers

Environmental justice. High-tech cities. The meaning of baldness. All just some of what The New School community’s non-fiction writers had on their minds this year.

Andrea Patricia Llinás-Vahos
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December 15, 2021
Urban Matters
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Tales Well Told: 2021 Fiction and Poetry From The New School Community

This year’s titles run from near-future dystopias to twisty psychological thrillers to a delightfully silly younger-set graphic novel.

Andrea Patricia Llinás-Vahos
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December 8, 2021
Urban Matters
The New Hood
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Healing Embedded Trauma: What City Leaders Should and Can Do

Socially based trauma can be internalized, with devastating effects. It can also be healed.

Erasma Beras-Monticciolo
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December 1, 2021
Urban Matters
The New Hood
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The Need to ‘Decolonize’ Parenting: A Q&A On Family Healing with Erasma Beras-Monticciolo

Let’s recognize how a legacy of colonial oppression, and the everyday realities of structural racism, can warp and weaken family bonds.

Erasma Beras-Monticciolo
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November 23, 2021
Urban Matters
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Public Banking for a Just Recovery: A How-To Guide for NYC

Why not put the people’s money to work on behalf of the people? That’s the goal of creating a public bank.

ANDY MORRISON
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November 17, 2021