CUF in the News
is a New York City-based think tank that fuses journalistic reporting techniques with traditional policy analysis to produce in-depth reports and workable policy solutions on the critical issues facing our cities.
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Economic Development
For the last two years, the Center for an Urban Future has focused much of its energy on changing New York City's approach to economic development, which has long relied upon tax breaks and other incentives to large employers that threaten to relocate outside the city. This approach ignores a treasure trove of smaller businesses and industries, and has led the city to address a range of important social issues — such as education and welfare reform — in relative isolation, and with short-term strategies, instead of within a more innovative, long-term plan. The Center is working to change this with a three-pronged approach focusing on:
Sector Development
Good financial advisors recommend a diverse investment portfolio — so why
does New York City put so much stock in Wall Street? The financial sector is
far too volatile to be relied upon as the city's primary economic engine, yet
it remains the consistent focus of government efforts to retain jobs in the
city. Worse, current policy tends to reward companies that represent the most
credible threat to economic stability, rather than those most likely to help
shore it up.
One of the Center's major contributions to the economic development arena has
been to advocate for practical, proven alternatives designed to broaden the
city's existing tax abatement strategy. Our sector-based approach targets
entire business sectors instead of individual corporations; it is designed to
diversify the economy throughout the five boroughs and increase job
opportunities for low-income and working-class New Yorkers.
Toward this end, the Center listens to businesses that tend not to get the ear
of the mayor and the governor, identifying overlooked sectors with great
potential, raising awareness about some of the problems they face, and offering
recommendations to help them thrive.
Workforce Development
No economic development policy can succeed without an able workforce, but the
stampede toward a knowledge-based economy has made workforce development among
the most pressing economic issues of our time. The Center has been a leader on
this issue in New York, focusing attention on the issue and offering pragmatic
policy recommendations aimed at providing better educational and economic
opportunities for low-income and working class New Yorkers and support for
those businesses most likely to provide these residents with living-wage work.
We were the first in the city to argue that our public university system has a
responsibility — to both businesses and students — to better serve
the local economy. Center staff laid out in great detail the role that the City
University of New York (CUNY) could play in helping to build and inform local
businesses and, very importantly, better link local students to good, living
wage jobs.
The Center has also closely been monitoring the implementation of the Workforce
Investment Act, a five-year federal reform plan offering New York an important
opportunity to modernize its approach to jobs development. An 18-month study of
the city's current job development system highlighted problems including
disorganization and lack of supervision, and the Center has since been working
to foster a coordinated workforce development system that connects job-seekers
to relevant educational and job training opportunities, as well as to
living-wage employers.
Real Estate and Planning
The Center views New York City as a community of communities, and we believe
that any successful economic development plan must be rooted in neighborhood
development, treating communities as interconnected assets instead of competing
interests.
This vision not only requires a change in the way the city distributes economic
incentives, but also a shift away from the city's similarly reactive approach
to land-use planning. The city's excessive willingness to allow developers to
convert lofts and factories for residential use is creating an incoherent
landscape and depleting the stock of commercial and industrial space. The
Center has identified the lack of available space as a major barrier to the
growth of many industries — particularly manufacturing, which remains an
important employer in the city.
As the old saw goes, land is always a good investment because they're not
making any more of it. The Center believes that New York must stop selling off
pieces of the city to the highest bidder and formulate a coherent, five-borough
land-use plan that supports struggling industries while maintaining a livable
environment for all those who make the city run.
Child Welfare Watch
Child Welfare Watch
is a bi-annual publication seeking to expose how the current child welfare
system often overwhelms and mistreats the low-income families it is supposed to
serve and proposes level-headed reforms to deal with these problems. It is
published in partnership with the New York Forum, a progressive local think
tank, and guided by the
Child Welfare Watch
Advisory Board.
To date, the work of
Child Welfare Watch
has focused on a range of issues riddling the New York City's Administration
for Children's Services and its overburdened Family Court system. This work
that has forced ACS officials to answer for child removal policies over the
last four years that have been, in many cases, needlessly punitive.
Child Welfare Watch
reports have also demonstrated how glitches in the bureaucracy and the social
psychology in ACS, the foster care agencies and the Family Court have
contributed to delays in safely returning children to their families or getting
them placed in adoption. These are delays that have kept children, on average,
in foster care for four years-double the time that children remain in care in
nearly every other U.S. city. Finally,
Child Welfare Watch
examines the effectiveness of ongoing local reform efforts and details
innovative work of other agencies nationwide, seeking to ensure that our local
families are served more fairly and effectively in the years to come.
©2008 Center for an Urban Future. All Rights Reserved.
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