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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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Funders
Center for an Urban Future Staff
Jonathan
Bowles, Director
Tel: 212.479.3347
E-mail: jbowles@nycfuture.org
Tara
Colton, Deputy Director
Tel: 212.479.3341
E-mail: tcolton@nycfuture.org
David Jason Fischer,
Project Director
Tel: 212.479.3348
E-mail:
djfischer@nycfuture.org
David
Giles, Research Associate
Tel: 212.479.3353
E-mail: dgiles@nycfuture.org
Joel Kotkin,
Senior Fellow
E-mail: jkotkin@pacbell.net
City Futures Staff
The Center for an Urban Future is
a project of City Futures, Inc.
Andy
Breslau, Executive Director
Tel: 212.479.3352
E-mail: andy@cityfutures.org
Mark Anthony Thomas,
Deputy Director
Tel: 212.479.3345
E-mail: mark@cityfutures.org
Ahmad Dowla,
Administrative Assistant
Tel: 212.479.3319
E-mail: ahmad@cityfutures.org
City Futures Board of Directors
Chairman: Andrew Reicher, UHAB
Vice-Chair: Michael Connor, Open Mic
Treasurer: Ira Rubenstein, Spencer Clarke LLC
Secretary: Lisette Nieves, Year Up
Margaret Anadu, Goldman Sachs
Russell Dubner, Edelman Public Relations
Mark Winston Griffith, Drum Major Institute for Public Policy
David Lebenstein, SIOR, Colliers ABR
Gail Mellow, LaGuardia Community College
Gifford Miller, Miller Strategies
Jefrey Pollock, Global Strategy Group
John Siegal, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Stephen Sigmund
Karen Trella, Consultant
Peter Williams, Consultant
Staff and Fellows Biographies
Jonathan
Bowles became director of the Center for an Urban Future in 2005 after serving as the organization’s research director for nearly seven years. During his nine years at the Center, he has written extensively about key economic trends facing New York and its five boroughs, the importance of diversifying New York’s economy, the value of small businesses to cities and the economic challenges facing the middle class, the working poor and those on the city’s margins. The reports and commentaries he has authored, from a widely acclaimed 2007 study about the impact immigrant entrepreneurs are having on cities’ economies to a report about what Staten Island should do to grow and diversify its economy, have been covered in publications ranging from The Economist to The Washington Post. This fall he served on Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Small Business Task Force to examine the threats facing mom and pop retailers in the borough. In 2006, City Hall News named him one of 35 “Rising Stars” Under 40. In 2005, Time Out New York named him “New York’s Finest Troublemaker.” Before joining the Center, he worked as research director for former New York State Senator Franz Leichter and spent time as a freelance journalist. He lives in Queens with his wife and 1 year old son.
Andy
Breslau was named executive director of City Futures,
the parent organization of the Center for an Urban Future and City
Limits, in 2006, after working the last eight years at CNN both as
a senior manager and a producer. Prior to CNN, he was the director of
special projects for the Democratic National Committee and served as the
director of public affairs for the Manhattan Borough President's Office
from 1990 through 1995. Before his time in government, Andy was the founding
associate director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Andy
graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. in Politics.
Tara
Colton has been with the Center for an Urban Future since 2003 and was named the Center's deputy director in 2007. She directs the Center’s research on improving and expanding ESOL instruction in New York City and State. In addition to her work on ESOL, she has authored and co-authored studies on a range of New York City issues, including the city's fast-growing video game industry, cultural trolley programs in the boroughs, the problems with New York's street fairs and the shortage of affordable real estate for local manufacturers. Prior to her work at the Center, Tara was the Project Manager for Listening to the City, a series of town hall meetings about the future of Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. Tara graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Government and received an M.P.A. in Policy Analysis and Evaluation from Baruch College's School of Public Affairs, where she also participated in the United Way of New York City Senior Fellows program.
Ahmad
Dowla began working as an intern in the Business Office of
City Futures and joined the staff as the Administrative Assistant in 2006.
He attended the Bronx High School of Science and is currently enrolled
in Hunter College, where he is pursuing studies in music and anthropology.
Dowla has lived in Queens, New York for over 10 years and was born in
Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He is an avid handball player, an indie film aficionado,
loves music, and enjoys exploring new experiences.
David
Jason Fischer has been project director for workforce development and social policy at the Center for an Urban Future since 2000. His research has included two comprehensive
assessments of the New York City workforce system (2002, 2007); a study of
potential worker shortages in key areas of New York City's economy
(2006); an analysis of the city's Summer Youth Employment Program
(2007); and most recently, a report on career and technical education high schools in the New York City school system. He was also the lead author of "Between Hope and Hard Times" (2004), the Center's comprehensive report on low-income working families in New York State, and "More Hard Times for New York's Working Families" (2006), a follow-up policy brief. David has served on advisory boards for Urban Agenda and Community Voices Heard and has published a number of opinion pieces and short features in local and national outlets. David graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in History and a B.A. in Political Science and earned his Master's in Public Policy from Georgetown University.
David Giles is the Center for an Urban Future's research associate. He grew up in one of the nation’s first federally subsidized master-planned communities outside Houston, Texas, and first became fascinated with cities on a Fulbright Scholarship in Berlin, Germany. After studying philosophy at the University of Chicago, he moved to New York City and began writing about eminent domain controversies and sustainable development issues for City Limits, The Next American City and The Architect's Newspaper, among other publications. In his spare time, he is directing a documentary about a neighborhood of junkyards in Queens.
Mark Anthony Thomas joined City Futures as deputy director in 2008. He oversees development, administration, publishing and marketing for both City Limits and the Center for an Urban Future. Before joining City Futures, he was a public relations officer for an international health collaboration between Columbia University and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Before coming to New York, he worked as a community affairs representative for Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Atlanta. He has been recognized by the Southeastern Council on Foundations with a Hull Fellowship Award, serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Helping Teens Succeed, and has been profiled by Time magazine and Essence magazine. Mark graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.B.A in Marketing and is currently enrolled in the Executive M.P.A. program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Joel
Kotkin served as co-author of "Engine Failure,"
an acclaimed Center for an Urban Future report that painted a bold new
plan for economic growth in New York City. He has also completed studies
on the future of several other major cities, including St. Louis, Phoenix
, Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the Inland Empire region of
Southern California. In November 2005, in association with the Planning
Center, he finished a year long study on the future of suburban development.
He is currently completing a study for the Reason Foundation on the future
of transportation mobility in the United States. Joel is the author of
"The City: A Global History" and "The New Geography: How
the Digital Revolution is Reshaping the American Landscape." He is
also an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.
©2008 Center for an Urban Future. All Rights Reserved.
120 Wall Street, 20th Floor, NY, NY 10005 Phone (212) 479-3341 Fax (212) 479-3338 E-mail cuf@nycfuture.org