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.
New York by the Numbers
Economic snapshots of the 5 boroughs
Staff, Fellows & Board

Mission & History |
Areas of Investigation |
Staff, Fellows & Board |
CUF in the News |
Funders
Center for an Urban Future Staff
Jonathan
Bowles, Director
Tel: 212.479.3347
E-mail: jbowles@nycfuture.org
Andy
Breslau, Executive Director
Tel: 212.479.3352
E-mail: andy@cityfutures.org
Ahmad Dowla,
Operations Coordinator
Tel: 212.479.3319
E-mail: ahmad@cityfutures.org
David
Giles, Research Associate
Tel: 212.479.3353
E-mail: dgiles@nycfuture.org
Joel Kotkin,
Senior Fellow
E-mail: jkotkin@pacbell.net
Glenn von Nostitz,
Senior Fellow in Policy Research and Development
Tel: 212.479.3348
E-mail: gvonnostitz@nycfuture.org

City Futures Board of Directors
Chairman: Andrew Reicher, UHAB
Vice-Chair: Michael Connor, Open Mic
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
Gifford Miller, Miller Strategies
Jefrey Pollock, Global Strategy Group
John Siegal, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Stephen Sigmund

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. In 2008, 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 is the CEO of the Center for an Urban Future and the Executive Director of it's corporate parent City Futures. He join the Center 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.
Ahmad
Dowla is the current Operations Coordinator for the Center for an Urban Future. He 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 computer science and music theory.
David Giles is the Center for an Urban Future's Research Associate. In his two years at the Center, he has written about the need for New York to diversify its economy by looking to sectors like health information technology and the problems many of the city's small businesses have had in accessing energy efficiency incentives. As a coauthor of the Center's major report on the middle class, he has also written about some of the economic pressures driving middle class residents out of the city. 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. He lives in Crown Heights Brooklyn with his wife and baby daughter.
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.
Glenn von Nostitz is the Center for an Urban Future's senior fellow in policy research and development. His prior research covered a wide array of New York City issues, from ground-breaking investigations in the early 1980s on the resurgence of garment sweatshops to reports on income-based health care disparities, the city's workforce system and its career and technical education schools while serving as Director of the Office of Policy Management in the Office of the New York City Comptroller (2005-2009). Highlights of Glenn's work as Deputy New York City Public Advocate for Research and Investigations (1994-2001) include an assessment of the city's efforts to redevelop its brownfields, an analysis of retail banking services in low-income communities and a critical examination of the New York State hospital inspection program. As Assistant Commissioner for Advocacy at the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (1990-1993) Glenn authored the widely-cited "The Poor Pay More... for Less" studies on grocery store prices, the check-cashing industry, automobile insurance and predatory home improvement lending. For the New York State Trial Lawyers Association he wrote reports on civil justice matters and a study (2004) documenting that construction-site accidents in New York disproportionately hurt immigrant workers. Glenn lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.


