We recently discussed the general idea of branding and developing upstate New York as a "Silicon Valley" for alternative energy production. There was a variety of interest on this subject, and I'd like to develop this issue further. Specifically, Robinia mentioned dividing upstate regions to develop specialties for different upstate cities and rural areas. Such a plan would be tangible to elected officials and allow New York to present a unified front. We can then lobby the Obama administration for federal dollars to get the ball rolling.
It seems to me that we should look at production already occurring in these areas, figure out the major specialties, and push those areas for each region. So let's look at a logical division.
Crossposted from the DMIBlog where guest blogger Paul Brophy of the American Assembly writes about a new report that everyone upstate and downstate should be talking about.
The mainstream macro-economists tell us that globalization is good for the world and good for the United States. Maybe, maybe not. But two things seem certain: Globalization is here to stay, and it produces big disruptions in places that have lost manufacturing jobs to China and other low-wage countries.
In the United States, those places are our older industrial metro areas, whose economic health is key to America's competitiveness. The largest 100 metro areas contain 65% of our population and produce three quarters of our gross domestic product. Some are thriving, but others have yet to find their footing in the global economy. Over 65 metro areas from Baltimore to Beaumont, New Orleans to Newark (see the full list here), are currently in a downward spiral of declining jobs, population, tax revenues and other vital signs.
How can mayors and county executives in these places cope?
The Drum Major Institute hosted an event yesterday on preventing wrongful convictions and exonerating the innocent. Dallas DA Craig Watkins, Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project, New York State Senator Eric Schneiderman, and Westchester DA Janet DiFiore discussed reforms for reducing the incarcerations of innocent people in Dallas and how these policies could work in New York and what it would take to get them implemented here. Our liveblog and some video clips are posted below.
New York Assemblyman Joe Lentol was among the audience members. He asked the panel a question but included this horrifying anecdote that reveals the attitudes that keep common sense criminal justice reform from passing.
(From our friends at the Drum Major Institute. I'll have more on this later. Short version is that I think the Governor's plan is solid policy. I really do. However, I think the ineptitude with which it was introduced has likely killed it. In this piece Andrea describes a "conversation" about an important issue. I'm all for that, but the Governor ceded the progressive half of that immediately by saying, well, by saying nothing. My take on this is very close to Bouldin's. Regardless, I am awfully tired of watching a blowdried blowhard like Dobbs spout Bruno's "spoiled, rich kid brat" schtick. - promoted by phillip anderson)
post by Drum Major Institute's Andrea Batista Schlesinger Lou Dobbs is at it again. His target this time? Governor Eliot Spitzer and his plan to provide drivers licenses to New Yorkers regardless of their citizenship.
In developing your own opinion on the Governor's proposal consider this: If, like Lou Dobbs, you believe political pandering that exploits fear should be used to stall a much-needed conversation about immigration policy, you should join his knee-jerk opposition to Governor Spitzer's plan. But if you want a common-sense approach that follows the lead of eight other states and would make New York's people and streets safer, go with the Governor.
"A study by the Center for Responsible Lending documented that African Americans and Latinos get high-priced mortgages far more frequently than whites -- even when they are equally qualified for prime loans... For proof of this, all one has to do is go to South Queens, where blacks have higher incomes than their white Queens counterparts, but pay more for credit and are losing their homes through foreclosure at epidemic rates..."
"Sub-prime lending often works as self-fulfilling prophecy. The most efficient way to ruin a person's credit, and thus make him or her truly eligible for a sub-prime loan, is to make a loan unaffordable, or indiscriminately jack up the price of the loan after a few years, to a person who has a good credit history, but whose income is unlikely to rise along with the payments. For those of us involved in anti-predatory lending organizing and advocacy, we talk to people everyday who never missed a loan payment in their lives until they received a sub-prime mortgage."
Clearly there's a lot more to this issue -- one that we often explore on the DMIBlog. That's why I'd like to invite you all to come to our October 11th Marketplace of Ideas Event (yeah that's Thursday!) featuring MN Attorney General Lori Swanson. She will speak on Minnesota's predatory mortgage lending law which requires lenders to verify borrowers' ability to repay their loan and bans refinancing loans without benefit to the borrower among other anti-predatory measures.
Join us at the DOWNTOWN CONFERENCE CENTER AT PACE UNIVERSITY
157 William Street (at Ann Street, 1 block north of Fulton Street) New York, NY 10038
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2007 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
"A study by the Center for Responsible Lending documented that African Americans and Latinos get high-priced mortgages far more frequently than whites -- even when they are equally qualified for prime loans... For proof of this, all one has to do is go to South Queens, where blacks have higher incomes than their white Queens counterparts, but pay more for credit and are losing their homes through foreclosure at epidemic rates..."
"Sub-prime lending often works as self-fulfilling prophecy. The most efficient way to ruin a person's credit, and thus make him or her truly eligible for a sub-prime loan, is to make a loan unaffordable, or indiscriminately jack up the price of the loan after a few years, to a person who has a good credit history, but whose income is unlikely to rise along with the payments. For those of us involved in anti-predatory lending organizing and advocacy, we talk to people everyday who never missed a loan payment in their lives until they received a sub-prime mortgage."
Clearly there's a lot more to this issue -- one that we often explore on the DMIBlog. That's why I'd like to invite you all to come to our October 11th Marketplace of Ideas Event (yeah that's Thursday!) featuring MN Attorney General Lori Swanson. She will speak on Minnesota's predatory mortgage lending law which requires lenders to verify borrowers' ability to repay their loan and bans refinancing loans without benefit to the borrower among other anti-predatory measures.
Join us at the DOWNTOWN CONFERENCE CENTER AT PACE UNIVERSITY
157 William Street (at Ann Street, 1 block north of Fulton Street) New York, NY 10038
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2007 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
(From Amy Traub at DMIBlog)
At the beginning of the month, I wrote an op-ed for the Albany Times-Union challenging the conventional wisdom that the year's legislative session was largely a failure. I pointed out that on issues important to most current and aspiring middle-class New Yorkers, Albany has made significant progress: hundreds of thousands of low-income kids are becoming eligible for state health insurance, underserved schools are finally getting resources they've needed for decades, and new groups of employees are eligible to organize themselves for a fair deal at work. I argued that by minimizing these substantial policy victories for ordinary New Yorkers, we risk feeding into dangerous myths that nothing of substance is ever accomplished in the state capitol.
(I saw this this morning as well. Nice one, Newsday. - promoted by phillip anderson)
(UPDATE! Just got off the phone with Newsday and their online editor was very responsive. They'll use more objective descriptions & represent the range of opinions next time around).
* * * Newsday is a serious regional newspaper -- the kind we could use more of. That's why I was so disgusted to see this push-poll full of false choices on their website this morning. Everyone knows that immigration is a hotly debated topic in Long Island, a situation exacerbated by the political maneuvering of a certain ambitious elected who should know better.
That does not excuse a legitimate newspaper from creating an online push-poll using skewed language which asks respondents to make a choice between unfeasible, destructive options and a coded language slur constructed to bias the public against comprehensive immigration reform. According to Newsday here are the only opinions one can have on immigration policy (and the percentage they poll right now).
14.7%
Tougher border and visa control (57 responses)
70.2%
Tougher control, deportation of undocumented (273 responses)
8.7%
Tougher control, some kind of amnesty (34 responses)
3.1%
Tougher control, amnesty (12 responses)
1.5%
Amnesty (6 responses)
1.8%
None, it's fine as it is (7 responses)
(So true. Then again, I like sweet corn... - promoted by lipris)
As the New York State legislature wraps-up their 2007 session some interesting bills have come to light, like the bill to make sweet corn the official state vegetable and a bill that will help ticket scalpers. Clearly this is the kind of legislation that keeps New York State residents up at night asking existential questions like "what role does sweet corn play in my life?" or "how far from a stadium can I buy re-sold Yankees tickets?". Well I guess if you are involved in the racing industry that scalpers' bill is a big deal but what about the rest of us? What's in the state's legislative hopper?
Last week DMI Fellow Maureen Lane wrote about a sensible welfare policy bill that has the potential to help move people out of poverty. So far it hasn't been introduced by the State Senate. DMI Fellow Mark Winston Griffith blogged about model anti-predatory lending legislation that New Yorkers for Responsible Lending is working to call attention to. The city is now waiting to see if the legislature will approve Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 including its congestion pricing proposals. The Working Families Party has been doing amazing work around the Working Families Time to Care Act which is their legislative priority this year. And as always, The Albany Project has been doing an incredible job keeping track of the legislative goings-ons.
Yet at the end of the day while the legislature is wrestling with the question of who gets to make a whole bunch of money selling tickets there really are serious problems that need to be addressed by the state government. Some of the issues New York is struggling to handle -- subsidy reform, what to do with criminals when they are released from prison, providing universal access to preschool and the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs -- are real challenges but they aren't insurmountable. In fact four localities around the country did tackle these battles with great success. Want to know more?
Now I know it's a cliche that the state legislature "doesn't do anything" and that's not even my point here. Simply that as they go about the business of the state not all issues are equally urgent and a lot of other parts in the country have implemented policies that New York can learn a lot from. Is that too much to ask? But in the meantime, "Gentlemen, behold! Corn!"
Long Island continues to be one of the places most divided over immigration. Last week Adelphi University and the Horace Hagedorn Foundation released a study with results that combat some negative myths about the impact Hispanics (the largest immigrant population in the area) have on Long Island's economy. The study shows:
Long Island Hispanics contribute nearly a billion dollars a year in taxes and other revenues to local government, far more than they use in public services, producing a net benefit to the public of $202 million a year. Consumer spending by Hispanics produced an additional $5.7 billion impact on the Long Island economy, creating more than 52,000 jobs.
In today's Newsday, the biggest paper in Long Island, conservative columnist Raymond J. Keating came out in support of their new study and in support of treating immigrants with respect. In a great column he writes
Locally, it's time for some groups to stop kicking around immigrants, and instead start recognizing the role they play in keeping Long Island's economy afloat. Common-sense economics and basic human decency dictate welcoming immigrants and aiding their assimilation.
I hope his well argued support makes other potential allies take notice. Marginalizing immigrants as enforcement-only immigration reform would do inhibits their ability to contribute to the economy and makes them even more vulnerable to exploitation by employers (thus making unscrupulous employers want to hire only easily exploited immigrants). Recognizing the economic contributions of immigrants is key to creating comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens and expands the American Middle Class. For more on that check out DMI's report on immigration and the middle class.
It's about the promises of Vertical Farming, an idea dreamed up by a Columbia Professor and it so crazy it just might work.
In a nutshell, Vertical Farming has the potential to feed the world's hungry in a very sustainable way, grow crops without pesticides, purify urban air and water, create clean energy, increase access to locally-grown produce in poor communities where it is lacking, and provide jobs to many people.
Well I guess if you are involved in the racing industry that scalpers' bill is a big deal but what about the rest of us? What's in the state's legislative hopper?
