Vital City
@VitalCityNYC
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Enlightening data. New ideas. Civil conversation. Founder @LizGlazerNYC . Co-editor @GregBerman50 .
New York City
Joined September 2021
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Vital City is proud to release our seventh issue, Does Evidence Matter?, on the intersection of academic research and public policy. It's a partnership with
@NiskanenCenter
and its excellent Hypertext journal. Thanks also to
@HFGuggenheim
for their support.
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@besttrousers
And it surely generated a lot in glasses purchases, other merchandise and media revenue.
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The death rate in NYC jails is literally off the charts. This year we've had the most deaths in custody since 2013 when the population was double what it is today.
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The criminal justice system is not the only entity that contributes to public safety.
@JenniferDoleac
and
@Annalilharvey
discuss examples of civic interventions unrelated to criminal justice that have a positive effect on violent crime.
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Read
@Christy_E_Lopez
's new piece for Vital City on why many local policing units like Memphis' Scorpion persist despite the serious damage they often do.
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Theory: When older people live in vibrant cities with thriving culture and street life, they’re less likely to feel isolated
The elderly are especially at risk of social isolation, which can literally shorten their lives. One of our proposals at the
@NiskanenCenter
is to expand the Au Pair program to eldercare. Read more here:
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We would like to take this opportunity to proudly share Harry "Contributing Writer" Siegel's Vital City work:
We thank
@NYDailyNews
for correcting the record.
The men and women of the NYPD work tirelessly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year to protect the City of New York.
It is a shame that Harry "Deceitful" Siegel refuses to recognize that.
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"American rail projects defy global averages by multiples rather than mere percentage points."
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New in Vital City: Read
@PizaEric
on what Chicago's ShotSpotter experience teaches cities about technology and gun violence.
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Exciting research on how changing the physical city reduces crime:
New street lighting reduced crime by 36% without increasing the number of arrests. The effect has persisted for 3 yrs so far.
@AaronChalfin
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NYC jails have been under a federal court order since 2015 to fix the “culture of violence.” Since then, key measures of violence have risen exponentially: Deaths, stabbings and slashings. If 2015’s violence was unconstitutional, then what do we call 2022?
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In the past 10 days, two more people died in NYC jails, bringing this year’s total dead to 11. At this rate, the City will end the year topping last year’s astonishing death toll of 16, nearly triple the rate of previous years.
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Violence in NYC jails continues to escalate. Through June, 2022 stabbings and slashings are up 520% over 2016, 379% from 2019 (+201 incidents) and 39% (+71) from 2021.
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We’re here to provide actionable ideas for improving public safety and trust in our cities.
Read our strategies for reducing gun violence from some of the best and brightest minds.
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Missed yesterday's Vital City-
@ColumbiaLaw
-
@CUNYISLG
-
@CampaignZero
forum on the state of the Rikers jails and the possibility of a federal receiver? Watch it here:
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People detained in NYC jails — meant for short stays of the unconvicted – died at a rate of 1 per 1,000 between 2015 to 2019.
In 2022, that rate has doubled.
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New at Vital City: NYC Planning Director Dan Garodnick on why a zoning rethink is long overdue:
Vital City | When Zoning Goes Too Far
Ratcheting back NYC’s zoning restrictions
www.vitalcitynyc.org
Pleased to join the
#CityofYes
coalition and Mayor Adams on behalf of
@NiskanenCenter
's housing team
Amid decades of downzonings starting in 1961, this is the only significant citywide pro-housing proposal in NYC since 1987's modest Quality Housing program.
The tide is turning
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.
@THECITYNY
is a high-quality publication. All New Yorkers — those in positions of power and the powerless, too! — should read it.
Deputy Mayor Banks coldly shut down
@katie_honan
asking a question at his weekly briefing
" We're staying on topic here and you can have your question answered and no, I don't read the publication that you mentioned anyway, so I'm not even aware of it."
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We are excited to announce that Josh Greenman, the longtime
@NYDailyNews
opinion and editorial page editor, is joining
@VitalCityNYC
as our managing editor.
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On TikTok, a clear and powerful explainer on what’s going on in NYC’s ungovernable jails and how a receiver could change that from the great, knowledgeable
@TownsendSarena
.
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“Policing, by and large, does not prevent crime—policing deters crime.”
@JohnKRoman
and
@JeffreyButts
discuss the differences between prevention and deterrence in the public safety debate.
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The criminal justice system is not the only entity that contributes to public safety.
@JenniferDoleac
and
@Annalilharvey
discuss examples of civic interventions unrelated to criminal justice that have a positive effect on violent crime.
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Like libraries? Want them to withstand budget cuts? Read
@edrabinski
make the case for cities to support them through good times and bad.
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Read more about bioswales here:
By installing bioswales and green space in place of parking spots, we will reduce flooding and absorb stormwater.
One bioswale can manage between 1,100 and 2,200 gallons of water during a storm.
This
@NACTO
graphic shows what this could look like:
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Why are we talking about receivership now? Because almost all conditions are worse than when they were determined to be unconstitutional in 2015.
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Please. The federal monitor shining a light on abysmal conditions is no radical progressive. Nor is the U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who wants receivership. And how about the New York Post editorial board?
Let's use our common sense. Whose assessment of conditions at Rikers is more credible: the radical progressives seeking to close Rikers at all costs, who hate our police and are openly trying to abolish the NYPD, whose failed ideology has led to crime, riots, homelessness, and
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Incorrect. This is actually a superhero origin story.
A big drop of ripe subway water just plopped into my eye from an overhead grate and now I feel like that guy in 28 Days Later when a drop of infected blood from a bird hit him in the eye and he realized he was about to turn zombie.
Nice knowing you guys!
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Also, it's a window into how many Brooklynites want Chick-fil-A and Shake Shack delivered to their homes.
This used to be a lane of Flatbush avenue, one of the busiest streets in Brooklyn. Now it is entirely taken over by delivery drivers on largely unregistered, uninsured, mopeds. I have profound sympathy for folks trying to make a living in this goddamn city, but come on, man.
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Next time a politician or activist says "nothing stops a bullet like a job," point them to this Vital City piece.
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Data is notoriously hard to pin down in NYC jails, but slashings and stabbings give best measure of violence since they're recorded for medical reasons.
Violence tripled between 2020 and 2021. Already this year they’ve doubled since same time last year.
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From his upcoming book,
@PeterMoskos
’ look at the 1990s in New York City paints a picture of crime, policing, and the revitalization needed to make the city safer.
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Public safety data is like a ransom note. There are scraps from many sources, but it's not always easy to find in one place and with proper context.
That's why we've launched a new feature, Vital Signs:
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If we don’t have a clear picture of the data around homelessness, solutions will be elusive. The same is true of our jail system.
Kudos to
@DavidFBrand
@JeanmarieEvelly
@CityLimitsNews
for this important work and to
@ericlach
for shining a spotlight.
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Judge Swain: "The court is persuaded that the proposal to move ahead at this time with an application" for contempt or receivership "is appropriate." "The people incarcerated at Rikers are at a grave risk of immediate harm."
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This week, a 14th person died in DOC custody. Without urgent, bold intervention that meets the gravity of the crisis, 2022 will undoubtedly exceed last year's high number of 16 deaths. Could a receiver be the new power needed to stop the bleeding?
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Thanks for sharing this, Jennifer.
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Thanks to
@mattkatz00
for linking to this
@hernandezstroud
Vital City piece in his
@gothamist
report on the correction officers union’s anti-receivership brief.
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Great thanks to
@Arnold_Ventures
for spotlighting our seventh issue, Does Evidence Matter?, here:
Please read the issue!
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Vital City founder
@LizGlazerNYC
and co-editor
@GregBerman50
wrote about ways we can reduce gun violence beyond increasing police presence in NYC for the
@NYDailyNews
.
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Transformational change is far too high a bar for policies to clear. Incremental changes, when added up, amount to something powerful, writes
@AaronChalfin
of
@Penn
.
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"Nothing stops a bullet like a job" is an oft-repeated refrain on the left. But is it true? Read Jens Ludwig of
@UChiUrbanLabs
and
@KSchnepel
in this important new Vital City piece:
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Always worth reading,
@jenniferdoleac
of
@Arnold_Ventures
explains how smart reforms, including preregistration of randomized controlled trials, can guard against the distortion of evidence.
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New Yorker Picked a Bad Day To Build History’s Most Elaborate Domino Run
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.
@PeterMoskos
: "There is no tide or magnetic field that pulls gun triggers in the same direction. Even macro-level factors, such as COVID-19 or post-Floyd urban unrest of 2020, affect localities in very different ways."
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“We feel like we can’t really ask [the police] for help. When there’s people out there actually getting hurt, they’re nowhere to be found.”
More from a survey conducted by Basaime Spate and Javonte Alexander of
@courtinnovation
and others below.
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This week's event on receivership and Rikers was educational and productive. Thank you to our speakers
@VinSchiraldi
, Sara Norman, Teresa Abreu, Sen. John Curran, Thomas Geragthy, Benjamin S. Wolf,
@errolouis
, Gladys Carrión, Zachary Carter, Michael Jacobson, and
@Stan_Fortune
.
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Thank you, Thomas!
I just spent much of my weekend reading the latest issue of
@VitalCityNYC
, which is quickly becoming the crime nerds' New Yorker, i.e. we love all the articles but feel deep remorse and guilt when we inevitably can't keep current.
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The criminal justice system is not the only entity that contributes to public safety.
@JenniferDoleac
and
@Annalilharvey
discuss examples of civic interventions unrelated to criminal justice that have a positive effect on violent crime.
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Not a mathematician, but 2031 comes after 2027, so this seems problematic.
Rikers is supposed to close in 2027, but 2 replacement jails won't open until 2031
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"I trained a custom AI model to detect when mopeds were illegally riding in bike lanes, using an existing network of Department of Transportation cameras." Read what Benjamin Arnav found here:
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At today's online forum on Rikers Island:
@jan_ransom
and
@errollouis
moderate two panels stacked with top experts, including
@Stan_Fortune
@hernandezstroud
@michaelislg
@Christy_E_Lopez
@graham_rayman
@TownsendSarena
and many others.
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240 pages. Get yours, read a page a day in perfect gradualist style, and finish on Thanksgiving Day — when you can proceed to argue with your family about the thesis.
Coming soon! Pub date: March 28. Now available for pre-order:
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In 2020, there were 375,800 fewer serious crimes in the US compared to 2019, about a 5% decline. Amidst the overall decline, one specific type of crime ran counter to trend: murders were up nearly 30%.
How should we think about these statistics?
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Annual Rikers Island mortality rates, from the latest report by the federal monitor. (It's too early to compute the 2023 figure.)
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On the cusp of a major federal court hearing on Rikers Island, Vital City is sharing two illuminating (and devastating) charts on the state of the city jails. One shows, among other things, that this is the deadliest July there since 2005, and the deadliest month since 2013.
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@jayrosen_nyu
I mean you’re obviously doing Meet John Doe and His Girl Friday and Ace in the Hole and The Paper and The Insider.
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Came across this important 2019
@mattyglesias
piece on why cities can and should be great places to raise kids.
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New at Vital City: Read
@JohnKRoman
offering 20 strategies cities can employ to reduce crime — not instead of, but alongside, smart law enforcement.
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Excellent piece by
@TedAlcorn
in
@MarshallProj
. Read more on solving shootings in Vital City Issue 5:
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Evidence shows that policing can make a difference in reducing crime. There are also legitimate concerns that increased police contact may disproportionately target disadvantaged groups.
@MWillJr
looks at the research on law enforcement.
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Now someone do a showtime dance to Brian Lehrer.
guy is blasting audio from his phone speaker on the train but instead of music or videos it's the
@wnyc
newscast. plot twist
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Cannabis seems to be everywhere in New York City these days — but we don't know enough about its effects.
@MegHaneyPhD
of
@ColumbiaPsych
explains what she's learning in her lab about cannabis use disorder.
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So, how will congestion pricing actually work? Read our explainer and study this graphic, which is the most comprehensive we've seen.
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"where developers have built a lot of housing in recent years, rent growth has slowed. Where they’ve built little housing, by contrast, rent growth has continued to accelerate"
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Care about cities and transit? Give these thoughtful pieces a read.
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"How would one create a publication that could establish similar countercultural hegemony? Could it exist in a city where housing costs have scattered cultural scenes and political milieus, which no longer have as decisive a center as Greenwich Village was for the Voice?"
I wrote about one of the most unique institutions this town's weirdos have ever had.
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Today, Vital City is proud to release a special online issue on New York's jail population and how good public policy can bring it down while keeping the city safe. Please give it a look!
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“Focused deterrence engages the police and community groups in identifying those individuals who are most likely to engage in future violence.”
@GregBerman50
discusses the need to implement this tactic in cities across the country afflicted by violence.
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Judge Swain: "This is a difficult situation to say the least...I have made my expectations very clear...I urge the families of those who are in custody to continue to live in hope, expectation and watchfulness."
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At the Rikers hearing in federal court just now, Judge Swain discussed the timetable for motions on contempt or receivership. Most dates mentioned are in 2024.
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"After spiking in 2020 and rising a little further in 2021, homicides seem to be falling again. The bad news is that this has been an extremely slow process." And when it jumped, "homicide went up pretty much everywhere, including in GOP strongholds."
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Monday marked the 18th death in custody just this year. The man who died, Gilberto Garcia, was incarcerated for three years pretrial. Jail is not intended for people to stay for long periods of time, much less three years. Unfortunately, Garcia's case is all too common.
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Combatting gun violence requires every tool, including investments in services like community job programs.
Our latest issue provides actionable ideas for enduring public safety. Read it here.
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Jacobson: Releasing many people from Rikers during the pandemic was a "huge success," and can teach lessons for those charged with continuing to fix the jobs. Need "a constant look" at "driving our population down."
.
@michaelislg
: Every receiver worth their salt will engage with a broad range of people and constituencies, including formerly incarcerated individuals.
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Read
@ericgoldwyn
of the Transit Costs Project diagnosing what's behind America's (and in particular New York's) exorbitant per-mile rail-transit spending:
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What are you doing next Wednesday from 12-2?
Tune in to this essential conversation with experts from Vital City,
@cunyislg
,
@columbialaw
and
@campaignzero
on whether the Rikers Island jails are ungovernable and how to abate the awful violence there.
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When Jelani Cobb (
@jelani9
) interviews Elijah Anderson (
@ElijaAnderson
), that's something anyone who cares about cities and race and human interaction should read. From
@VitalCityNYC
Issue 3:
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“Reducing sludge, Sunstein says, is something residents will notice and appreciate. ‘The idea that a locality should make a sustained effort to reduce administrative burdens,’ he says, ‘is thrilling from the standpoint of residents who are struggling…’ ’”
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"Prior research that has focused on criminality has understated the true social costs of increased access to alcohol."
Read
@dhjalcohol
in Vital City on some of those costs:
@AnnaBindler
@nadineketel
@Econ_Mike
@maya_rossin
@restatjournal
@KatrineLoken
@J_HumanResource
@abicadams
@KristiinaHuttu2
@EmilyNix100
@ningzhang0927
@QJEHarvard
@gmastrob
@JPAM_DC
"The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Crime Victimization" by
@AaronChalfin
,
@benconomics
, & Rachel Ryley. Published in
@J_HumanResource
in 2023.
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Dick Ravitch could be grumpy about public policy, particularly when he thought people were being stupid. But he was tremendously gracious and decent to people from all walks of life.
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A fascinating and important question: How and why do New York City neighborhoods evolve?
@mousam
focuses his sharp eye on Flatbush.
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Nonprofit theater isn't fiscally sustainable without subsidy. Neither are many museums or libraries. Some things just deserve public support because they ennoble and enrich us.
the warning signs for non-profit theaters in NYC (BAM, the Public) and across the country are flashing bright red, and if these theaters close they aren't coming back
@parabasis
sounds the alarm — and makes an urgent case for a bailout — in
@nytopinion
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Every victim is a whole person. Every violent crime is a rupture.
Each issue of our weekly newsletter features a brief obituary for a victim of gun violence.
This week, we remember Shayla Curts, 22. Read more about her life from
@jennavictoriat
in
@KCStar
:
Subscribe:
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"If you increase housing production, even of market-rate housing, it will slow rent growth."
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Just how powerful and multidimensional is poverty, and how does it relate to neighborhood violence? Walk through this compelling data interactive by
@WesternBruce
and
@AliaLNahra
:
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If there’s any justice, he’ll get snapped up. Too smart, too fast, too well-sourced.
Two mayors, two govs, two MTA chairs and god knows how many budgets — proud of the stories on billion dollar stations, unequal COVID and mpox vaccine access, kids left in lead-tainted apartments, and unsafe shelters. It’s been a good run. Got laid off. Will be at the bar.
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.
@alon_levy
of NYU's Transit Cost Project lays out what should be the MTA's capital investment priorities (and how to do it all for less $).
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Vital City offers its deepest condolences to the loved ones, colleagues and friends of legal scholar Chris Edley, who passed away on Friday. Edley lived a genuinely impactful life advancing justice. Our sympathies are with
@SAFEmansion
and family.
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Congratulations to
@alykatzz
,
@Gregbsmithnyc
,
@ReuvenBlau
,
@jere_hester
,
@harrysiegel
,
@katie_honan
,
@RichardKimNYC
and the rest of the great crew past and present.
🎂FIVE YEARS of
@THECITYNY
, today!
This is a huge milestone, and I reflect on our work in the last 1/2 decade (!) I’m so proud that we’ve stayed true to our mission. None of us knew what we were getting into, but we were determined to dig deeper & be a true service for New York
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New Yorkers know that two overdose prevention centers are at the center of a huge fight over the right way to address illicit drug use. We talked to
@samrivera1111
of
@_OnPointNYC
to understand exactly how what they do and why.
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A French bakery, at that.
94% of Parisians live within a 5-minute walk of a bakery. 🇫🇷 🥖
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The criminal justice system is not the only entity that contributes to public safety.
@JenniferDoleac
and
@Annalilharvey
discuss examples of civic interventions unrelated to criminal justice that have a positive effect on violent crime.
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Why is the Adams administration restricting access to information about the jails?
@Stan_Fortune
, former deputy corrections commissioner — and former Rikers inmate — explains how when he worked for the city, the department pursued a different strategy.
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