November 2008

  • Food Banks: Another Crisis Casualty?

    Last week, when a prominent and long-standing central New Jersey soup kitchen went to the newspapers as a last resort to inform the public that demand was up, donations were down, and that it would have to cut back on…

  • Community Stabilization: Are CDCs Up To The Task?

    Imagine that it’s hurricane season, and 150 Katrinas are pounding poor neighborhoods — and the federal government response is totally inadequate. The community development movement faces two challenges: first, that 30-plus years of solid, successful community revitalization work could be…

  • Don’t Put All The Dollars Into a Few Streets?

    In a new, substantial post on planetizen.com, Charles Buki suggests that the foreclosure crisis presents an opportunity for community developers to re-assess where they allocate their limited resources. He says we should be fighting to protect the gains made in…

  • Talk About Aging In Place…

    Aging in place for some is the ultimate ideal. Elderly individuals, with their faculties in tact, and who are physically sound, stay in the houses where they raised their families, and remain in the communities where they have roots, paid…

  • In From the Margins

    Well well well — Wall Street goes into the dumper after years of “free market” worship and Congress and newspapers and all begin fumbling for advice, new sources. Someone to make sense of it. Suddenly others beyond Greenspan acolytes are invited into the conversation. Seems the tectonic shift in the economy has re-aligned the terrain of the discussion. The ground heaves with daily aftershocks. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz equates Wall Street’s collapse to that of the Berlin Wall, as he told Nathan Gardels in a Huffington Post Q & A: The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism — it tells the world that this way of economic organization turns out not to be sustainable. In the end, everyone says, that model doesn’t work. This moment is a marker that the claims of financial market liberalization were bogus. And many of us would say “about damn time someone said that.” Maybe now there will be political openings to actually implement some change. more

  • Gloomy Outlook for Nonprofits

    It’s going to be a while before we begin hearing some good economic news, particularly as the current economic landscape reverberates within the non-profit world. And with that, a forum held Wednesday on the impact of the crisis on nonprofits and social service delivery in New York City did not seek to mince words or leave anyone asking “tell us how you really feel?” It basically reported that upwards of 100,000 non-profit organizations could perish in this financial crisis. Crain’s report on Wednesday’s forum, hosted by the Foundation Center, the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, United Way of New York City, and Citigroup, indicated that the “financial crisis is already resulting in a steep drop in funding for these organizations, forcing them to cut their budgets, and eliminate staff and programs,” pointing to testimony offered by according to Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University. Light, according to the report, “called on foundations to liquidate their assets to create a safety net for social services groups, or at the very least increase their annual pay-out rates from the current 5 percent, as one step toward solving the sector’s problems.” We’ve reported here on Rooflines in the past of the prospect of CDCs and other non-profit organizations merging several functions, such as financial management and even housing development, as a pragmatic operations shift in this gloomy economy. And while Crain’s reports that experts at the forum acknowledged a reluctance in the non-profit world to merge, they suggested they should collaborate on back office support and health care plans to save money. more

  • {caption}

    Infrastructure Woes or Opportunities?

    Anyone who has wasted hours each day commuting to work, sat in traffic for an hour as a freight train inched by, waited endlessly for a bus only to have four arrive at once, or paid a week’s wages for a short plane flight can vouch for the inconveniences, inefficiencies, and travesties of our country’s transportation infrastructure. At a November 17 conference sponsored by Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council, elected officials, agency staffers and advocates from the U.S. and Canada described the daunting infrastructure challenges facing the heartland in terms of transportation and the related issues of water and housing. The picture they painted was grim, but they emphasized the possibility of turning the dire situation into an opportunity for reshaping infrastructure priorities and investment. more

  • What We Talk About When We Talk About…Voting Machines

    I suppose post-election time is as good a time as any to talk about voting machine flaws, particularly following a decisive presidential election. But, just like falling gas prices in the short-term are no indication of an ebbing crisis, decisive…

  • The Trials of Grass-roots Community Planning

    Tom Angotti’s new book, New York For Sale shows just how frustrating it can be to achieve true community-based planning. He writes that after the city government gave the power to plan to community boards, elected at the neighborhood level,…

  • {caption}

    Hope…of Curbing Climate Change

    When the Environmental Law and Policy Center was founded in Chicago 15 years ago, cell phones that could get clear reception or send images halfway across the globe were a novelty. Now, this and even more advanced communications technology are…

  • No Road Home for New Orleans Minorities?

    Two fair housing organizations are alleging that HUD’s Road Home program valued homes in white neighborhoods in New Orleans higher than similar homes in minority neighborhoods. From yesterday’s press release: Civil rights and fair housing groups filed a federal lawsuit…

  • {caption}

    News in the Future Tense

    What a great attention-grabber. Dated July 4, 2009, the lead story in the edition of The New York Times handed out to commuters in New York City yesterday morning trumpeted in giant type “IRAQ WAR ENDS”—alongside the other above-the-fold headline,…

  • The Biggest Winners

    Obama’s election. For those under 30, it was a landslide. Despite the news that Obama is considering the neoliberal Larry Summers for Treasury Secretary and former Senator Sam Nunn is aiding the transition process at the Pentagon, I am overjoyed…

  • The Urban (Policy) President?

    We anticipated this, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that an Obama administration will contain a Department of Urban Policy. According to a Washington Post blog, plans are in the works to establish an urban policy department “in order to better…

  • Sorting Through What Sustainability Means

    It’s interesting how language shifts slightly over time to reflect new ways of thinking. I recall a few years ago reading that some people interpreted “smart growth” to mean government telling people what they could and could not do with…

  • {caption}

    Bagging the Big Apple

    In Amsterdam, at a Super de Boer, imagine my surprise when I had to pay for a grocery bag because I didn’t bring my own. In the U.S., I buy those biodegradable poop bags for my dog, so I don’t need the plastic grocery bags. I bring canvas to the store, etc. Yeah, I try to be “green” when I can. I think more and more people these days do. But when I left the Super de Boer, I was amazed. I don’t live in an area, or a state, for that matter, that would employ such a progressive-minded initiative. I do know that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been on a lengthy campaign to get people to recycle their plastic grocery bags, or bring their own from home, but like Europe, in an ever-shrewd way to use taxes (or fees, in this case) for the public good, Bloomberg is now proposing a bag fee. Joe Biden, eat your heart out — now here’s a tax that we can feel patriotic about. According to The New York Times: City officials estimate that the fee could generate $16 million a year, a figure that Mr. Bloomberg would no doubt appreciate, given the lingering and concussive effects of the global economic crisis on the city’s economy. more

  • Community Organizing: The Sequel

    Election Day’s over, we’ve already blown past “Yes We Can!” to “Yes We Did!” Now we’re on to watching President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team and his potential appointees. But can we please indulge one last fond backward glance to his victorious campaign? The McCain-Palin camp dished up plenty of trash talk, but the gibe that really came back to bite ‘em in the butt: Sarah Palin’s snotty “community organizer” remark about Obama at the GOP convention. You remember it: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin sneered to warm applause from the virtually all-white crowd, half of whose net worth topped a half-million dollars, according to a CBS Evening News report. more

  • Prescription for Progressive Change: Inspire and Mobilize

    Barack Obama is going to need all his organizing skills to be an effective leader. As I write in an article in the Huffington Post, Shifting Gears: Transforming Obama’s Campaign Into a Movement for Change, to achieve a progressive agenda,…

  • After Nov. 4: Bringing It All Back Home

    Interviewed on “The Takeaway” this morning, Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain, had this to say about how President-elect Barack Obama can deliver on his promises to bring change we can believe in: “...think like…

  • {caption}

    Obama’s Chicago: A New Start

    It was as if all of Chicago had one big ear-splitting grin Tuesday night. Even hours before polls had closed, people went about their business — including voting in record numbers — as if walking on air, thrilled at the…

    • Next »