A Call to Develop a Worker Cooperative Sector in New York City: How the City Can Create Jobs and Address Inequality at Its Roots

Fantastic piece on why and how worker cooperatives should be part of Deblasio's economic development plan to address such deep inequalities.  Excellent analysis and recommendations.  And many of these recommendations were discussed at the NYC Council hearing on this issue on Feb 22nd which I attended.  

Co-op business development pioneers in New York City recently shared their successes and discussed their needs in building infrastructure and planting the seeds of a democratic work movement.

Environmental Group Proposes Options for Breached Pond at Jamaica Bay in Queens - NYTimes.com

Fascinating piece on how to handle the future of this beautiful bay that was reconstructed by Robert Moses and figures as a fave for migrating birds and much other widlife and poses deep questions about what is natural and what is sustainable.  (Catching up on my Lisa Federaro! )



Environmental Group Proposes Options for Breached Pond at Jamaica Bay in Queens - NYTimes.com

New York Wants to Banish a Symbol of Love: Mute Swans - NYTimes.com

Environmentalists and even BIRD LOVERS want these big mean invasive birds eliminated,  but random people in parks who feed them pizza think these immigrants are too pretty to kill. 



New York Wants to Banish a Symbol of Love: Mute Swans - NYTimes.com

The Invention Of 'The Economy' : Planet Money : NPR

Everybody thinks that the economy is what drives the world but what IS the economy?  Good intro type piece on how the notion of GDP came about and why it's a very curious but limited way of understanding what we think about as the economy.  



The Invention Of 'The Economy' : Planet Money : NPR

Should Sandy Redevelopment Funds be Used for Luxury Condos?

As Bloomberg departs, two super scandals from his years in office stand out.  The City Time payroll boondoggle where Mark Mazer played him for a chump; and the rebuilding after September 11th.  The former has received some press, (why not put some displaced from Sandy is this nice spot!?





but the latter remains majorly under-appreciated.  In cogent blogpost, Good Jobs NY goes back and looks at how Federal money's were used to subsidize luxury condos' and "small businesses" such as boutique law firms.  But what really offends is the lack of a comprehensive regional development framework.   This is in part due to the corruption and economic incompetence of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation as well as the anti-transparency of the NYC Economic Development Corporation.  If NYC aims for a democratic resilience, NY'ers might have to get into a debate like those around the World Trade Organization in the last decade: reform or eliminate? 

Check out the excellent posts for background:
http://clawback.org/2013/08/23/federal-task-force-on-sandy-rebuilding-urges-regional-economic-development-community-development/