The Mayoral election of November 2013 presents New Yorkers with a critical turning point and an important opportunity.  For the first time since 2001 – and only the second time since 1977 – it is an open seat, with no incumbent will be running for reelection.  As a result, it opens the political space for defining the future of governance in New York City wider than at any time in the previous decade.  This has drawn many candidates into the fray on both the Democratic and Republican sides, as well as a nominee from the Independence Party.  Given the size of his legacy, the election will naturally be framed partly around what Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration have achieved in the last twelve years – but it will prompt us to ask how we should move beyond that legaciy as well as what we should maintain and extend from it.  It will also, we hope, permit the citizens of New York City to resurface issues, concerns, and interests that have not received due attention — especially the issues of equity and inclusion.

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Over the past decade, the New York City economy has more amply rewarded some groups than others, though all groups took an income hit in the years after the financial and economic crises of 2008. Concurrently, New York City experienced significant changes in the overall composition of the city’s population in terms of race and ethnicity. Different groups have followed different trajectories, with members of native born white married couple families doing best and members of native born black and Latino single parent families doing worst. Furthermore, the population as a whole differs from those who are voting age citizens and thus belong to its potential electorate.

The small fraction of the city’s potentially eligible voting age citizenry who will vote in the 2013 Democratic primary is a key facet of the city’s politics. It is clear from the electoral trends that while relatively better-off whites continue to exercise disproportionate political influence, particularly in forming the core of a city-wide electoral majority for their favored candidate, they cannot do it without allies. To a degree, then, their influence depends on the persistence of divisions among the elements of an alternative coalition drawing support from black, Latino, Asian, and liberal white constituencies. These divisions reflect real differences in the socio-economic positions and goals of these groups, as well as political competition among them. As a result, the prospects are better than they have been in a decade for progressives to overcome their differences and form a majority.

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A big part of what makes New York City so vibrant is the millions of immigrants who come from all corners of the world.  Immigrants live and thrive in New York and show how diversity makes us stronger, as a city and as a nation. Many immigrants face familiar obstacles: lack of immigration status and constant fear of deportation and family separation resulting from it; inadequate English skills and low literacy rates in native languages; racial/ethnic/religious profiling and discrimination; barriers to identity documents; unfamiliarity with various and complex institutions like the education, health, criminal justice or financial systems that define everyday life; and deep cultural differences – all of which can result in poverty and/or social marginalization from society. 

Many of these barriers can be addressed through a combination of equitable and innovative policies, practices and programs that are products of deep and long-term partnership between government and the diverse immigrant communities. These policies, practices and programs that need to take place fall into three categories: rights, access and the opportunity for full civic participation. We can and should do much better to ensure equal access, rights and opportunities for immigrants so that they can fully participate in our economy and in our city’s civic and cultural life.

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Significant budget challenges loom large for the next city administration. It should continue the sound fiscal management practices achieved by the Bloomberg administration, but it should also break new ground in budget stewardship by integrating several key objectives. Budget pressures have tended to induce policy creep and incrementalism in place of forward-looking, strategic priority-setting. A major challenge facing the city is to elevate its critical budget choices and tradeoffs to a more prominent level. Otherwise, pressures felt in the context of every year’s budget-balancing mandate will crowd out the pursuit of longer-term priorities. The narrow focus on budget balance often has fostered an austerity mentality where gap-closing actions trump problem-solving and a forward-looking perspective geared to meaningfully addressing city needs. A multi-pronged strategy is needed that addresses issues in four broad areas—the social safety net, economic development, tax structure, and public service delivery—that pose particular budget challenges for New York City.

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In recent years, governors and mayors across the country have sought to cope with the fiscal crises brought on by the budgetary impacts of the Great Recession in two different ways. One approach is to attack public service workers and their unions, making them the scapegoats for all budgetary problems regardless of the facts. These attacks have resulted in a considerable weakening of unions and worker rights and caused both management and labor to divert precious financial and human resources into political battles rather than a search for collaborative solutions. The second response has been for administrations to work collaboratively with their workers and unions to address problems together in new ways. The public is demanding faster, more responsive, and more equitable processes and short and long run solutions. One or the other will shape the future of public sector labor management relations, the economic conditions of public service work, and the efficiency and quality of public services. Therefore, those who value public sector unions and collective bargaining need to demonstrate they can make the second option work better than the first.

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Performance management is a critical tool for producing better public service outcomes for all New Yorkers. The city is justifiably viewed as a leader in performance management. Mayor Bloomberg has cultivated strengths in culture, reporting and accuracy during his tenure. This is hard-won ground that should not be lost with the change in leadership. The next mayor should pursue two broad priorities in order to continue the momentum: using clear outcome measures to drive government action and providing leadership to support performance management.

Improving New York City's performance management requires commitment and resources, and using data effectively to make decisions is not always straightforward. Being truly fact-based about the way the taxpayer dollars are invested requires leadership and commitment from the Mayor's office and throughout agencies. Good performance management, however, ensures the time, money, and effort city government invests is actually having a positive impact for all residents of NYC.

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The new mayor should move policies aimed at reducing poverty and connecting a new generation of New Yorkers to the middle class to the center of the agenda. There are many things to learn from the current administration, and many of its economic development initiatives should and will continue. Yet the next mayor needs to look for a new play book on reconciling growth and equity by explicitly setting more evenly spread job growth, more evenly spread income growth and greater economic mobility for low wage-earners as goals. 

Several other cities – including Los Angeles – have pursued pro-growth strategies that also focus on economic mobility. These models show how embedding policies that put community partnerships into the DNA of city government and promote basic workforce linkage policies in conjunction with economic development projects can achieve both equity and growth. This paper reviews the recent history of economic development policy and suggests three “growth with equity” strategies for New York City: replace discretionary and as-of-right subsidies to firms with investment in public infrastructure and the adoption of labor demand strategies; use available public levers to increase training, earning, and economic mobility opportunities for unemployed and low-wage workers; strengthen the City's core blue-collar employment base by bringing a deliberate equity vision to the management of the city’s physical assets, especially industrial land.

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Throughout the last decade, the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) distinguished itself as a leader in the movement for sustainable growth with equity. It realigned its mission, goals and policies to drive better outcomes for the disadvantaged communities it served and pioneered new approaches to leveraging the economic development roles of local government to produce tangible community benefits. Legislation aimed at resolving the State of California’s recurring budget deficits dissolved CRA/LA and the state’s 400 other redevelopment agencies on February 1, 2012. Notwithstanding its untimely demise, CRA/LA’s experience may be instructive as New York considers how to expand on the successes of the Bloomberg Administration for the broader benefit of middle and working class residents of the city.

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The next administration will face a significant challenge: how to maintain record low levels of crime and hugely reduced levels of incarceration, arguably achieved in significant part by policing procedures, while coping with the acute, and not yet fully understood, consequences of these policing strategies. Once the symbol of urban decay and blight, New York City is now known for leading the nation’s cities in decreasing levels of reported crimes. The city’s decline has been twice that of any other city and has lasted twice as long as in any other city.

But New York City’s notoriety does not end there. When the next mayor takes office, the city will likely be just as widely recognized for its controversial stop, question, and frisk strategy (SQF) and the antagonism that it has generated among many of its residents. In light of recent judicial decisions and legal opinion, the next mayor may well face an existing or approaching court order to reform the NYPD’s SQF strategy.

Regardless of any court intervention, the SQF strategy, as New York City has carried it out during the past 12 years, is not politically sustainable. The resentment and distrust it has engendered has delegitimized the NYPD among far too many residents. The next mayor must address these pressing concerns, continue successful policies to decrease the prison population, and expand on the city’s commitment to the robust network of alternatives to incarceration and evidence-based strategies that orient the criminal justice system as much toward reentry, employment, and mental health as to arrest, conviction, and incarceration.

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The past decade of school reform in New York City has been characterized by effort to govern through markets, which rely on customer choice and outcomes-based accountability to drive innovation and student success. The array of such policy initiatives—whose key elements are reflected in the stated desire to move from "a great school system" to "a system of great schools" depends on the invisible hand of the market to foster innovation and sustain successful educational practices. There is, however, an alternative metaphor to the invisible hand: the helping hand. In this view, the primary policy instrument is capacity building, and the key responsibility of government is to provide the resources and supports to build the capacity of schools, school leaders and teachers to meet the complex social and academic needs of the students they serve.

For more than a decade, the primary policy levers have been mandates, incentives and system-changing (changing the governance and authority relations within school systems). Capacity building has been the least salient policy instrument in the current zeitgeist. Capacity building is at the heart of developing the skills and talents of individuals, through professional development and supports for schools, school leaders and teachers—strategies characteristic of high-performing school systems such as those in Finland and Singapore. The upcoming election serves as a time to examine and re-articulate our values and aspirations for how New York City can create a more inclusive, better-managed, and more successful system of preparing our children and youth for fruitful and productive adult lives.

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A new framework is needed to help New York City government and the social services sector work with one another and with neighborhood leaders and residents to develop a strategy for building collective community capacity. The overall social services infrastructure in New York City is not strong given the extent of poverty and stress in neighborhoods like Brownsville and East New York. The public and policymakers generally think of social services as an array of resources, each targeted to specific problems and needs. However, objectives often collide; homelessness prevention services seek to prevent families from being evicted, even as the public housing authority seeks to collect rent, maintain housing quality, and evict nonpaying or unruly tenants when necessary. One city agency addresses the collateral damage when another agency does its job.

Government and the social services sector must move in the direction of “collective efficacy”—working together for the common good—so that the government oversees and funds service systems in such a way that they do a better job of providing the essential social service infrastructure to neighborhoods and families. New York and other cities have experienced many prior efforts to define a comprehensive strategy for community building and community renewal in low income neighborhoods. We can learn from all of them, and do much better.

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There have been dramatic changes in how families work, and therefore, how they live, over the last generation in both New York City and across the nation. The majority of women are now in the labor force, and about half of the labor force in the United States is made up of women. A majority of mothers are now in the labor force, including most mothers of children under the age of 6 and a little over half of all mothers with infants. In New York City, the majority of two parent families have both parents working and most women in two parent families are in the labor force. These changes have been some of the major positive social changes in our society during the past century in terms of financial security for both women and families and the contribution of the intelligence, energy and productivity of all of our citizens to our economy. At the same time, these changes have led to increasing tensions between work and family responsibilities that harm workers and their families, in particular those with the fewest economic resources.

Despite these changes, our workplaces – and our social supports -- have not kept pace. Women’s role in the workforce changes the landscape of what families need and what society can expect from families. Policies from abroad should inform us, as we assess policy options for New York City, New York State and the U.S. as a whole. We have a tremendous opportunity here in New York City to be a model for the nation, ensuring that the supports today’s working families need are in place and trying innovative ways to mold the workplace of the 21st century to meet the needs of the workers of the 21st century.

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President Obama recently affirmed the importance of quality early childhood education in 2013’s State of the Union address, pledging to work with states to expand programs, and to “make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. ” Early childhood development is a critical part of economic development strategy, helps ensure true equality of opportunity for children, and helps working parents, especially those who are low-income, succeed in the workplace. The next Mayor should take up the President’s call by working with the state and federal governments to expand services for children from birth to five to ensure that each child in New York City enters kindergarten ready to learn.

The best chance to succeed is with a single agency focused on that worthy goal. A new, independent Department of Early Childhood Development (DECD) would coordinate and enhance the various programs focused on children from birth to age five in New York City. Currently, these programs are spread through four agencies which report to two different Deputy Mayors. It will take sustained political effort, resources, and patience to accomplish this successfully, but by consolidating these programs into one agency, under one commissioner, we can make them more efficient and effective for New York City’s families.

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Increasingly, older New Yorkers plan to continue working past the traditional age of retirement, remain living in their homes longer than prior generations, take charge of their health and wellness, participate fully in social, political and community activities, and continually advance their personal development.  An aging policy for all, then, must meet these individuals in the myriad of settings where they seek to thrive and contribute, and must align public and private resources to support their constructive engagement as agents in successful and active aging. At the same time, we must recognize the critical needs of tens of thousands of frail elderly, many of them home-bound and socially isolated, who depend on social services, meals, and neighborhood-based programs to be able to remain safe and independent in their own homes. 

A caring and comprehensive policy approach will preserve and enhance services, case management, and caregiver support for the most vulnerable, while simultaneously enabling all older adults to achieve their maximum potential. A strategic orientation is needed to meet these complex challenges that crosses sector, agency, regulatory, and institutional boundaries to invest scarce public and private resources for maximum impact.  It must support older adults as agents in their own success, while also providing critical services for the needy and frail. The “Longevity Revolution” is transforming the aging landscape in New York City and demands widespread innovation, commitment and investment if we are to meet the challenge of creating a 21st Century city that is truly a city for all.

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There is a widening equality gap at so many levels of our lives, but one many New Yorkers keenly feel and personally experience is the growing lack of affordable housing. Housing is almost always our biggest fixed expense. Conversely, affordable housing makes for strong, stable neighborhoods where people can commit to, and invest in, their community and themselves.

Fortunately, as great and intractable as the affordable housing challenge may seem, housing is one area where city government has and can continue to have an enormous impact. Areas where the next mayor has the most power and can have the greatest impact include the following aspects of an ambitious affordable housing agenda: equitable zoning with mandatory affordable housing; affordable housing development that stabilizes communities; strengthening New York City Housing Authority; and protecting single-family homeowners at risk of foreclosure. While the city needs to continue to build housing and revitalize neighborhoods, it must also maintain New York as a place people can afford to live.

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The places we live sort our life-chances in profound ways – through education, housing, transportation, job networks, and health. Over the past few decades, city-dwellers have seen the transformative possibilities of more livable communities, with more walkable streets, better parks and open spaces, and new forms of public transportation. These aren’t luxury goods. Cities around the world have shown that it is possible to integrate comprehensive smart-growth planning with attention to making all communities more livable. However, truly rediscovering city planning and community development, together, is not a simple task.

The next mayor should pursue a harder path, one that requires a leap of imagination in the possibilities of comprehensive planning and community development, real attention to neighborhoods, a stronger insistence on equality, and efforts to unleash civic energy for a more dynamic and better-stewarded public realm. This path is more challenging, but offers the rewards of a more sustainable, inclusive, vibrant, livable city. Neighborhood policy cannot, of course, eliminate inequality. Nonetheless, planning for more equal neighborhoods has the power to create opportunities for people in low-income neighborhoods to thrive. Rather than organizing municipal investments like parks and transit primarily in places that will drive market-led growth, New York City should organize its investments with goals of increasing opportunities, reducing costs, improving health, and strengthening social capital across the city, with a focus on places that need that it most. If we genuinely care about offering more equal opportunity, it must run through more equitable attention to the city’s neighborhoods.

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Piece in progress.

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Because cultural change precedes and embodies political change, arts and culture are an essential part of a progressive agenda. Drawing on the ingenuity in our neighborhoods and how their stories and relationships give meaning to our lives will help the city re-imagine itself from the neighborhood up. Change is about engaging hearts as well as minds. An agenda that doesn’t recognize this risks getting stalled before it starts. 

Arts and culture should be integrated into the dialogue about neighborhood infrastructure, authentic engagement, and “organized compassion.” The paper suggests three programs that will help bring this vision to life, cultivating naturally occurring cultural districts, strengthening cultural citizenship, and animating public space.  With collective compassion and civic energy, we can engage our creativity to create something bigger than ourselves – a 21st century city for all.

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“Superstorm Sandy” made it crystal clear that New York City’s status quo of vacillating between incremental environmental improvements and ignoring climate change has problematic consequences for all — especially for the least mobile and the least wealthy. It is going to be hotter. There will be more storms that will test our infrastructure more frequently and more severely than before. New and unexpected challenges, like invasive species and pandemic diseases, will continue to present themselves.

Despite this immense challenge, Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaves an undeniably substantial environmental legacy that is a foundation for climate adaptation and prevention. The next administration will need to have a thoughtful environmental policy that builds on past successes. Yet it is a challenge to formulate a distinct agenda that fits within a progressive governing narrative, provides a big enough break with past policies to satisfy a new mayor’s political needs, and is continuous enough with past efforts not to erode current progress. In a city that is host to a deep set of inequalities and already has the largest public transport network in the nation, the next environmental agenda must move beyond traditional policy debates.

Sustainability has become a popular frame for organizing an otherwise disparate number of progressive environmental, economic and social policies. It has several dimensions: preventing and adapting to climate change, reducing society’s ecological impact, reducing the inequality of how negative impacts are distributed, accounting fully for the economic impacts of our actions, and increasing the quality of life for all segments of society. There is no inherent reason that pursuit of the pure environmental dimensions of sustainability should be divorced from (let alone at the expense of) other dimensions. By linking environmental goals to a broader vision of sustainability, the next administration’s policies can move beyond just a cleaner, healthier city. An ideal sustainability agenda is rooted in the best of what New York offers — a robust public realm and mass transit system, dense living patterns, and the capacity for civic innovation — and uses it to address the most persistent challenges flowing from the city’s inequality.

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