Center for an Urban Future

01/22/2021

CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez (photo: Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez) For the City University of New York’s hundreds of thousands of students and millions of alumni, the largest urban university system in the United States has long served as a springboard. A 2017 study by Harvard economist Raj...

06/12/2019

Our latest report finds that Brooklyn has emerged as one of the nation’s leaders in the innovation economy, with the borough’s growth in tech start-ups, creative companies, and innovative manufacturing outpacing Manhattan and other leading cities.

Produced in partnership w/ Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Navy Yard, & Industry, the study finds that the innovation economy has become a vital new engine of growth for Brooklyn:
☑️ Adding thousands of well-paying jobs
☑️ Diversifying the borough’s economy
☑️ Giving Brooklyn an important competitive advantage in a part of the economy that is poised to grow in the years ahead

Read it here:

How Tech Start-ups, Creative Companies, and Entrepreneurial Makers are Powering Brooklyn's Economic Future

05/06/2019

At today's rally, NYC Council Members and representatives from the workforce development community urged Mayor de Blasio to invest $70 million in .

“All of us are New Yorkers but not all of us live in the same New York when it comes to economic opportunity” -- Hon. Ritchie Torres

CUF's "Opportunity Knocks" report and subsequent Gotham Gazette op-ed showed how Bridge programs, which provide job-specific training at the same time as basic literacy and numeracy skills, can be a crucial on-ramp to middle skill jobs: http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7551-bridge-programs-get-big-results-but-little-support

05/02/2019

“I don't think that the floor was going to fall out from under New York after Amazon. The city has such a strong foundation built over the past decade or more, but it was a loss" — Center for an Urban Future Director Jonathan Bowles in City and State NY

When Amazon pulled out of plans to establish a new corporate headquarters in Queens, delivering a blow to the tech industry insiders and elected officials who had toiled to attract the internet giant, some worried that it would send a harmful message to other tech companies thinking about locating i...

06/26/2018

It's a beautiful day in New York City, perfect for visiting one of the 1,700 parks. Yet even in this sunshine, the signs of age may be impossible to avoid. As our latest report, "A New Leaf," reveals, the average park is 73 years old, and it has not seen a major renovation since 1997. For small parks, it has been 34 years, and 46 spaces have not been updated in more than a century. In total, the parks system faces $5.8 billion in capital needs.

The de Blasio administration has made historic investments in the parks, spending hundred of millions of dollars on equitable investments, especially in places that don't often get it, like Flushing and Astoria. Yet this is a one-time investment, and less than 18% of state-of-good-repair needs have been funded by City Council or mayor in the past decade.

This is not yet a full-blown crisis, but the cracks are everywhere—and not just on pitted ballfields and crooked paths, but especially the places few of us notice. Retaining walls holding up the landscape are crumbling. Cracked drainage creates rampant flooding. One in five bridges is seriously deteriorated.

Our report details almost two dozen ways to start filling these holes, literal and figurative. The mayor and City Council could establish a dedicated pool of capital funds for addressing unglamorous infrastructure needs, much of which gets overlooked in discretionary funds provided by the council. Dedicated revenue streams for basic parks maintenance are also key, such as including surcharges on tickets to sporting events, expanded greens fees, and enhanced docking fees at marinas.

As we have noted in past reports, reforms to the capital construction process are necessary for all public works, and will save time, money, and give elected officials the confidence to invest in parks. And hiring additional staff to maintain the parks will not only keep them in better shape, saving money in the long run, but could also create hundred or thousands of good, accessible jobs.

New York City's public parks face serious problems with aging infrastructure.

01/31/2018

New York City’s half-million healthcare workers face the worst commutes of any industry, as revealed in our latest report.

The study finds that while most New Yorkers are experiencing transit woes, healthcare employees who rely on public transit have the longest median commutes of any workers in the private sector. In recent decades, healthcare commutes have increased at more than double the rate of all workers in the city. The study attributes the lengthy commutes to serious transit gaps in the boroughs outside Manhattan, where healthcare jobs are growing rapidly but transit options are often strikingly limited.

The city's crumbling subways are only one piece of the problem. Our report finds that yawning transit gaps outside Manhattan and antiquated, broken bus service are fueling New York City's second transit crisis. The report concludes with more than a dozen practical solutions to address these gaps and help make the city's transit system work better for all.

New York City's transit system has failed to keep pace with job growth outside Manhattan. These gaps have serious consequences for healthcare and beyond.

12/13/2017

Our senior fellow Tom Hilliard was on Brian Lehrer this morning discussing his new report on New York City's college success problem.

They discussed how only 1-in-5 CUNY community college students earns a degree, and half at the senior colleges. They also covered some promising solutions to address these disparities, like expanding CUNY's START program and providing free MetroCards, just like high school students get.

You can find the whole interview here, and we do hope you'll tune in.

NYC public high school graduation rates are on the rise but how can we help students complete their degree programs in college?

12/05/2017

New York City has a college success problem.

Today, far too few New Yorkers who graduate high school are succeeding in college, with serious consequences for their economic mobility. To lift more of its residents into the middle class, the city will need to make dramatic improvements to its college completion rates.

Our latest report offers ideas to do just that:

New York City has a college success problem. Graduation rates are alarmingly low in community colleges and senior colleges, restricting economic opportunity.

07/27/2017

Our newest study reveals that New York City's air cargo sector employs 34,000 people, but is losing market share to other cities across the country. Until 1990, JFK International Airport handled more cargo than any other airport in the world. Now, JFK has fallen to seventh in the United States.

https://nycfuture.org/research/freight-forward