In This Issue:

– From the Inside Out or the Outside In? Addressing Poverty.

– Drink Up: The Next Round May Not Be so Tasty.

– From the Editor: Real Cities Welcome People Not Parking Spaces

– Calendar

From the Inside Out or the Outside In? Addressing Poverty.
In his speeches and policy analyses, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York often talks about "the Baileys," a hypothetical family used to illustrate the challenges and opportunities of middle class Americans. Taking a tip from Sen. Schumer, let’s create another hypothetical family – call them "the Haileys" – to illustrate the challenges and opportunities of another class of Americans.

In this hypothetical family, Ms. Hailey, like approximately 40,000 other women and men in the tri-state region, is a cashier at a drug store making $10 an hour. She has two children at home and no Mr. Hailey to speak of. Ms. Hailey often has to choose between meeting immediate needs like food and rent, or investing time and money in longer-term issues like education and health. Planning a trip to the doctor means planning to take a day off and forgo a sizable portion of her income, so she sometimes waits until medical attention is absolutely necessary. Likewise, she and her children sometimes indulge in short-sighted relief – like a lottery ticket or junk food – in lieu of financial decisions, however small, that have the future in mind. What would most help Ms. Hailey and her family’s chances for the future?

One approach would be if Ms. Hailey knew that whenever she made one of those longer-sighted decisions, like taking time off work so her children can have a regular check up at the doctor, she would get an extra $50 or more. This is the idea behind Opportunity NYC, a conditional cash transfer program slated to start this year. The 2,500 families who participate in this program will be given cash incentives from $50 to $300 for meeting targets such as parental engagement in school and holding down a job. The families chosen earn around $20,000 per year for a mother with two children. Opportunity NYC’s ambitious and laudable goal is to insert an incentive structure into an often chaotic and unpredictable economic environment that will break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, person by person.

These families will be compared to a control group of 2,500 families that do not receive any special incentives. The program is being operated in part by Seedco and MDRC, and partly funded by the Robin Hood Foundation – all organizations that place a premium on monitoring and measuring results. The program appeals to an inclination toward a system of rewards, using market-based approaches to solve problems, clarifying incentives to get results and generally believing that we get what we pay for. It is like issuing a performance-based contract to poor families to accomplish the job of living relatively well with very little.

The new program brings to mind the old public policy adage: "if you can measure it, you can manage it." There’s a related adage though, which is that we usually manage what we measure, and ignore what we don’t measure. When we measure people’s behavior, we develop programs that seek to guide people’s behavior. Opportunity NYC is perhaps the most straightforward of a large number of programs geared toward people and families that measure results directly from those individuals they serve.

But what if, in addition to measuring Ms. Hailey’s behavior, the City also measured the larger economic context in which Ms. Hailey is trying to make a living? At a conference held by the Drum Major Institute and Baruch College this week, data set after data set showed that middle income jobs are being replaced with service sector jobs that often provide no room for growth. New York City is growing more economically polarized, with more households like the Haileys, and less like the Bailey’s, year after year. Since the late 1960s, because of structural changes such as the demise of the manufacturing sector, technological displacement of lower skill jobs and globalization, the gap between the rich and the poor has been increasing. The rise of the service economy has translated into even relatively good economic times – like the boom in the late 1990s – causing little to no jump in income for the poorest fifth of New Yorkers.

At the same time, public assistance grants from the State Temporary Aid for Needy Families program (commonly known as welfare checks) have not increased since 1990: a mother with two young children still receives $238 in cash assistance per month. The fastest growing jobs in the region are home healthcare aides, who earn on average $19,560 per year. For the thousands of households who were lured by the promise of low cost mortgages over the last few years, the recent $100 or $200 per month increase in their payments might mean the difference between a parent being engaged in his daughter’s education or working those extra hours to avoid foreclosure.

When those larger economic factors are measured, the programs that result look very different from Opportunity NYC. Some examples of economy-based programs are incentives to attract and retain middle income jobs, small business subsidies, living wage laws, the Community Reinvestment Act, and progressive income tax policies to pay for these economic supports.

If Ms. Hailey from our hypothetical family were asked what would most help her chances for the future, she might very well answer, "A bigger paycheck with a more promising career path." If Ms. Hailey could find a job that paid more for the work she already does, she would no longer have to work overtime every week just to make ends meet. She would be able to be at home to help her kids with their homework. If the new job were coupled with a chance to get ahead, those longer-sighted decisions might start to become more valuable to her.

The city needs to invest in policies that push back against the trend of income polarization and the deteriorating economic condition of poor families. If our economy offers few opportunities to those in the lowest income brackets, our City needs to expand opportunities as well as provide incentives to respond to them. Along with people-based programs, like Opportunity NYC, that aim for certain behaviors to be exhibited by poor families, the City needs to develop programs that look for results in the economy overall. Although options at the municipal level are limited by competitive and fiscal constraints, there are actions that can make a difference. One example is affordable housing programs that will decrease the number of households paying 50% or more of their income on housing costs, and enforcement of labor laws that ensure an adult can survive on one full time job.

There are going to be knee jerk reactions to any kind of program that addresses poverty. Some will find programs like Opportunity NYC to be paternalistic and accuse proponents of blaming the poor for their poverty. Others will see a dated liberalism in economy-based programs, arguing that the free market shouldn’t be reigned in to find a solution to family dysfunction. Often it is our own experiences with poverty and wealth that lead to these reactions. Surely good public policy is not fueled by resentment, or guilt, or anger, yet on the issue of poverty these underlying passions are hard to avoid. A balanced approach, then, that recognizes both the role of the economy and individual decision making, would seem advised.

- Alexis Perrotta, Senior Policy Analyst

Drink Up: The Next Round May Not Be so Tasty.
With one of the best water supplies in the nation, clean clear liquid from the faucet has long been one of the surprising boons about living in New York City and much of the tri-state region.

That could change though, and soon. A combination of population increase, suburban growth, and changing climate are conspiring to challenge longstanding assumptions about drinking water availability. The growing impact of suburban pavement in watersheds is familiar: asphalt delivers rain and pollutants directly to streams and reservoirs, bypassing a slow and cleansing percolation to groundwater. The wildcard is a changing climate. By mid-century, scientists predict that higher average temperatures and increased periods of droughts (as often as once a year) and floods (up about 10%) will add to the strain of managing this critical infrastructure.

This in turn is pushing both the city and region to take or contemplate efforts that would have been unthinkable in decades past.

New York City was recently forced to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to build a filtration plant for the historic and now degraded Croton System, which opened in 1841. Now, rising levels of storm water runoff are also clouding the relatively pristine waters from the Catskill/Delaware system, which supplies the bulk of the city’s water. If increases in turbidity cause water quality to degrade, a filtration plant estimated to cost about $10 billion dollars may be required by federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The City is hoping that its aggressive program of land acquisition and regulation will be enough to keep the water safe and federal overseers at bay.

Suburbs are facing similar pressures and considering similarly extraordinary ventures. In January, officials from United Water New York, a private water purveyor, announced their plans to construct a desalination facility that will treat water from the Hudson River as a long-term water supply solution for customers in Rockland County, NY. The cost of the project, which could begin providing water to Rockland residents by the end of 2015, is approximately $80 million.

A desalinization plant is perhaps surprising in an area with more than 40 inches of rain a year. But growing demand, the paving of forests where rainwater once recharged wells, and the common but unsustainable practice of mining groundwater has left the County with dry streambeds and little additional capacity. An alternative strategy to more plants and equipment is to put more effort into conservation and land-use planning. One such strategy taking shape is in the New Jersey Highlands. A draft plan required under the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act would ultimately permanently protect more than 400,000 acres that are crucial to the water supplies of more than four million of the State’s residents. The difficulty is that the same 400,000 acres are the province of 52 local governments and thousands of landowners, many of whom have other ideas for the future of their towns and property.

At a smaller scale, landscape architects and other professionals have been aggressively applying ideas about sustainability to the design of subdivisions, offices, roads, and shopping centers. Low impact development practices like rain gardens, blue streets, green roofs, and grey water systems have the potential to dramatically reduce both our consumption of freshwater and our ability to recharge groundwater vital to both supply wells and streams.

Will these softer planning and design approaches be sufficient to meet this pending crisis? Or are more dramatic interventions required? An expert panel at the 17th Annual Regional Assembly on May 4 – "A Bright and Green Future" – will discuss these questions and the ways that government, water purveyors, and the design community are responding to these challenges. Speakers include the Honorable Parris Glendening, the former Governor of Maryland; the Honorable Scott Vanderhoef, County Executive Rockland County; Emily Lloyd, Commissioner, New York City Department of Environmental Protection; Signe Nielson of Mathews Nielson Landscape Architects; and David Robinson, the New Jersey State Climatologist.

– Robert Pirani, Director, Environmental Programs

From the Editor: Real Cities Welcome People Not Parking Spaces
With a distinguished history and at least two and a half million people, Brooklyn likes to proclaim itself "a real city," one that would be the nation’s second largest – well actually the fourth largest – if only it hadn’t merged with New York City in 1898.

How ironic and sad then, that the borough often comports itself like a distant suburb of shopping malls and subdivisions, seeking to keep newcomers out while in contrast accommodating new automobiles as much as possible. While there are many ways the borough does this, in the interest of brevity this article will focus on only one of these: parking. I focus on Brooklyn here because its policies and situation are particularly poignant, but the argument applies to all boroughs and many parts of Manhattan.

Here’s the problem: New York City in its zoning codes essentially requires all new buildings, whether residential or commercial, to provide parking spaces for their denizens. The City basically has a sliding scale of parking requirements, with more parking required the less dense the zoning area is. Only in the Manhattan core is this requirement completely lifted. This policy has the most impact in places like Jackson Heights in Queens, or Crown Heights in Brooklyn, places that are at a crossroads and set to become either more urban or suburban in character as new development increases.

The parking requirement follows the theory that new buildings generate new demand for parking, and so the businesses should provide that parking. While this theory is flawed even in the suburbs, it’s particularly so in a dense urban city equipped with mass transit and good sidewalks.

What apparently most people don’t realize is that the more parking you provide, the more cars there will be on the street. Period. Parking breeds automobiles. By requiring the construction of parking, the city is essentially ordering that automobile use be subsidized. And by promoting parking construction, the city is helping break up the urban fabric and making its mass transit system, on which billions of public money is spent annually, less workable.

The city should scrap its parking requirements. An even better, more pro-active, policy would be to put a cap on the number of spaces a developer can provide. Essentially, this would impose a parking maximum on new construction, rather than a parking minimum, which is what we have now.

As a way of taming streets, controlling parking has a lot to be said for it. As Josh Brustein of Streetsblog.com pointed out recently in a three-part series on parking there, New York City does not need state authority to control parking. That’s not the case with more publicized efforts, worthy though they may be, like congestion pricing. New York City could substantially reduce traffic and make streets more pedestrian-friendly by implementing market-rate parking on the streets and implementing caps on the amount of new parking that can be constructed. As an additional agenda item, it could copy Copenhagen and start a policy of actively reducing the total number of parking spaces a few percentage points each year.

Absent policies such as these, we are likely to see a rise in hostility toward new residents. This is unfortunate. Although I am personally critical of many aspects of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, I was dismayed to read a recent op-ed by the novelist Jennifer Egan in The New York Times who, despite some excellent points, often sounded like the quintessentially suburban citizen as she criticized the project on the grounds that it would bring a rise in population to the borough, and thus more problems with traffic and parking. She apparently failed to see that if the state and city insisted that the project not provide parking, much of these problems would be eliminated.

The Atlantic Yards project is set to provide about 4,000 parking spaces, or the equivalent of a 40-story parking garage as big around as the World Trade Center. This includes a controversial "temporary" surface parking lot for about 1000 cars that would be in place for a decade or more. Since these spaces will be used multiple times, that means many thousands of additional cars on the streets of Brooklyn, and an urban fabric that has been torn rather than mended.

But with good policies and good urban design, the influx of new people into Brooklyn and other boroughs can improve, not degrade the overall quality of life. Unlike automobile-based suburbs, urban cities generally work better with more people in them. More people means more money for more public services, from mass transit to better sidewalks. While our streets are at capacity for cars, they have plenty of room for more pedestrians and cyclists. Our mass transit system, given decent funding, also can easily be stretched to accommodate newcomers, especially in the boroughs. Imagine if instead of requiring developers to build parking, we required them to fund the mass transit system that their residents would use?

The city needs to reevaluate its policies toward parking. Through this tool alone, the city could make the streets more livable and in the process make newcomers more welcome.

– Alex Marshall, Editor, Spotlight on the Region

Questions or comments on what’s in this issue? Send them to the editor of Spotlight On The Region, Alex Marshall at alex@rpa.org

April 5, 5:00 to 7:30 p.m.
The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) has released its draft Public Participation Plan for public comment. Open House for public comment. City Hall of Jersey City – Chamber Rm. 280 Grove St. Jersey City, NJ. Info: www.njtpa.org.

April 9, 7:00 p.m.
Congestion Pricing, Ever So Closer: A NYC Status Report with RPA Senior Policy Analyst Alexis Perrotta will be held at Solar One in Stuyvesant Cove Park, 23rd Street and FDR. This is part of the Green Renter series of events. RSVP required: 212- 505-6050 or neidl@solar1.org.

April 10, 6:30 p.m.
Nature and Place: Conversations with Elizabeth Barlow Rogers. In Nature in the City, Carol Franklin, a landscape architect, reflects on how river-based park systems serve to protect regions, cities, and neighborhoods from the worst effects of urban sprawl. Co-sponsored by the Foundation for Landscape Design and the New York Botanical Garden. Tickets $25; N-YHS members, seniors, educators, students: $23. At New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West at 77th Street New York NY 10024. To register: 718-817-8747.

April 11, 6:30 p.m.
The Roads Not Taken: Robert Moses and Transportation.
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY. Panel Discussion with Richard Ravitch, former Chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Gene Russianoff, Senior Counsel for NYPIRG's Straphangers Campaign; Elliot G. Sander, recently appointed Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and Samuel I. Schwartz, President, CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering; moderated by Robert Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association. For information and tickets call 212.534.1672, ext. 3395 or visit www.mcny.org/public_programs/all/561.html.

April 11, 7:30 p.m.
Smart Growth, Development, and Conservation: Finding the Right Balance. The Danbury Area League of Women Voters and the Social Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation will sponsor this forum to discuss the challenges of achieving vital urban centers, open space preservation, and economic development in Connecticut. Panelists include Heidi Green, President of 1000 Friends of Connecticut; Steven Patton, Director of the Devil’s Den Preserve; and David Kooris, Senior Planner at RPA. Free. Unitarian Universalist fellowship hall at 24 Clapboard Ridge Road, Danbury, CT; LINK: www.bridgeportmasterplan.com

April 12, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Downtown Workshop for the Bridgeport, CT Master Plan
This public meeting will solicit discussion and comments on the downtown component of the city-wide master plan effort. The meeting is being conducted by the city-wide master plan consultants, BFJ Planning, and will include a presentation by RPA and PPSA on the final recommendations of the downtown master plan effort. This meeting will be held at Housatonic Community College, Community Room A101, 300 Lafayette Boulevard, Bridgeport, CT LINK: www.bridgeportmasterplan.com

April 20
Sustainable Long Island will host "Rethink, Rebuild, Renew:
Creating a Sustainable Future for Long Island," at Stony Brook
University. Speakers include County Executives Steve Levy and Thomas Suozzi; Long Island Association president Matthew Crosson; Regional Planning Association's Chris Jones; Newsday's Joye Brown; Renewable Energy Long Island's Gordian Raacke;
Neighborhood Network's Neal Lewis; and Julius Walls, president and CEO of Greyston Bakery. Info and registration here: LINK: www.sustainableli.org or 516-873-0230. Also Caryn Rubenstein at crubenstein@sustainableli.org

April 21, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Electric Railroaders Association Tour, 207 Street IND maintenance facility shop & yard, view subway equipment. Photography permitted. $15.00, advance registration required. Proper photo I.D. needed. Wear proper footwear. Info: Larry Furlong 718 784-3643, furlong@erausa.org, www.erausa.org, select NY division.

Friday, May 4th, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Regional Plan Association's 17th annual Regional Assembly: A Bright, Green Future: Climate Change, Energy and Growth in the Tri-State Metropolitan Region. The Waldorf-Astoria, New York. Information on RPA website at www.rpa.org. Or, download a complete registration brochure here, and a PRINTABLE, faxable one here.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Our Towns, Our Land, Our Heritage: Sustaining NJ's Legacy: The 2007 Annual NJ Historic Preservation Conference. Drew University, Madison, NJ.
LINK: www.nj.gov/dep/hpo/4sustain/Conference2007/postconf2007.htm