City Limits articles from June 2004

City Limits archives from June 2004

Help wanted: corporate citizenship.(Editorial)
June 1, 2004... Looking at my desk, I see the following tips from my sources over the past month. The federal banking agencies are moving to exempt smaller financial institutions from the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires them to lend in communities...

New York's zoning madness.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2004... Just a bit of insight to add to the excellent article on NYC rezoning ["Who Shapes New York?" April 2004]: Most cities and towns consider their zoning and master plans as living, interrelated documents. Most urbanized states have municipal...

Gardeners' last stand.(Front Lines)
June 1, 2004... CELEB TREEHOUSE ARCHITECT Roderick Romero--his handiwork graces rock star Sting's estate in Tuscany--had already nailed beams into trees at the Courtlandt Avenue community garden when activists discovered a fatal glitch. An envelope from...

Peeling back the layers: housing groups sue to stop the new lead paint law. Do they have a case?(Front Lines)
June 1, 2004... ON THE EVE of the City Council's February vote to approve a strict new lead poisoning law, 27 nonprofit housing groups ran a giant ad in the New York Times, Daily News, Amsterdam News and El Diario: "Unintended Consequences: Lead Paint Bill...

Where's the work?(First Hand)
June 1, 2004... I'LL BE 16 LATER THIS YEAR and I go to the School for International Studies, in Brooklyn. School finishes June 17, and I want to buy stuff on my own instead of asking my mother. Clothes, sneakers, things for my little sister. And saving for...

Landlords dump voucher tenants.(Housing)
June 1, 2004... SCORES OF NEW YORK City tenants with Section 8 rental vouchers are facing eviction following state court decisions that allowed landlords to exit the subsidy program. In the past, tenants using the vouchers to pay for rent-stabilized...

Credit unions seek a deal.(Lending)
June 1, 2004... JAMAICA, QUEENS, recently became home to the first banking development district in Queens (ninth in the city overall). The program offers banks financial benefits from the government in exchange for opening branches in a low-income,...

Global networking for 2012 Olympics.(Nonprofits)
June 1, 2004... DOZENS OF ETHNIC nonprofit organizations are finally entering the internet age--in exchange for helping New York City secure the 2012 Olympics. NYC2012, the nonprofit organization pursuing New York's Olympic bid, arranged for free web site...

Health aides fight back.(Labor)
June 1, 2004... THE TITLES ARE VIRTUALLY identical: home health aide and home health attendant. And so are some of their tasks; both groups help the city's elderly and chronically ill with bathing, preparing food and taking medications. But, as any aide will...

The talking cure: as the health care industry pleads poverty, one hospital finds success speaks many languages.(Inside Track)
June 1, 2004... IN A CONVERTED East Flatbush storefront, at the end of a row of fruit stands, about 50 people are packed into the waiting room of a community health clinic, chatting in a cacophony of languages. "Mondays are always heavy days," explains Dr....

City for sale: tenants and city officials are seaming up to fight the feds' mass auctions of subsidized housing. But can they compete with speculators seeking the real estate bargain of the decade?
June 1, 2004... The Gates-Patchen apartments are nothing fancy--just two unassuming buildings on a quiet block in Bed-Stuy. They've got none of the up-market appeal of their high-buttoned brownstone neighbors. They're prosaic, proletarian, hardly even...

Teen adoption's hard sell: how do you stop ex-foster kids from ending up in trouble? The latest remedy: recruit new parents for them. If only it were so easy.(Cover Story)
June 1, 2004... Twelve-year-old Marisol Torres, a round-faced girl with a pink headband, long black hair and thick bangs, sits primly before a room of nearly 50 people at an orientation in Harlem for adults who are thinking of becoming adoptive parents. In a...

Return address: law enforcement and social workers alike say the Fortune Academy is a model for sending prisoners back home safely. So why is it still one of a kind?
June 1, 2004... ATTICA, SING SING, MARCY. Spend 10 years in these prisons, like James did on a weapons charge, and you experience the hardest of hard time. But when he got out of prison last August, life on the outside presented its own extreme challenges. On...

Meet the new boss: why worker-ownership is the ultimate strategy for keeping jobs in New York.(How to Keep New York Working)
June 1, 2004... All politics is local, it is often said. But what about economics? Politics in this country, Americans like to believe, are participatory and democratic. But what about economics? --Berkshire Eagle, 1992 ON THE DOMESTIC FRONT, the lack...

This overview of joblessness in the U.S. leads with a sobering statistic: long-term unemployment has nearly tripled since 2000.(New Reports)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... This overview of joblessness in the U.S. leads with a sobering statistic: Long-term unemployment has nearly tripled since 2000. Workers without a job for six months or more now make up nearly a quarter of the unemployed, the highest rate in 20...

A resounding retort to the assertion that shifting consumer demand and increased productivity have driven manufacturing job loss, this brief report persuasively argues instead that international trade agreements are to blame.(New Reports)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... A resounding retort to the assertion that shifting consumer demand and increased productivity have driven manufacturing job loss, this brief report persuasively argues instead that international trade agreements are to blame. Today, American...

Think homeownership, retirement accounts and savings are a route out of poverty?(New Reports)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2004... Think homeownership, retirement accounts and savings are a route out of poverty? Not if federal policy has anything to say about it. This report shows that federal "asset-building" policy primarily aids the affluent, not the poor. The richest...

The grassroots apocalypse: could the loss of democracy and community seal our doom?(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... Dark Age Ahead By Jane Jacobs Random House, $23.95 THE VERY TITLE of Jane Jacobs' provocative new book, Dark Age Ahead, will seem to many browsers like hyperbole. Sure, we're going through some tough times right now, and not...

The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang.(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang By David C. Brotherton and Luis Barrios, Columbia University Press, $24.50 For a few years in the 1990s, the notorious Latin Kings gang...

Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy's Life.(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy's Life By Lee Stringer, Seven Stories Press, $21.95 Lee Stringer already wrote Grand Central Winter, about his days as an addict and NYC street person. Now he revisits his teen years in the early 1960s...

Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance.(Book Review)
June 1, 2004... Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance By Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrini, Beacon Press, $17 From "In God We Trust" on dollars to state participation in the marriage sacrament to the historic lineup of...