Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is going to get ugly. Read this thread. Everyone is expecting cheap apartments, raises for city workers, free pre-K, free transit, more bus lines. I wish De Blasio luck. There are a lot of people lining up expecting free goodies, but no real clue how to pay for it all.
yes. As a foreigner, I saw the vicious circle here: Americans especially these living in hood always want to reap without sowing, free everything but high tax driving people not work, my neighbor quit his job and lives on aid now because income after tax give him same living quality as live on gov aid.
Both men were born in 1961. They both describe their fathers as alcoholics and say they were brought up primarily by their mothers and their mothers’ families. Both politicians have degrees from Columbia University and once lived in Cambridge, Mass. They both once lived under different names — Obama as Barry Soetoro and de Blasio as Warren Wilhelm Jr., the name he was born with.
They both have ties to the far left New Party; de Blasio reportedly worked as executive director of the New York branch of the New Party, while documents indicate that Obama joined the Chicago New Party and signed its candidate pledge. Both Obama and de Blasio are married to black women they met at work."
In Finland and Sweden, kids don't really start "learning" until age 7, and they have the highest test scores in the world.
I equate pre-K to Pee Wee Football. Having 6-year-old boys play tackle football does not make them better football players at age 12, than a 12-year-old that plays tackle football for the first time at age 11.
And I don't care how many studies you have, but a kid that learns to read at age 4 (and most kids can't anyway so there is no point in forcing them to try), will read no better at age 10 than if the kid started reading at age 6. It's intuitive and logical.
As for wealthy kids sending their kids to pre-K, that is an insane Manhattan phenomenon where 4-year-old are actually tested to get into nursery schools. Stuff like that does not happen in the suburbs, no matter how wealthy the community.
Do you have direct experience in dealing with the educational system in Finland or Sweden, or you just going by that you heard the education is better there? A certain percentage of people in the US can make certain other countries be what they want them to be, particularly when they're dealing with people who don't live or work or deal with those countries. The true reality of the situation in those countries is far different.
6. Destroy Laguardia airport and start over, preferably somewhere in South Brooklyn. The airport is horrendous, poorly served by public transportation, and is dangerous!
.
Anyone want to make any predictions on what Mayor de Blasio will or will not accomplish while being mayor of NYC?
Nothing too radical when you consider that almost all his appointees are known qualities and none were known to be radical. Appointing Bill Bratton is the biggest clue.
De Blasio will speak to the left, but given his almost absent management experience, will govern in a very cautious manner, relying heavily on people with experience.
I predict that by the end of the year Speaker Melissa Mark-Veverito will be hissing and clawing at him. Maybe Tish James as well.
I am hoping he turns his attention (and $$) to developing the 4 other boroughs, and this is some of my wish list:
1. Let's make 125th street a new Central Business District with affordable commercial towers lining 125th for non-profits, entreprenuers, artists, industry incubators, tech firms, green firms, and similar. It should maintain retail on the ground level, and become a great business sector and revenue generator for the city..an affordable business alternate to the high rents in midtown and downtown.
2. Develop the Southern Bronx waterfront into a mixed income community with dense housing towers, retail, commercial space, restaurants, green space, waterfront parks, pedestrian zones. As part of this development, there should also be a commercial business sector as well.
3. Revolutionize sanitation in this city. No longer should we have plastic bags piled 4 feet high crowding the sidewalk, feeding the rats, and ripping open for garbage to fly around the city. There needs to be a massive change in how we collect and dispose of garbage in this city.
4. Invest in major quality of life initiatives that have been very successful in Manhattan and expand them into the 4 other boroughs, including protected bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, traffic mitigating streetscapes, dedicated recycling garbage cans, and new parks/upgraded parks.
5. Eliminate S&F and engage in community oriented policing based on the needs of particular areas. Increase foot patrols and police presence in the handful of communities which drive crime in NYC, instead of casting nets and arresting everyone for the crime of being outside. Retrain the department to understand that their role is to protect and serve the public, not to instill fear and subjugate. Adding cameras on clothing for all police officers would eliminate many issues on both sides.
6. Destroy Laguardia airport and start over, preferably somewhere in South Brooklyn. The airport is horrendous, poorly served by public transportation, and is dangerous!
7. Invest in the existing public housing stock (specifically the housing projects), and provide a better QOL for residents. If it means rents must increase, so be it. We cannot have dilapidated public housing which is not only dangerous for residents and an eyesore for the city, but also the disinivestment directly/indirectly leads to a major crime driver for the city.
8. Continue the aggressive expansion of affordable housing, except make it affordable to middle income residents who earn from $60,000-$120,000 (based on family size). These are the people leaving the city in droves for lack of quality affordable housing and the residents we most need to stay.
9. Push the green agenda, put solar panels and wind turbines on all public/government buildings and housing projects, and lure as many green jobs and developments as possible.
10. Diversify the economic engine of NYC away from finance/stock market, and disseminate these new industries to the other 4 boroughs so they each have their own distinct economic drivers/generators.
11. Expanding select bus service, dedicated bus lanes, light rail/street cars, and train service linking Bronx/Queens/Brooklyn directly should be developed.
If we could move forward with even 1/2 of these his term will be wildly successful in a way that Bloomberg's never was.
Business people will locate their companies where they wish. Given that people are now drawn to dense cities because of the concentration of people and services they will locate in Manhattan and in nearby outer borough neighborhoods. People will get to work jumping on the train, bus, or car as they currently do. People want to be reasonably close to their clients, service providers, etc. Manhattan will ALWAYS be the main business district.
De Blasio will not be a big projects guy as he lacks the funds to be, considering his other goals. So new big transportation initiatives.
Harlem has gone already. Affordable anything there, other than on city owned land will not happen, except in its northern edges. 125th street is fully developed, and too expensive for anything that doesn't generate high rents per sq. foot.
Diversifying the economy is a great idea but just understand that if we lose the financial sector to Greenwich, CT or London, England we have lost the biggest generator of cash, and the engine which drives many other sectors, including those that the city will need to grow if it is to recreate decent paying middle class jobs.
There will always be S&F, just handled differently. If the community says those guys standing on ex corner are involved in drug dealing, or are possible robbers, they will be searched. Kelly quietly stopped using S&F as a quota, but just didn't want to say so loudly as it would have made Bloomberg an idiot when he claims that crime is still declining even though S&F also has this year.
Given our bad experience with dense towers in neighborhoods with higher then average levels of poverty, is that really a good idea? Middle class people aren't going to live in a building packed with poor people for obvious reasons, and yet the developer will have to rent out his units.
Not that I am an educator, but I have huge doubts about how forcing 4-year-old children into full-time "pre-K" provides any significant academic advantage. And there are many 4-year olds who are just not ready to learn how to read and write. So in some ways, full-time "pre-K" could be counterproductive.
By the way, I am 55, and somehow managed to get into a good college with half-day kindergarten, where we sang songs, painted, and had a daily nap. The main purpose of kindergarten was to get kids used to be away from home so they could enter first grade with confidence. I have no recollection of any academics other than learning the alphabet and numbers.
Most studies purporting the advantages of pre-K are made by organizations that have an interest in promoting pre-K. Can you say the teacher unions?
Early childhood education is critical, especially for poor kids whose parents are less able to help them develop their cognitive skills.
There are ways to encourage play that allows certain skills to develop. Poor kids usually enter school behind middle class kids because they don't have an understanding of numbers, and words and how these are interrelated.
And yes that singing and painting was very important. And they probably read you stories too. A kid who is stuck in front of the TV because their parents must work two jobs to pay the rent enters the school system disadvantaged. Doubly so if the parents speak poor quality English if they are new immigrants.
I agree with de Blasio on this. My issue with him is that he is saying nothing about work force education which will be needed if the parents are to earn enough to allow an environment where they can actually focus more on parenting and supplementing what the kids are doing in school.
Facts are that people who head households cannot be making burgers at McD.
As for wealthy kids sending their kids to pre-K, .
You cannot compare Scandinavia, with its monolithic populations and its minimal income disparities, with the USA.
Pre K isn't going to mandatory. Any case rich kids go to pre K every time their parent(s) reads to them or engages them in some activity designed to stimulate their cognitive activity.
Poor parents usually don't have the time, and even if they do, they don't know how to go about doing this. In fact many don't even know that they are supposed to engage in these activities.
The idea is that if these kids go to pre K they should be less likely to fall behind the other kids once "real" school begins. Any way my brother, who has a 4 year old, told me that when kids start kindergarten they are supposed to have some basic literacy/numeracy. They should have the ability to understand what adding one apple to another means. And associate letters to words, even if they cant spell.
You will also be surprised about how many kids these days have speech issues. That problem can be addressed early if it does occur.
Both men were born in 1961. They both describe their fathers as alcoholics and say they were brought up primarily by their mothers and their mothers’ families. Both politicians have degrees from Columbia University and once lived in Cambridge, Mass. They both once lived under different names — Obama as Barry Soetoro and de Blasio as Warren Wilhelm Jr., the name he was born with.
They both have ties to the far left New Party; de Blasio reportedly worked as executive director of the New York branch of the New Party, while documents indicate that Obama joined the Chicago New Party and signed its candidate pledge. Both Obama and de Blasio are married to black women they met at work."
And BOTH will enrage the liberals when they move to the center. Obama has already done it and I predict that de Blasio will as well.
Calling Obama left wing is so funny. Don't you mean to say that he is too black, because he doesn't seem any different from any other democratic president. Indeed much of his foreign policy isn't that different from Bush's.
Don't scream Obamacare because the GOP originally developed that concept as a way to counteract single payer healthcare, which most liberals prefer.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
