Public Parks and Climate Change - Climate change is here, and Syracuse is already feeling it. The last several summers have been some of the hottest on record, and new weather patterns are scrambling all our seasons. We need to do everything we can to stop climate change, of course—driving less, greening the grid—but in the meantime we also have to … Continue reading Public Parks and Climate Change →
Downtown’s suburban population - We’ve all heard about Downtown’s growing residential population, but the most recent census figures only put the neighborhood at 3,298 permanent residents. That’s just 2.3% of Syracuse’s entire population, and it’s far fewer people than live in Eastwood, the Southside, Westcott, or just about any other city neighborhood. If Downtown were a village, it’d be … Continue reading Downtown’s suburban population →
Preparing for sustainable, equitable growth - A lot of people are pretty pessimistic about Syracuse’s prospects for future population growth. ‘Our best days are behind us,’ ‘this place is going nowhere fast,’ ‘who’d want to live somewhere with this weather?’ People who think this way are fatalists—they think Syracuse is fated to decline, and there’s nothing we can do about it. … Continue reading Preparing for sustainable, equitable growth →
Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 3 - Population is a function of two variables: the size of households and the number of households. If households get bigger, population will also grow even if the total number of households remains the same. And if the total number of households increases, population will also grow even if the average size of those households remains … Continue reading Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 3 →
Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 2 - Syracuse has long been one of the youngest municipalities in the county, and SCSD is one of the only districts that’s seen a growing enrollment in recent years. But over the last decade, Syracuse’s population started aging, and the total number of children decreased while the City’s adult population grew. Like variations in total population, … Continue reading Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 2 →
Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 1 - After years of precipitous decline, Syracuse’s overall population has held remarkably steady over the last decade. Between 2010 and 2019, the total number of people living in the City decreased by just 1,890 or 1.3%. But look at the tract-level data, and it’s clear that Syracuse’s population has been anything but stable. Some neighborhoods boomed, … Continue reading Demographic change between 2010-2019, part 1 →
What to do with Shoppingtown - After losing out on millions of dollars in tax revenue and spending millions more in bankruptcy court, Onondaga County has gotten legal control of Shoppingtown Mall. Now the County’s just got to figure out what to do with that 70 acre property. Given the geographic location of the site and the demographic trends in the … Continue reading What to do with Shoppingtown →
National Elections are Local Too - The City of Syracuse is governed by City Hall, Onondaga County, New York State, and the Federal Government. Each level of government has jurisdiction here, and each one owes a responsibility to this community that goes beyond their duty to its residents as individual voters. National elections are local elections too. Syracuse’s population loss is such … Continue reading National Elections are Local Too →
Who will ride BRT? - Talk to non-bus-riders about Centro, and eventually they’ll say something to the effect of “you know a specific challenge that we have in Syracuse is that bus ridership is associated with socio-economic class, and so the question is how do we get people of all classes to ride the bus. How does Centro get me … Continue reading Who will ride BRT? →
Who Lives Downtown? - The dominant narrative of Downtown’s resurgence goes something like this: after years of neglect, a huge change in popular attitudes towards ‘the city’ have drawn people back to Downtown and supported millions of dollars in investment in new businesses, building renovations, and housing. No longer is Downtown just a place to go for work—a central … Continue reading Who Lives Downtown? →
A $45 Million Jobs Program for City Residents - Jobs are the number one issue in Syracuse. Good jobs, ones that pay well, ones that don’t require unnecessary credentials, jobs that people can get to whether or not they own a car. In a real way, the best thing that City Hall could do for the City of Syracuse would be to run a … Continue reading A $45 Million Jobs Program for City Residents →
Pools, Police, and Priorities - It is such good news that the pools will open up, that children and families will be able to cool down during this historically hot summer, that kids are getting at least one thing that they’re asking for. But it is ridiculous that it took a GoFundMe to make it happen. After City Hall announced … Continue reading Pools, Police, and Priorities →
Why Do We Need This Many Police? - Syracuse needs a new idea of public safety—a new paradigm that sends healthcare and social workers to deal with health and social issues. A new paradigm that significantly reduces the number of interactions that police officers have with the public and significantly reduces the number of police officers employed by City Hall. New ideas threaten … Continue reading Why Do We Need This Many Police? →
Systematic Reformation of Public Safety - Protests across the county have shown that American policing is broken—every single city has local cases of abuse, brutality, and murder to march against, and in every single city police have responded to criticism with military force. The problem isn’t just ‘a few bad apples,’ the problem is a broken institution that replicates the same … Continue reading Systematic Reformation of Public Safety →
Quit asking if the protests are peaceful - After night fell on a day of speeches and demonstrations, a number of the protesters attacked the building where the police were waiting. The protesters were breaking the law, and they knew it, and the police responded with force. It was 1851. It was the Jerry Rescue. There’s a monument to it in Clinton Square. … Continue reading Quit asking if the protests are peaceful →
How Far From Minneapolis, Syracuse? - This weekend’s protests are about Syracuse Police Department as much as they are about George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Ex-Minneapolis Police Officer Eric Chauvin. It might be comforting to those in power to pretend otherwise, to think that it’s all about something that happened in some other community, somewhere far away from here, … Continue reading How Far From Minneapolis, Syracuse? →
Coronavirus, the Sidewalks, and Race - The coronavirus has disproportionately hospitalized black people in Onondaga County. The County’s population is 76.5% white, but only 54% of people hospitalized for coronavirus are white. The County’s population is 11.5% black, but 27% of people hositalized for coronavirus are black. Looking for a possible explanation, the County Executive “speculated that the trend might be … Continue reading Coronavirus, the Sidewalks, and Race →
What if they had put the trains in the Erie Canal bed in 1925? - Early in the twentieth century, Syracuse was facing two huge shifts in transportation. The Erie Canal became obsolete after New York State built the Barge Canal in the Seneca River north of Onondaga Lake, and railroad traffic through Downtown had gotten so bad (158 trains a day) that the tracks had to be moved off … Continue reading What if they had put the trains in the Erie Canal bed in 1925? →
Coronavirus, the Digital Divide, and Public Libraries - Social distancing has moved so much of our work, learning, and social interaction online, but we’re leaving too many people behind. Only about ¾ of Syracuse households have internet access. That leaves 13,000 families where the parents simply cannot telecommute and the kids simply cannot participate in a virtual classroom. In more normal times, these … Continue reading Coronavirus, the Digital Divide, and Public Libraries →
Coronavirus and the Bus - Crises reveal what really matters. Work that used to be forgotten is now understood to be essential. Workers who used to be taken for granted are now recognized as heroes—fighting on the frontlines against this global pandemic—the hospitals, the nursing homes, the garbage routes, the checkout counters. Renewed appreciation for these people and the work … Continue reading Coronavirus and the Bus →