Facing life and death (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Just the facts, ma’am.
That’s what fictional Dragnet detective Joe Friday used to ask for on TV decades ago. Today, the phrase is best known as a meme, but it’s still a good approach to decision-making in government. My colleagues and I should always look at the facts because that will point us towards the best course of action.
Rarely is this more apparent than in the discourse around the Grieving Families Act, which passed both houses of the Legislature by wide, bi-partisan margins and awaits action by Governor Kathy Hochul.
The Grieving Families Act reforms New York’s 175-year-old wrongful death law. If that sounds obscure, it’s not. This antiquated law currently says that if someone is killed, their lives are only worth what they earn for a living and the grief of their survivors is worth nothing. For example, because women earn just 83 cents on the dollar compared to men, their lives are worth 17% less if they are killed. The life of a retiree is basically worthless because they’ve already earned most of the money that they ever will. The same with the life of a child who isn’t working; incredibly, existing law accords little worth to the life of a child.
And, because the law only recognizes the 19th-century model of a family, many modern families are shut out of the courts entirely. The love and loss of grandchildren or domestic partners are legally worthless in New York.
If we were gathering the facts for Joe Friday, it would be indisputable that these are a pretty terrible set, utterly indefensible in our modern society.
As the Assembly sponsor of the bill, I introduced versions of the Grieving Families Act to correct these injustices every year since 1994, and this year with the crucial help of State Senator Brad Hoylman - sponsor of the Senate version of the bill - we finally beat the special interests and passed the bill through both houses of the Legislature.
But those same special interests aren’t giving up. Insurance company lobbyists are coming out of the woodwork trying to water down or even stop this legislation altogether. But they’re not offering the facts. Instead, they’re spreading ‘alternative facts’ like the Trump White House, and what our neighbors in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and beyond would simply call lies.
Insurance companies are claiming that this bill will cause malpractice insurance costs to skyrocket 40%. There’s no evidence for that. In fact, according to the American Medical Association, when Illinois reformed its wrongful death law in 2007 in a similar way, insurance rates for specialties such as surgery, internal medicine, and OB/GYN went down over the course of the next decade. That’s not even adjusted for inflation, the actual dollar amounts went down because the performance of financial markets plays the biggest role in rate-setting.
It's not the first time that the opponents of reform have tried to mislead us. When New York passed Laverne’s Law in 2018, the Medical Society claimed that it would cause a 15% rise in premiums for every doctor. Instead for the specialties such as general surgery, internal medicine, and OB/GYN, the state’s largest malpractice insurer either kept rates flat or even lowered them in every downstate county.
So using Joe Friday’s approach to government leads to a pretty clear set of facts: For too long, New York’s antiquated wrongful death law has undervalued the lives of many in our society, and the Grieving Families Act corrects this 175-year old injustice. Hopefully, the Governor will recognize the importance of correcting this injustice and will sign the bill as passed by the Legislature.
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Assemblymember Helene Weinstein represents parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @HeleneWeinstein.
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Housing in view (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The United States, and New York particularly, faces a housing crisis of its own making. Today, housing costs are the main driver of inflation, which is leading to painful interest rate hikes across the whole economy. And they’re the main driver of homelessness, an even more acute problem in high cost states like New York and California. In fact, for every $100 of increase in median rent, there’s a 9% increase in homelessness.
High housing costs lead to teachers, police officers, firefighters, and service workers being forced to live far from communities they work in simply to be able to afford a home. As distance between communities and their essential workers grows, so does distrust and lack of cohesion within them. And, housing costs are cited as a major driver of our inability to diversify and grow the economy. In fact, as numerous residents and businesses move to the Sun Belt, cheaper housing for workers is one of the most commonly cited reasons.
Prior localized efforts to build more housing in New York City and particularly its suburbs have failed, captured by NIMBYism (“not in my backyard” opposition) and parochial local politics. New York’s own Regional Plan Association estimates that half-a-million homes could be developed along New York City’s commuter rails alone by allowing housing density on properties already zoned residential, but few suburbs have allowed it.
New housing supply is severely below new housing demand because localities work to oppose new housing through means such as exclusionary zoning, parking requirements, and extended public comment periods that amount to filibusters to run out the clock. In New York, extreme NIMBYism has led to embarrassing episodes such as a recent viral video of a young man speaking in favor of an affordable housing project being shouted down at a Bronx community meeting.
Even in high-opportunity, transit-rich neighborhoods like Soho and Midtown West, you’d be hard-pressed to find many local elected officials who support upzoning their jurisdictions to develop more housing — something that would be very beneficial for the city and society as a whole but where there are hyper-local costs such as construction noise, property value changes, or blocked views.
Too many people presume that hyper-local direct democracy -- where neighborhoods get vetoes over what gets built -- is the American way. Yes, our fundamental unit of government is local, but NIMBYs do not have the sole claim to American history and traditions. For another way forward, look to Federalist 10, where James Madison makes the most forceful case for enlarging the sphere of decision-making so local communities could not kneecap widely beneficial policy.
In short, building housing has become a dysfunctional direct democracy issue – what Madison termed factional. Madison argues that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property." Today, the immediate costs of building housing are borne by immediate neighbors in the immediate future, creating political pressures on local officials, community boards, and towns to block housing with infinite delays in hearings and approvals. Coupling these pressures with the fact that voter turnout among homeowners is approximately 25% higher than renters, we have a perpetual public choice problem where our local governance perpetually under-approves housing.
These patterns were foreshadowed by Madison 230 years ago when he wrote “those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." Thus, Madison argues to combat the effect of faction, we must adopt a national Constitution that enlarges the sphere of interests.
Faced with localities continuously under-developing housing, this is exactly what California did in passing a landmark law at the state level that summarily approved housing as-of-right in underutilized commercially-zoned corridors.
California provided a way forward for New York and elsewhere as part of its effort to address its own shortage of 3.3 million homes by passing a statewide law that provided higher density zoning as of right for underutilized commercial properties (for comparison the New York City metro area alone has 516,000 fewer housing units than jobs and faces a shortage of 560,000 units by 2030 simply to account for current population growth). California’s success was made possible because it bypassed the NIMBYism of localities by building a statewide, broad coalition of business, labor, and housing advocates. The diffuse benefits of more housing were used to marshall public support at the state level even if they would likely fail at a local level where parochial interests rule.
I spoke to the architect of the law, AB 2011, California Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, about the path to passing such a controversial but important bill. Wicks credited the passage of her bill to the visible failure of decades of NIMBYism with regard to aggregate housing.
“Every freeway ramp encampment, every city, is a visible reminder California has 27% of the country’s homeless population and it’s a very visible reminder of our failure on the housing issue,” she said.
“It takes 5, 6, 7 years to break ground on a project because of red tape and approvals,” Wicks added, and the housing construction industry is one that many people are exploited in and leave.
Her solution was a bill that ties together important pieces: it took as-of-right approvals statewide and out of local hands for specific projects that alleviate the housing shortage while using labor that pays a prevailing wage to bring workers back to the housing industry.
Another major component of the California victory was focusing on commercial corridors in order to sidestep residents who otherwise object to adding density to their current neighborhoods from single family to multifamily, the type of upzoning many reformers focus on most.
According to a quantitative analysis by Urban Footprint that Wicks credits for bringing California’s proposal to life, underutilized commercial corridors targeted by the bill could provide up to 2.4 million new homes, including up to 400,000 affordable to low- and moderate-income households across the state. This while increasing local tax revenues and providing substantial environmental benefits - it is estimated that these new units will produce 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than the average California household due to their density and proximity to already existing roadways, water mains, and sewage.
(source: Grand Boulevards: A Plan to Solve California’s Housing Crisis)
California’s new law creates two options for underutilized strip malls and commercial corridors along wide boulevards such as the Bay Area’s El Camino Real. Developers who choose to build 85% market rate and 15% affordable housing can build mixed-use housing with retail on the ground floor as-of-right with only ministerial approval, bypassing local councils and rezoning if they provide prevailing wages, raising the take home pay of people who work in construction and developing a much needed workforce.
Developers who choose to build 100% affordable housing do not have to pay prevailing wage. According to Assemblymember Wicks, starting with underutilized commercial corridors rather than upzoning existing residential zones helped bypass NIMBY opposition in part because people recognize that parking lots and strip malls are not efficient uses of space on major arteries.
(Artist Conception of Commercial Corridor Based on Boulevard Size, Source: Urban Footprint)
California’s landmark housing victory would not have been possible without the broad coalition that realistically could be built at the state level without falling victim to Madison’s “factions” that can capture smaller units of government and politics. Wicks particularly credits support from service and education workers, who are often forced to live hours away from where they work, carpenters’ unions who do not belong to the large building trades but whose work goes primarily to housing, and even Republicans in the Assembly who are traditionally opposed to red tape and regulations. These are not the kind of groups who would necessarily show up to a community board meeting for a single housing development, where the benefits are often too narrow to attract attention and rally those focused on the greater good.
In New York, a similar statewide housing plan could apply to New York City and surrounding suburbs on Long Island and up the Metro North region. The state would designate an underutilized commercial corridor based on the width of a commercial boulevard or along a mass transit artery like the subway, LIRR, or Metro North. They would receive as-of-right mixed-used zoning with appropriate density based on corridor size, with only ministerial approvals in exchange for 100% affordable housing or 85/15% but using prevailing wage construction. Labor, business, and housing advocates would be able to succeed in getting more housing approved through this state level action than piecemeal at the local level.
In New York and across the country, building housing is a necessity. With the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates, there is no guarantee new housing supply will be added to meet demand. It’s a vicious cycle as housing costs now comprise the biggest portion of core consumer price index (CPI) increases year on year, which will continue to push the Fed to painful rate hikes and produce even fewer housing starts.
Now is the time to embrace the Madisonian model and take some decision-making out of the hands of localities that have proven they will not add housing, instead embracing essential growth for the good localities, states, and their residents. It’s a rare issue of bipartisan agreement with bills by Republicans such as Senator Todd Young of Indiana and Democrats like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey pushing to clear hurdles and red tape to build more housing.
In New York, we ought to take a lesson from Madison and from California’s experience to embrace housing reform at the state level.
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Suraj Patel is a professor and former candidate for Congress. On Twitter @surajpatelnyc.
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A community garden (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
As urbanites, it is easy to disregard the ground beneath our feet. As we sidestep tumbleweeds of trash or awkwardly circumvent waste from any of New York City’s 508,000 registered dogs, we tend to lose not only the forest and the trees, but also the dirt below. Even when we are in one of the city’s 1,700 parks, we probably are paying more attention to our friends or a good book than to what is growing underneath us. The dirty truth, however, is that we deeply rely on soils, and now more than ever. But, when was the last time we really took stock of the stuff?
World Soil Day, which happened earlier this month on December 5, focused on the theme: “Soils: Where food begins.” But for New York City residents, this topic can seem disconnected from our daily lives. Urban soils are an often-forgotten, critically important part of the city’s infrastructure. Community gardens and urban farms might be few and far between, and many New Yorkers may never have seen food growing in the city, but soils are all around us. All that is needed is a discerning eye to realize their presence and potential. Examining soils can help us understand the health of our city, performing a checkup, literally from the ground up.
Below, we outline four ways to promote soil health in the city, particularly for interactive soils in gardens, and get New Yorkers in touch with the soil, for their wellbeing and the quality of the shared environment. Whether it’s tree wells or parks or community gardens, urban soils represent a complex system we must appreciate.
1. Seeing Local Soils as an Intersectional Solution
Although 19 billion pounds of food are distributed throughout New York City each year – about 2,000 pounds per person on average – more than 1 million New Yorkers are still food insecure. In certain communities, like the South Bronx, this rate jumps from the citywide 12.5% to one-in-four. Rather than simply increasing food deliveries to funnel nutritious foods into these areas, exacerbating air pollution in communities that already suffer from suffocating amounts of tailpipe emissions, fresh food could be produced and supplied locally.
Programs, such as Farms at NYCHA and GreenThumb Community Gardens, do exactly this, expanding access to healthy foods while also providing valuable training and jobs. Community-centered urban agriculture might not be able to, on its own, serve the city all its food. Yet, when community members drive food production locally, it gives them pride and dignity in being able to provide for themselves while promoting food security in their neighborhoods.
More so, community gardens not only offer accessible food, they also enhance a community’s green space. They are more prevalent in communities with below-average access to parkland. Healthy soils are also climate-resilient soils – absorbing water during flash flooding or storm surges. Thus, they fulfill the purposes of food production and green space, while also giving the city much-needed protection against climate change.
2. Healthy Soils Promote Healthy People, More Than Just With Nutrition
In addition to food nutrients, community gardens convey bushels of benefits. They reduce stress, and soil microbes can even boost our serotonin levels – an important feature, with over 8% of New Yorkers suffering from moderate to severe depression.
Gardeners are also generally more active, which improves physical functioning. One segment of New York City’s population in particular – older adults – would especially benefit from getting down and dirty by stimulating both mind and body. But there are other important considerations as well: time spent in a garden can improve quality of life outcomes in dementia patients, which means that as New York City fosters an aging population, community gardens can play a big role in how we care for our older adults.
On the other end of the life spectrum, children benefit from getting into soils, too, and already 824 schools have garden programs and 140 schools are a part of the educational Farm to School program. Soils act like a living classroom, allowing hands-on learning in and out of school to teach about where food comes from, the microbiome, and other topics. This can all foster healthy relationships with food, and reduce obesity.
The city has educational programs centered around farming already in place, such as workshops at farmers markets and childcare centers. Other community educational spaces exist, including action centers leading events and outreach to seniors. But New York City has just some 600 community gardens to serve its more than 8.4 million residents. The goal of having gardens in all schools, in neighborhoods, and close to seniors is a multi-benefit one.
3. Put New York City’s Waste to Work
Soil is as much about where food begins, as where food ends. Compost-amended soil has better chemistry and fosters more biodiversity. In New York City’s community gardens, compost has even been shown to mitigate stormwater runoff, thereby attenuating flooding. Composting fights two battles at once: combatting the immense amount of organic matter that is sent to landfills and providing nutrients and benefits to urban soils for gardens, parks, tree wells, and other spaces.
Despite its continued importance, the city’s composting system has been in flux for the past three years, as COVID-19 disrupted momentum. A recent municipal pilot program in Queens has had success, collecting 5.7 million pounds of waste in just six weeks. This sets an example for curbside, no-opt-in-necessary programs, which could be rolled out in the future across boroughs. This can also put people in better touch with their food cycles.
And food waste isn’t the only kind of waste being considered in soil. The NYC PUREsoil program helps turn clean, deeply-excavated earth from construction into clean fill for community organizations, like gardens, rather than removing it as waste. Using what New York City already has by way of ground materials and pre-soil (aka food) and putting it to good use for the city’s soil fertility is a win on waste.
4. Equitably Incentivize Healthy Urban Soils and Ecosystems
In 2021, New York State followed the growing trend to prioritize soil. The State’s Soil Health and Climate Resiliency Act put into law a definition for soil health, suggestions for monitoring it, and encouraged collaboration between scientists and practitioners to better the quality of our agricultural soils.
The letter of this law does all of the above for rural, suburban, and urban soils. But New Yorkers know our city is unique, and this includes our soils – both their quality and how they are (under)prioritized. Part of the problem with urban soils is that economically, they are viewed as lacking what makes rural soils so important: food production. In a city, though, soils provide the services that we have described above and more. The value of urban soils should be incentivized, economically or otherwise.
To any pedestrian, walking down the sidewalk might give the impression that the concrete jungle doesn’t need or value its soil. But the lives of New Yorkers tell a different story.
Community gardens produce food and flowers on the land. We benefit from the protections that healthy soils offer when facing storms and excessive heat, both of which will only increase in their frequency and severity in the future. Coming out of this year’s World Soil Day, we are reminded we can all play a part in helping the Big Apple live up to its name – getting in touch with our food, getting down and dirty to care for city soils, and spreading the word about the brown gold beneath our feet.
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Karl Palmquist is the Vice-Chair of the Sierra Club NYC Group and a systems biologist. He has worked on soil health issues at the state level, and developed science outreach programs for students to learn about soil. Mallory Rutigliano is a sustainability professional based in New York who holds an MPA in environmental science and policy and has worked in the fields of global policy, healthful behavior, and sustainable finance. She works on climate resiliency for the City of New York and is an active community volunteer. All opinions expressed in this column are the authors' alone.
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