You may have paid little attention to the tax plan rushing headlong through Congress. It has been advertised as a middle-class tax break and an inducement to business to create jobs through a dramatically lowered corporate tax rate. Pay attention, especially if you live in a city or suburb, as most of us do. Media and opponents of the plan have focused on the elimination or possible reduction in the deduction for state and local taxes and a possible $500,000 cap on deduction … [Read more...]
Disaster Recovery Secret Weapon: Neighborhood Groups
In a year of extraordinary disasters, the sheer scope of recovery and rebuilding can seem mind boggling. We’re tempted to turn away in horror at buildings with roofs ripped off in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, the pancaked structures in Mexico City, the piles of debris in Houston front yards. Government and private aid groups are well versed in the delivery of food, blankets, and other donated items, but whether recovery restores neighborhoods to health or leaves them with boarded-up houses … [Read more...]
Why You’ll Never Get a Raise under Trump
I am no labor expert but all the things I know much more about —and usually write about—from climate change to transportation and architecture—were held hostage in this election to voters who wanted a dramatic change in their economic prospects—i.e., a raise in wages to be orchestrated by the self-anointed business genius (but serial bankrupt) Trump. The rage at Trump and his actions is enormously heartening and powerful to a point. The energy is too scattered and inchoate now. It’s time to … [Read more...]
You Can Stop Trump’s Disastrous Cabinet
The Republican Senate is attempting to rush hearings for President Trump’s cabinet choices. Everyone has to act now to insist that Congress follow established procedures and law for vetting ethics and conflicts of interest. Several candidates with many interests involving the government have yet to file the paperwork necessary to show how they will separate their businesses from their work in government, led by the President himself who appears determined to skirt rules that should apply to … [Read more...]
In Long Island City Real Estate Thrives on Dystopia
As it emerges from a tunnel, the 7 subway line clatters upward in a broad curve high above the streets of Long Island City, opening a panorama to the East River and the Manhattan skyline pinpricked with skinny super-luxury towers. Welcome to the New New York. In the foreground amid the lumpen jumble of lowrise loft buildings, tower cranes and new residential high-rises are fast forming a new skyline rivaling the old one it is fast obscuring. Long Island City, which has seemed to exist … [Read more...]
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