July 13, 2023
The Test Isn’t the Problem
Now that the Supreme Court has disallowed overtly race-conscious university admissions policies, we can expect colleges to try to find other ways to pursue their version of diversity. In New York, we’ve already seen one likely workaround: the lingering idea of ditching entrance-exam requirements for admission to the city’s elite public schools. Thanks to a…
July 12, 2023
New York Rent Control: Could the End be Near?
Those who care about housing policy and the future of New York City will be paying close attention this fall to see if the Supreme Court decides to take up a serious challenge by apartment owners to the Big Apple’s big blunder: rent regulation. At stake is a law which regulates rent prices and tenant rights for…
July 2, 2023
New York’s Quality of Life Budget: Focus on Improving Conditions for Everyday People First
With no little fanfare, the City Council passed legislation requiring New Yorkers to separate their food waste for composting. Unmentioned amidst the claims for environmental progress was the fact that, even in a less aggressive plan included in Mayor Adams’ budget, the city would have to add 158 collection trucks to its sanitation fleet, at a…
June 24, 2023
City Can No Longer Afford Life-Long Subsidies for Lucky NYCHA Tenants
If the definition of insanity involves doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result, maybe the long-troubled New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, isn’t entirely insane after all. Rather than pouring yet more money into repairs of the crumbling Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses, among the nation’s oldest public-housing projects, NYCHA…
June 14, 2023
Housing in America: A Profectus Roundtable
As economic dynamism in America continues to shift the geography of economic opportunity, housing has become a top concern for a growing number of Americans. It’s clear that some areas are struggling to maintain or build enough housing to meet demand. With costs rising and preferences changing, we asked a group of experts for their…
May 31, 2023
Sending the Wrong Signals
The New York City Council has added another misguided new progressive policy to those, like bail reform and safe drug-injection sites, that make life worse for the poor in the name of helping them. By a vote of 41 to seven—and in the face of Mayor Eric Adams’s opposition—the council voted last week to pass…
May 23, 2023
Public Housing Should Have Work Rules, Too
Thanks to the debt-ceiling showdown, Republicans appear to have a fighting chance to add a work requirement for those receiving SNAP (food stamp) and Medicaid benefits. They should also turn their attention to another major federal program that fosters dependency and discourages work: housing assistance. Local experiments across the country suggest that requiring those in…
May 19, 2023
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: America Today
With the expiration of the Covid-era rule justifying the expulsion of illegal border-crossers on public health grounds, the Biden Administration, to the dismay of progressives, has gone Trumpish. Absent “Title 42,” Citizen and Immigration Services will now “presume individuals who entered the United States unlawfully are ineligible for asylum.” This turnabout brings us back to…
May 12, 2023
Follow the Money as Hochul Floats Tobacco Ban While Pushing Legal Marijuana
Governor Hochul has floated the idea of banning all sales of tobacco products in New York State, even as she urges New Yorkers to purchase and partake of now-legal cannabis. It’s not easy to see these as consistent views — both, after all, have been shown to be products hazardous to your health. Yet a…
May 8, 2023
An Inspiration to Freethinkers
Some of us still subscribe to the view that we didn’t leave the Democratic Party; it left us. For such apostates and freethinkers, Fred Siegel was an inspiration and a role model (though I never asked him directly about his party affiliation). His writing was the product of careful observation by one of the best-read people in…