Category: Writing
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Moving Toward a Metro-Regional Approach to Planning and Advocacy
This article was originally published on Gotham Gazette on December 8, 2018 New York City and its neighbors have a problem. Unlike Los Angeles, Chicago, and the other major U.S. metropolitan areas that fit neatly within the standard city, county, and state political boundaries, our metropolitan area of over 22 million people does not. We’re…
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New York City Shouldn’t Regulate Ride-Hailing Apps – It Should Compete With Them
This article was originally published on Gotham Gazette on November 30, 2018 Smartphones are transforming transit in cities all over the world, and city governments are struggling to figure out how to best manage the change. If the world was looking to New York City’s recently enacted legislation affecting for-hire vehicle companies, then there will be disappointment…
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As City and State Politics Fail Us, Time to Rethink New York Metropolitan Area
This article originally appeared on Gotham Gazette on September 25, 2018 New York City is the world’s most popular city. We do lots of things exceptionally well here. But one thing we don’t do well is democracy. Voting rates within New York City are at historic lows, and corruption in Albany is at historic highs. Our politics…
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Making the Libertarian Party Viable in New York City
This article originally appeared on Gotham Gazette on June 29th, 2018. New Yorkers are constantly complaining about the two-party political system. Democratic domination of New York City politics means Democratic primary elections are more impactful than general elections. Republican domination of the national political system means New Yorkers’ progressive cultural values are rarely reflected in…
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Taiwan’s Radical Participatory Democracy Training is Coming to New York
This article originally appeared in Gotham Gazette on June 5th, 2018 Many people are wondering whether rapid advances in communication technology will improve or degrade American democracy. Last decade, the answer seemed to be: improved! Wikipedia’s growth showed us the unimaginable “wisdom of the crowd,” WordPress made it possible for the world’s smartest people to…
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For Government, It’s DSO or Die
This piece was originally published on Gotham Gazette on March 28, 2018 Private sector innovations in information technologies are transforming virtually every industry, and the rate of change seems to be accelerating. A decade ago, Facebook was a website used almost exclusively by college students to keep in touch with each other; today it’s one of the…
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Debrief: My 2017 Campaign for NYC Public Advocate
Every vote has been counted, and 74% of NYC voters want Democrat Letitia James to continue as Public Advocate. I congratulated her on her success and will happily work with her to make NYC’s government more open, transparent and participatory. I hope she’ll take me up on my offer. Those experienced in third-party NYC politics…
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A More Transparent City, with a Page for Every Capital Project
This piece was originally published on Gotham Gazette on November 2, 2017 Few things impact the lives of New Yorkers more than the city’s “capital projects.” These projects create, maintain, and improve the infrastructure New Yorkers use every day, including: streets, bridges, tunnels, sewers, parks, and so much more. In 2018, the capital budget will be $16.2…
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“Big City” Libertarianism
The Libertarian Party (LP) is the third largest political party in the United States, with a membership that’s twice as large as the Green Party and twenty times as large as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Unlike the Greens and DSA, which draw a significant support from urban areas, the LP is significantly more…
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Imagining SimNYCity
I was eight years old when I first encountered a computer game called “SimCity.” The general premise of the game was that you were the mayor of a virtual city, and you would use game money to create a place for communities of “Sims” to live. First you set up basic infrastructure like roads, pipes,…