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Photo by: Marc Fader
Attorney general and Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo, seen at an event in late October where he unveiled his urban agenda.
Election night confirmed what polls had predicted for weeks: Andrew Cuomo will be New York’s next governor.
Now what?
In the weeks leading up to the election, City Limits looked closely at what the attorney general and Democratic nominee would do once in office:
Economic Development: Carl Paladino addressed the state’s economic future by issuing policy statements that amount to sound bites. Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, wrote a ” target=”_blank”>a startling gloss, given the issue’s prominence in Washington, Albany, and at City Hall. Set against the context of his first run for governor in 2002, when Cuomo championed universal preschool and literacy as vital education efforts, the candidate seems to have shifted his focus away from the classroom to matters economic.
Energy: Cuomo’s energy and power agenda, titled Power NY, is more than 23,000 words long, including footnotes, stretched out over 150 pages. But two words that never appear in the Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s document, together or separately, are “hydraulic” and “fracturing.” For Cuomo, the debate over that gas extraction method is particularly sensitive: Power companies with a stake in natural gas are among his campaign’s largest contributors.
Housing: While there are plenty of worthwhile initiatives in former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Cuomo’s housing plans, advocates say, there are few bold ideas. And what is left out is as revealing as what is included. Cuomo talks about expanding and reinvigorating various financing schemes for building affordable housing and avoiding foreclosures and the blight that can be their aftermath, but he doesn’t say a word about holding on to the state’s existing stock of affordable housing.