Niani Taylor, who lives in Brooklyn’s Van Dyke Houses, is among the small but growing number of NYCHA residents who report income from self-employment. Advocates say the Housing Authority could foster more entrepreneurs by expanding initiatives like its Business Pathways program, which helped Taylor grow her catering company. “I put my all into it.”
City Limits is looking to speak to artists and arts groups across the five boroughs to get a better sense of the challenges they’re facing, and how government policies can help address those.
New York should take page from cities like San Francisco, the report says, which launched the Financial Justice Project to eliminate or overhaul government-imposed monetary fees that disproportionately burden low-income residents, and people of color.
“In 2021, nearly 17 percent of all working-age New Yorkers with a disability were unemployed—more than double the pre-pandemic level. These disproportionately steep economic losses compound with structural inequities that led to pandemic-level unemployment for New Yorkers with disabilities long before COVID hit.”
The MTA’s Bus Action Plan may benefit healthcare workers, who have the city’s longest commutes and rely heavily on the bus network.
In 2009 a controversy over wages scuttled a plan to build a mall in the long-empty Kingsbridge Armory. Now there’s a plan to host bike races there. Is a renovation project finally getting in gear?
Governments are pouring money into job skills programs as a way of combating poverty. But what jobs are participants being prepared for?
“People want to shop local. There is a big movement around it, and people understand it.”
“A lot of small businesses aren’t getting the assistance they need to become more competitive.”
In an excerpt from the City Limits magazine investigation of small businesses in New York, a look at the holdouts along increasingly chain-ganged 86th Street.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
