Flashback Friday: The Seeds of Mayoral Control for NYC Schools, 2002

State lawmakers on Friday held a hearing to consider whether to extend mayoral control of city schools for another three years. City Limits takes a look back at our early coverage of the nearly 20-year-old policy, which was intended to provide a “a radical jolt” to faltering NYC public schools at the time, following in the foot steps of cities like Chicago and Boston.

What Ever Happened to CBAs? The Rise and Fall of ‘Community Benefits Agreements’ in NYC

Once a seemingly promising structure to ensure that real estate groups don’t run roughshod over local neighborhoods in development deals—and still a common practice in other cities—CBAs are now disdained by many New York City community groups and developers alike. The mechanism’s demise is a lesson, development experts say, in both the strength and limitations of demanding concessions in exchange for neighborhood-changing construction projects.