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215: THE POLITICS OF NEW YORK

Spring 2017
New York University
Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service

Tues/Thurs: 11:00am 12:15pm Professor Mitchell L. Moss

Bobst, Room LL138 Office: 295 Lafayette Street,
2nd floor
Office Hours: By appointment. Telephone: 212-998-7547
Email: mitchell.moss@nyu.edu Twitter: @mossmitchell

Take-Home Exam

Answer 4 of the 6 questions below. Each answer should be no more than 500
words.

1. Drawing upon Robert Caros The Power Broker, explain how Robert
Moses influenced the physical development of the New York Region.
What were the sources of Moses power? In what ways did Moses help
the New York Region and in what ways did he hurt the development of
the Region?
a. Robert Moses was incredibly influential in the physical
development of the New York Region. During his time in power in
the 1970s, projects moved along nearly 4 times quicker than
they do now a day. At his prime, Moses had a lot of power from
the mid-1920s through the 1968 without holding any elected
office, instead, he occupied 12 different city positions
simultaneously including that of New York City Parks
Commissioner, head of the State Power Commission, head of the
State Parks Council and chairman of the Triborough Bridge and
Tunnel Activity. In the seven years between 1946 and 1954,
Moses had to approve of all public construction and public
improvements of all types. In this period of time, Moses spear-
headed numerous major projects including the building of the
United Nations, the Belt Parkway and the Cross-Bronx
Expressway.

2. Mayoral control over the public school system has been in effect since
2002. Explain how mayoral control has changed the governance of the
school system, student achievement, and the system of school
choice for students enrolling in high school.
a. The New York City public school system is completely different
since Mayor Bloomberg took over in 2002. Prior to 2002 and the
Bloomberg administration, the 32 community school boards and
the Board of Education was responsible for the running of public
schools; however, with the first Bloomberg administration, all
 responsibility and authority was centralized into the office of the
chancellor and that reported directly to the mayor office. Mayoral
control greatly impacted and resulted in numerous changes in
New York City public school education that either might not have
ever occurred or wouldve occurred at a much slower pace. Some
changes that occurred was the hiring of many new teachers,
ending social promotion, rewarding high performing teachers and
principals and especially, increased standardized test scores and
higher high school graduation rates. The NYC public schools have
also shown increases in student achievement on the National
Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), which is administered
every other year to a representative sample of students in each
of the 50 states and, depending on the year, up to 17 large
urban districts. Over the period from 2004-2005 to 2011-2012,
NYCs high school graduation rate (calculated using the state
mandated method) increased 18 percentage points, whereas the
rate for the state and the other big four districts increased at
only about half as much. School choice programs are programs
that provides viable alternatives to parents who which not to
send their children to their local public school. Instead, school
choice options will include open enrollment policies, lottery
systems to get into magnet schools, and charter schools.
Furthermore, the New York City government may also provide
financial assistance to parents who pursue the private school
route.

3. Homelessness is a major problem in NYC. Explain Mayor de Blasios

policies for homelessness in NYC and how local communities have
responded to the proposed plans for 90 new homeless shelters.
a. Mayor de Blasio plans to open 90 homeless shelters in the city
because the number of people that are sleeping in shelters in
2016 has increased to over 60,000 people. Furthermore, he is
planning to increase the capacity at 30 existing shelters. De
Blasio is also planning to enact an equity plan that theoretically
will more evenly distribute these new shelters across various
neighborhoods in the five borough. This $300-million-dollar plan
is ultimately supposed to shrink the homeless population by
2500 people, 4 percent of the 60000 people on the street
currently. This plan is theoretically supposed to eventually stop
the citys current solution of placing families in hotels and
various apartments across the city. Both of these solutions are
not only incredibly expensive, with the hotel solution costing the
city around $400,000 a day, but also incredibly inefficient. The
apartment complexes that the homeless are usually placed in are
extremely unsafe and are often handled by landlords whose only
concern is the money they are raking in from the city and not the
 tenants. This new policy that Mayor de Blasio is enacting is
actually facing opposition from both sides of the equation. Some
people are saying that this plan is not nearly large enough to
have any kind of impact on the homelessness population, while
on the flip side of the coin, a lot of people are protesting the
increase of shelters in their neighborhood due to fear of the
threat to the safety of the neighborhood and also to the drop in
worth of houses and properties in the area. Furthermore, people
state that the city should focus more on helping people out of the
shelter instead of spending more money on opening more and
more of these shelters.

4. How has technological and economic change affected the renewal of

NYCs waterfront? Pick a specific project or community and explain how
the waterfront has changed over the past 25 years.

5. New York City has always been a city of immigrants. More than 36% of
the citys population is foreign born. How do immigrants influence the
economic and political life of NYC? How will federal policies to limit
immigration to the U.S. and expand deportation affect NYC?
a. While the New York City have always been known as the city of
immigrants, the rest of the United States have not and is not
nearly as friendly to the immigrants as this city is. Most cities in
the Northeast and Midwest had their population peak in 1950s,
but they soon experienced large population declines the came
from suburbanization and economic changes. Although New York
city also suffered in population count as a result of these forces,
this decline was soon reversed by the influx of immigrants. With
a loss of nearly 10 percent of the population in the 1970s, New
York City rebounded became we transformed from a
manufacturing industry of a city to one with a service industry.
This in turn allured more immigrants to come to New York City.
This induction of new immigrants brought New York City into an
era of revitalization and growth that reached the peak population
number at 8.3 million people in 2012. In New York City, most
immigrants tend to live in neighborhoods that has older, small
rental buildings. This leads to neighborhoods packed with
immigrants and high population density. On the other hand, the
federal government, especially recently have been trying to limit
immigration and enforce deportation from the United States;
however, New York City has been one of the few sanctuary
cities that hasnt cooperated on immigration enforcement.
Apparently, according to Nicole Malliotakis, the city only
cooperated with only two of 80 detainer requests the US
immigration offices had. Furthermore, in 2014, Mayor de Blasio
signed a City Council bill that severely lessened the amount of
 cooperation the city had with federal detainer requests, limiting
them to only cases of felony convictions only. Donald Trump
retaliated by signing an executive order that could cut or remove
all federal funds for cities like New York if we dont cooperate on
immigration enforcement.

6. How will information technologies shape the future of New York?

Describe the critical technological trends that will influence the Citys
future. In what ways will new technologies hurt or help New York City?