The year is winding down & I’m not in my feelings about it but I could be if you want. In September, I published an essay in The Believer (preemptive R.I.P.) about potential next Mayor India Walton and the the fiscal challenges she’ll have to navigate if she wants to fund big social policies. I had actually been thinking through a version of this essay even before India Walton won Buffalo’s democratic mayoral primary and before I knew who she was. I was interested in writing about a a trend where big city mayors allow luxury housing and top-down economic development to run amok largely as a way to boost city coffers and fund social programs. It’s something Sam Stein writes about in “Capital City” and which P. E. Moskowitz touches on in “How To Kill A City.” The idea is basically that federal disinvestment leads most big city mayors, regardless how putatively “progressive” they frame their agenda, into a neoliberal bind where market forces appear to be the only viable option to fund social programs.
HOT05: Monorails & Sunbeams
HOT05: Monorails & Sunbeams
HOT05: Monorails & Sunbeams
The year is winding down & I’m not in my feelings about it but I could be if you want. In September, I published an essay in The Believer (preemptive R.I.P.) about potential next Mayor India Walton and the the fiscal challenges she’ll have to navigate if she wants to fund big social policies. I had actually been thinking through a version of this essay even before India Walton won Buffalo’s democratic mayoral primary and before I knew who she was. I was interested in writing about a a trend where big city mayors allow luxury housing and top-down economic development to run amok largely as a way to boost city coffers and fund social programs. It’s something Sam Stein writes about in “Capital City” and which P. E. Moskowitz touches on in “How To Kill A City.” The idea is basically that federal disinvestment leads most big city mayors, regardless how putatively “progressive” they frame their agenda, into a neoliberal bind where market forces appear to be the only viable option to fund social programs.