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The budget fight that is not being had

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
Neither side of City Hall appears willing to engage in serious exploration of triage despite a federal administration unrelentingly hostile to cities (especially blue ones), let alone willing to take the politically difficult steps necessary to achieve excellence in delivery of city services.

Remember when Rikers needed a Receiver? What will Mamdani do?

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
First-week actions included two relating to Rikers, but neither weighed in on the broader issue of the need for a true Receiver to enforce the Rikers Consent Decree, not the current prospect of a weak tea “Remediation Manager,” the measure that the judge presiding over the case intends to pursue.
“Simply put, when, after 10 years of judicial oversight, conditions remain as terrible as they are, that oversight can only be described as a dismal failure. ”

The City Council part of the mayoral equation

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
On Primary Day, you want to know "who is winning?" Leading up to the general election, "What will the candidate be able to accomplish or block" needs to be among the questions posed. That means taking the Council into account.
“Will the candidate have enough Council support to back his initiatives and to block measures he wants stopped?”

Hochul's "Pro-Housing Community" program so far falling flat

Original Reporting | By Craig Gurian
A large percentage of municipalities in Westchester and Nassau Counties — two of the beating hearts of exclusionary zoning in the New York City metropolitan area — are saying in effect, “No, thank you, we like our exclusion just the way we have it.” The lack of progress is especially apparent in municipalities with the lowest percentages of non-Hispanic Black residents.
“If it can be successfully done 20, 30, 35 years down the road, then I don't see a reason why it couldn't be done and set up from the onset.”
Matt Dunbar, Habitat of NYC and Westchester

Market-rate condos as an affordable housing tool?

Original Reporting | By Craig Gurian
Legislation recently enacted by New York State as part of its budget process directly offers the prospect of preserving several thousand affordable housing units at risk for losing their tenant protections, and indirectly raises the question of why an obvious set of tools aren’t being used to change the day-to-day reality of luxury condominium buildings being developed with zero percent affordable units included.

Do they know it's truly an emergency?

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
Most of the candidates running for mayor of New York City have explicitly described the Trump administration as creating an emergency for the city, including in their assessments the prospect of reduced federal funding. But it is unclear how much they appreciate fully the impact of what is likely coming. They do, however, appear to be united in not admitting that emergencies require sacrifice.
“What is clear is that they do not want to tell the voting public that emergencies often have deeply unpleasant consequences, not all of which can be warded off.”

Even the easy stuff isn't so easy

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
How hard should it be to get broad agreement on “unless and until you get the rules changed, follow them”? Not very. But achieving that consensus sometimes seems an impossible dream in New York City, a place where you’re generally not doing your rule-breaking in splendid isolation but rather in ways that have real impacts on others.
“Romanticizing and idealizing (go-to indulgences on the left) and grievance and demonization (animating principles on the right) are no small part of the problem.”
“The State DOH official said she didn't think anything was lost by not having an exchange option for individual and family plans that provides out-of-network coverage.”

Out-of-network coverage in New York? We left it up to the insurers

Original Reporting | By Craig Gurian
In most of New York State, it doesn’t matter what “metal level” you choose: you can’t get an individual or family health insurance plan on the state’s exchange that provides coverage for out-of-network physician care. How did the exchange come to be designed without a requirement of such coverage? That’s what the insurers chose. And some advocates for better health care are concerned.
“The brief is a study in manipulating the law and burying the facts to persuade the judge that there is only one course of action properly open to him”

Did Paul Clement play it straight?

Story Repair | By Craig Gurian
Assigned by the presiding judge in the Mayor Adams case to grapple with issues raised by alleged improper conduct by DOJ in seeking dismissal, former Solicitor General appears to falsely pretend that "all roads" lead to a dismissal with prejudice (and not denial of leave to dismiss). We annotate the brief and ask you to consider: did Clement fairly make his case?
“What on earth is going on when asking someone to pick up after her dog triggers a much younger woman to physically attack a 75-year-old?”

A regular assault

Commentary | By Craig Gurian
This is not a story of a “horrific murder.” It is not even the story of an “especially vicious” assault. It didn’t happen in the subway; there was no “gunplay” involved.

It’s just what I guess you would call a regular assault on a 75-year-old woman, apparently for having told two people to clean up after their (unleashed) dogs.

Visualize disparities in unemployment

Data Visualizations | By Craig Gurian
These tools provide ways to look far more deeply into unemployment data -- current data and data over time. You have the ability to compare and contrast up to four demographic composites, each with a race/ethnicity, gender, age, and educational attainment element. Updated with latest (May) data on June 15th.

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All our latest original reporting, data visualization, interviews, and more!

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From the archives

Market-rate condos as an affordable housing tool?

Original Reporting | By Craig Gurian
Legislation recently enacted by New York State as part of its budget process directly offers the prospect of preserving several thousand affordable housing units at risk for losing their tenant protections, and indirectly raises the question of why an obvious set of tools aren’t being used to change the day-to-day reality of luxury condominium buildings being developed with zero percent affordable units included.
Affordable housing

Hochul's "Pro-Housing Community" program so far falling flat

Original Reporting | By Craig Gurian
A large percentage of municipalities in Westchester and Nassau Counties — two of the beating hearts of exclusionary zoning in the New York City metropolitan area — are saying in effect, “No, thank you, we like our exclusion just the way we have it.” The lack of progress is especially apparent in municipalities with the lowest percentages of non-Hispanic Black residents.
Affordable housing Regional policy NYC Segregation

How white is Medicaid in Trump country?

Data Visualizations | By Mike Alberti
Medicaid cuts, which could result in millions of Americans across the country losing health coverage, may appear politically palatable to those who subscribe to deeply-held stereotypes about Medicaid recipients (and all recipients of state-administered “welfare” programs): they are mostly Black and generally live largely in urban centers. But look at what the data say.
Health care Government services Race Politics

Lyric Of The Week

Jun 16, 2026

They build wooden houses on frozen ponds 
In the summertime when the water’s gone 
Diagonal lines in their rolled-out lawns 
And the sage always smells so pretty 

But nobody cares where the birds have gone 
When the rain comes down on Babylon 

The stonemason’s phone rings all day long 
And you gotta get back to the city 

I build my house up on this rock, baby 
Every day with you 
There’s nothin’ in that town I need 
After everything we’ve been through 

Me out in my garden and you out on your walk 
Is all the distance this poor girl can take 
Without listenin’ to you talk 

I don’t need their money, baby 
Just you and me on the rock 
It’s you and me on the rock

"You and Me on the Rock,"
Brandi Carlile
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