New Federal Stimulus Bill - How much will NYC get?

[MrSpice]

I am browsing the news sites online and cannot get a clear understanding of what will the NYC and NY State get from this new stimulus that is likely to be signed by Obama in the next few days.

How much money will we get for the mass transit projects and what projects will get the boost? How much money will we get for the infrastructure projects, especially in the NYC area?

If anyone has any details or can help with the relevant links I'd appreciate it.

[lofter1]

Congress proves itself to be full of blockheads ...

Arts Ban in Stimulus Bill Is Stupid Economics

Bloomberg News (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=muse&sid=aq.l988k3gOI#)
Commentary by James S. Russell

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- A few saplings are sprouting above the rusting hulk of the High Line, an abandoned, elevated railway that once rolled meat to the butchers on the West Side of Manhattan.

A brand-new park will flourish here soon. It’s the final greening of a derelict area whose transformation began with an art gallery in the late 1980s.

If you want bang for taxpayer’s buck, build parks and fund the arts.

Yet both may have been banned from the $789 billion federal stimulus bill that nears passage by the House and Senate.

Thank Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who stuck in an amendment to the bill prohibiting the stimulus from funding museums, arts centers, theaters, stadiums, parks, casinos or golf courses.

There’s hope that the bill will pass without this gratuitous kicking of the arts, yet you do wonder what goes on in minds that lump together an institution like a scrappy regional theater and a municipal golf course. The Senate last week voted for the amendment 73-24. Until a text of the final compromise bill is released, we won’t know whether Coburn’s ban remains.

From an economic standpoint, starving the arts is suicidal. Consider the case of the High Line, the park in the Meatpacking District. The City of New York invested $170 million in the project, which directly inspired as many as 50 major residential projects worth as much as $5 billion. And the park isn’t even open yet.

Follow the Artists

Four celebrity restaurants have located beneath the High Line. High-end boutiques, from Diane von Furstenberg to an Apple store, have rushed into the neighborhood. The Whitney Museum of American Art is raising $435 million to build a branch next to the park.

The High Line would not have been possible if its Meatpacking neighborhood had not become an art-gallery mecca. The galleries moved in because artists and scrappy institutions like the Dia Art Foundation pioneered the area in 1987, paying cheap rents when food processors left.

Artists previously had cleaned up SoHo starting in the 1960s, setting up paint-spattered studios in derelict industrial spaces sandwiched between sweatshops.

SoHo, of course, now commands some of the highest residential prices in New York, and the artists were priced out.

The process by which artists pave the way for high-end development is now well established in the real estate industry. Over the years, developers have chased artists from Manhattan’s Lower East Side to Williamsburg in Brooklyn and to Long Island City in Queens. Artists might be annoyed by this stalking, yet the financial value to the city is huge, and the value in terms of neighborhood vitality is incalculable.

Seattle Park

The same thing is going on nationwide. Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, built where oil-storage tanks rusted for years, is now surrounded by condos cashing in on the new view. The Walt Disney Concert Hall has created a reason for visiting downtown Los Angeles.

In Oklahoma City, the capital of Coburn’s home state, the downtown area has been revitalized by the public and private development of an entertainment, arts and restaurant district around the historic Bricktown neighborhood.

In most parts of the country there is no argument about the value of the arts, especially as a renewal tool. Rural hamlets, city halls and statehouses nationwide encourage the arts because of their power to spur economic development.

Tiny Bit

I figured Coburn had taken the trouble to stigmatize arts in this way because so much money is at stake. In a $789 billion bill, the arts bit would have been $50 million -- an amount so tiny in this context it’s laughable.

Still, it would have boosted federal dollars allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts by a third.

While private individuals have done most of the financial heavy lifting for the arts in recent years, the economy has hammered patrons large and small.

It’s time for the federal government, which has played a declining role in supporting the arts over the past 25 years, to step back in. If funding is prioritized by how many jobs would be created, the arts would score very well, especially compared to tax credits and rebates. If measured by multiplier effects -- and we should fervently hope for that -- the arts would shine.

That Senator Coburn may get away with such an idiotic amendment suggests ideology is prevailing over reason.

(James S. Russell is Bloomberg’s architecture critic. Opinions expressed are his own.)

[infoshare]

If anyone has any details or can help with the relevant links I'd appreciate it.

Here is some news, "an infusion of cash where it is needed most": http://wcbstv.com/cbs2crew/stimulus.nyc.doomsday.2.933329.html.

[BrooklynRider]

I doubt my opinion on this will be popular, but I'd like to see his stimulus package go to something other than schools and education. I don't have kids. I think kids today are coddled way too much and are indoctrinated with a sense of entitlement. I'd rather see education costs brought under control and see new schools negotiate into future developments with FAR bonuses to the developer.

This country has a real weakness for throwing money at problems. Our answer to everything is "spend". For as long as I can remember, "education" is something that no one ever thinks we spend enough money on. I think we spend plenty on it and, if we are going to start cutting expenses anywhere let's start with education.


Use the money for mass transit, use it for healthcare, or use it to restore the environment. Education is a bottomless pit and expenditures there do not serve a broad spectrum of our society. Using the "stimulus" on education simply expands the bureaucracy and the number of programs that we'll claim are vital during the next budget phase.

Teachers got their cut in the last contract. Enough with this crying wolf over education.

[Ninjahedge]

Teachers got their cut in the last contract. Enough with this crying wolf over education

You really do not know, do you?

If teachers jobs were so easy and they were paid so well, why do we have a shortage? ESPECIALLY in areas like technology and science!

The main problem is simple. When we talk about education, we lump things like administrative costs in with teachers salaries and program costs. When a teachers budget goes up by 5%, they do not tell you that most of the teachers salaries are only going up 1%-3% while a good chunk is going for a Superintendants last 2 year salary bump to allow for a golden parachute in Pension. (And an additional cost in having to pay the parachute AND get a new Super).

You are right in that money does not need to be thrown at this. That is the wrong strategy and should be abandoned. But building enough schools to hold these children, and maybe even having the foresight to be able to design these schools to be used as community centers when enrolment drops (which it does in cycles) would be great.

Instead of buying a bunch of expensive computers for a poor districts school (because since they have the worst academic record, they obviously need the most cash spent on thnigs they will not use) maybe building better wood and metal shops would be a better idea.

We have to direct the money not only to where it is needed, but WHAT it is needed for. Not more standardized testing, but smaller class sizes and more personal attension for the kids.

Also, COMMUNITY PROGRAMS that would encourage parents to get involved rather than thinking "hey this is my tax dollars at work" or feeling that it is somehow not THEIR responsibility to educate or dicipline their kids. These programs would work better than blind funding.

So saying that education is a bottomless pit is very unfair. You see it is not going directly to anything that effects you in your life. A lot of people are like that in a lot of thnigs (including Art. Many would not favor funding thnigs like Museums and the like with "their" taxes).

But look at it this way. EVERY district that has bosted excellent academic standards has had their property values increase, their crime rate lower, and their standard of living increase as well.

You raise tha bar at an early enough age and a lot of other problems are less important.

And I am not just saying Academic. If our trade schools were better funded, maybe we could get the % of our population who are NOT interested in Hedge funds, veternary medicine or computer networking to be trained in something that is not only productive, but they actually LIKE doing?

Sometimes when your HS has a good auti shop, you get more than a bunch of teanagers with after-market exhausts on their Hondas..... ;)

[MrSpice]

My question regarding how much NYC will actually get. Since I posted this question it has become a bit clearer, but still not completely obvious where the money will be spent. I am particularly interested in infrastructure investments (subway, highways, bridges) and where the stimulus will improve life in the city. I will take infrastructure investment over supporting the artists/art/museums any day. In my view, the best artists and the best museums don't need much support, especially from the Federal government.