Stephen Jacob Smith

@stephenjacobsmith.com

13134 Followers 977 Following

Executive director of the Center for Building in North America (centerforbuilding.org), stephen@centerforbuilding.org. Personal account. Brooklyn, NY.

For every such project, DOT must to solicit feedback from the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Department of Small Business Services and and the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities - and lawmakers more recently added that all firehouses near a project needed to be heard from.
Revenue from the programs made up an average of about 6.5 percent to the nations' gross domestic product between 2019 and 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund. Dominica's program generated more than 30 percent of its GDP in 2022. The money has funded "critical investments in climate resilience, disaster recovery, infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, and fiscal stability," the prime ministers said. "Against this backdrop," they said, any changes "must take full account of the economic realities and development vulnerabilities of small island developing states," and support "the creation of sustainable alternative sources of financing." The office of Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne was first to make the E.U. warning public. Citizenship by investment generates nearly 60 percent of the country's non-tax revenue, the U.S. State Department reported in 2023. The program is "a critical pillar of Antigua and Barbuda's non-tax revenue base," Browne's office said, "and it cannot simply be abandoned without viable, concrete, and credible replacement revenues being made available."
The crash shined a light on the couple's life among the vineyards, where they own a country home, host fund-raisers and mingle with other wealthy residents. And when considered with the 2022 incident, it has alarmed some longtime friends and acquaintances, who say that Mr. Pelosi has been reluctant to give up the freedom of getting behind the wheel.
Smith and Bisegna have distinct YIMBY origin stories. Smith, who lives in Ditmas Park and at 16 already sounds like the politician he'll likely one day become, tells me it was living near Coney Island Avenue and its endless blocks of single-story auto shops and self-storage units that he thought should be apartments. His parents, the journalists Ben Smith and Liena Zagare, probably had some influence, too: Eli says that Zagare cried after learning the City Council had landmarked their Victorian, basically condemning it to remain a two-family forever. "As much as I love my neighborhood, if we wanted to tear down our house and build a six-story apartment building, I think we should be allowed," he says. "I think that would probably be a net good for the neighborhood."
Menin has also forged ahead with a bill that would outlaw 24-hour shifts for home health aides - another proposal Mamdani trumpeted on the 2025 campaign trail but has declined to commit to backing since becoming mayor amid fiscal and logistical concerns. Menin's focus on issues that pose political weak spots for Mamdani is putting him in an awkward position. He's having to backpedal on campaign promises, often by citing fiscal concerns, while the speaker, a more moderate Democrat, takes up the mantle of fighting for progressive policy prescriptions he once championed. "It is pretty clear what Menin is trying to do with some success, which is identifying progressive legislation that the mayor used to support and no longer does or is more skeptical of — even if it's legislation she wasn't previously particularly hot on - in order to wedge the mayor against his own progressive ideals," Democratic strategist and pollster Evan Roth Smith told Playbook. "By advancing these bills, Menin has ensured that progressive members of the Council see themselves first and foremost as members of the Council and not as allies of Zohran Mamdani," he continued. "They're showing they're willing to be on the other side of the mayor, and that's important for Menin because what she does not want is for a large bloc of Council members to just be willing to do whatever the mayor wants." THE RISK FACTOR: The speaker's focus on driving that wedge doesn't come without risk.
The U.S. and mediators say any attempt by Iranian diplomats to find an understanding on the administration of the strait are being sabotaged by hard-liners. Iranian diplomats have told mediators they would like to find a compromise but their hands are tied. They are under pressure in the streets as well. In regime-managed funeral ceremonies for Khamenei's burial last week, massive crowds unfurled giant banners that read "kill Trump." President Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate, was greeted by chants of "Death to the normalizers" and "Death to the traitors."
What does 'not one tourist more' mean? That the city has decided to fix a flat horizon on a curve that otherwise rises infinitely. We don't want to grow more. We want the tourists that the city already has. There were 15.7 million tourists in the city in 2025 — that's the threshold. Sixteen million is the maximum. But isn't the tourism board still promoting tourism? We are not coming at this from an anti-tourist position. But we need to manage tourism in an orderly way, and the first management objective is to change the kinds of tourists who come. Right now, two-thirds are leisure tourists; we want the makeup to be a third business travel, a third cultural travel and a third leisure. So we are doing promotions directed at those niches that are interested in cultural experiences — not just elevated ones, like going to the Liceo, but also popular ones, like live music or festivals.
The New Jersey Assembly's top Democrat said he does not back proposed cuts to a marquee property tax relief program he championed into law. Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said Wednesday during a telephone town hall hosted by AARP that he believes the $4,000 cap Gov. Mikie Sherrill has proposed for benefits from the Stay NJ property tax relief program is insufficient. "I think the net cap on the benefit is something that's important, and I think $4,000 is too low, candidly, so we're trying to find ways to word it," said Coughlin, a Middlesex County Democrat. Under existing law, Stay NJ promises to cut the property tax bills of any seniors making less than $500,000 in half, to a cap of $6,500. But the $1.2 billion program has faced criticism over its financial feasibility since Coughlin first proposed it in 2023 as a way to prevent senior citizens from moving out of the state. Though Stay NJ's enabling legislation requires that, among other things, the state maintain reserves equal to at least 12% of annual spending, lawmakers have repeatedly overridden that requirement in budget language.
If anything, the greatest risk in all of this is a pleasant one. Were Los Angeles to actually boost ridership the way Toronto and Brampton have, its comparatively low-capacity rail network would very quickly find itself swamped by the riders the buses delivered to its stations. That, however, is the kind of problem a transit system should hope to have.
Ms Sheinbaum's plans are Nuevo Laredo - Monterrey - Saltillo Pachuca Mexico City more rigorous. Andrés Lajous, the official in charge, says the Tren Maya Irapuato Guadalajara Querétaro Toluca idea is to connect contiguous metropolitan areas: from PACIFIC OCEAN Salina Cruz Coatzacoalcos Calakmul station Mexico City to Pachuca and Querétaro, from Querétaro Mexico, railways - Existing - Under construction and planned (2025) (2024-30) Sources: ATTRAPI; Mexico Projects Hub; Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation towards Irapuato and Guadalajara, and from Saltillo through Monterrey towards MAP: THE ECONOMIST Nuevo Laredo (see map). These lines will connect cities that are slow to drive between, but too close for flying to be smart. Done properly, the trains could save people time, reduce pollution and speed up the economy. They could also stem urban sprawl, since rail makes it easier for people to live in one town while working in another.