EDITORIAL
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ou can find crowds of New Yorkers lined up for lunch in Midtown or to get into a sample sale in Union Square. But where won’t you find them? The voting booth on Election Day. As reporter Nick Garber explains in this issue’s Crain’s Forum on voter engagement, New York has a longstanding pattern of low turnout in local elections, especially in comparison to other U.S. cities. There are a few reasons why this may be, including New York’s failure to allow same-day voter registration, but the consequences reverberate throughout the state and the city. For example, residents who are young, Latino or disabled, or who only recently became citizens, all are less likely to vote in New York City, according to Campaign Finance Board research—limiting their voice in local governance. A disengaged electorate can hurt large and small businesses alike. Concerned about the cleanliness and safety of your neighborhood and what they mean for your customers and employees? The best way to make sure something is done is to
get involved, read up on where your local representatives stand on the issues and then vote them in or out of office according to how they plan to address your needs. Companies that encourage their employees to take part in local elections, including for mayor, can help to drive up community investment, making the neighborhoods where they do business places where staff want to come to work
Workers who get involved in local elections are invested in their community. and that attract prospective talent. And this doesn’t just apply to the neighborhood in which a company has an office. As businesses grow and expand, and aspiring young professionals flock here from across the globe, what will keep them here is a high quality of life. Civic involvement is a quick way to make new transplants to the city feel as if this is their home. Having the city contin-
ue to be a place where residents want to live, work and play is key to making sure they stay here for the long haul, raising families and starting their own companies that then attract the next generation of New Yorkers. This is not to mention, of course, that the policies and laws that govern how companies are allowed to do business here are set by local officials. So it’s essential that employers take an interest in who represents them in city government and what their priorities are so companies can make their voices heard. To help expand voter turnout, employers should make sure their staff has time to vote on Election Day. And they can advocate for reforms that experts agree would boost turnout, such as same-day registration and shifting city contests to even-numbered years, when state and federal elections are held. Just as employees with stock options are invested in the success of their work-
BLOOMBERG
Businesses can play a role in encouraging their employees to get out and vote
place, workers who get involved in local elections are invested in their community. And this civic engagement can make New York City a more attractive place to live and do business for years to come. So it’s imperative for the business community to set the tone for workers, making it clear that companies stand behind everyone being up to date on and active in matters of local government.
PERSONAL VIEW
We need to double down on climate resiliency efforts
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he flash flooding that struck New ports detailed the urban heat island effect York City early this month was an- which amplifies temperatures and is parother shocking illustration of our ticularly prevalent in low-income comnew climate reality. With rainfall measure- munities and communities of color. We need to take more aggressive and ments topping 7 inches in some neighborwidespread action to catch up, hoods — and nearly 9 inches reand this month, the City Council corded at JFK International took a strong step in the right diAirport — our infrastructure was rection by unanimously adopting simply no match for the volume the first citywide Urban Forest of water. While this month’s Plan, which will require the city to storm, the remnants of Tropical reach 30% tree cover, up from Storm Ophelia, was much less 22% today, and requires regular destructive than Sandy, the dismonitoring of the urban forest. ruption and damage it caused The legislation gives priority to shows that we are not keeping plantings in low-income neighpace with the increasing frequen- Samara cy and power of extreme weather Karasyk is the borhoods and communities of color that have the least tree covevents. We are still running a very president and er. Planting more trees helps proserious climate resiliency deficit. CEO of the The numbers don’t lie. In the Hudson Square vide shade to offset the heat island effect and helps absorb 1980’s, the U.S. experienced Business stormwater. roughly three extreme weather Improvement In the Hudson Square neighevents per year, according to the District. borhood, we know the challenges National Centers for Environmental Information. That number had of adapting the urban landscape to a new more than tripled by the 2010’s to 13.1 per reality. Our history as the home to the year. Since 2020, the U.S. has experienced city’s printing industry means we have long, concrete-filled blocks and one of the 20 extreme weather events per year. Those figures include extreme heat lowest ratios of green space in the city. events, which are also increasing and may When our Business Improvement District be even more threatening to city residents. was formed in 2009, our neighborhood In July, as a heat wave gripped the city, re- was best known for gridlocked streets fun-
neling cars into the Holland Tunnel. We have been engaged in an aggressive campaign to fix that by redesigning Hudson Street and planting more than 500 trees. We’ve planted trees following a new method — known as the Hudson Square Standard — that maximizes the trees’ ability to thrive in the urban environment. Using a combination of larger tree beds and permeable paving stones, our new trees provide shade to busy sidewalks and can capture 5.6 million gallons of stormwater per year — that’s more than eight Olympic-sized swimming pools and 40% more than trees planted in traditional beds. BIDs have an important role to play as a liaison between the public and private sectors on resiliency projects. Our new
plantings are done hand-in-hand with city agencies, and we have worked directly with private landowners in the neighborhood to retrofit trees with new tree beds.
Tree canopy The increasing climate impacts mean that we must use every square inch of real estate to prepare the city for a changing future. Increasing the city’s tree canopy, and maximizing the benefits of those trees with the Hudson Square Standard tree design, is essential. Increasing resilience will not eliminate all the problems related to extreme weather, but it is clear we need to double down on our resiliency investments.
Write us: Crain’s welcomes submissions to its opinion pages. Send letters and op-eds of 500 words or fewer to opinion@CrainsNewYork.com. Please include the writer’s name, company, title, address and telephone number. Crain’s reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity. 8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | OCTOBER 30, 2023
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