The next crisis for cities

What cities should be doing now:

1. No More Evictions. It's bad for neighborhoods and it's bad for cities. It is better in every case to keep people in their homes, and arrange realistic payments that they can keep up with.

2. Anticipate possible problems in neighborhoods already effected by the foreclosure crisis

Visualize the impact of subprime foreclosures: Look here, for U.S.

What does the crisis look like in New York City?

(Click on images for enlarged photos and map)

From Metafilter: "With election season in the US, it's probably hard to get a less than Gung-ho picture of the war in Afghanistan, but this Spiegel Online article paints a dark picture. 'Pessimism about the situation has never been so high.' High level NATO commanders are using phrases like 'Doomed to Fail,' 'We are trapped,' 'repeating the same mistakes as the Soviets', military victory 'neither feasible nor supportable,' 'downward spiral.' For some it is so dark the only beacon of light would be peace talks with the Taliban."

The Heaven Sent Leaf

My friend Katy Lederer is keeping a blog while she gives readings across the country of her new book of poetry, The Heaven Sent Leaf.

Here's what she's writing about:

"Hi there, I am blogging about my cross-country road-trip/book tour on behalf of The Heaven-Sent Leaf, a new book of poems about, er, money. The title is taken from the second part of Goethe’s Faust, in which Mephistopheles has discovered a way to make gold—what alchemists had been seeking to discover for centuries—by printing paper money (“the heaven-sent leaf”). Once Mephistopheles has printed this imaginative money, thereby releasing an impecunious emperor from debt, what we would now term an economic “bubble” ensues; viands, wine, and labor are purchased with nothing so substantial as delusion and credulity. By the end of the story, the proverbial bubble has burst, and the emperor has fallen into ruin. Destinations on the tour include: Austin, Tallahassee, Ithaca, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Sonoma, Portland, Missoula, Boise, Denver, Lawrence, Iowa City, Lincoln, Milwaukee, Madison, Appleton, Ann Arbor, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Providence, Hudson, Buffalo, Northampton, Athens, Atlanta, and Richmond."

Some music...

The Times They Are A Changing
Cracker Jack Docker
Beat Control
3rd Planet
Bingo
Freedom
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

and my favorite for classic hip hop: The Bridge.

Some of the videos I saw on a recent re-run of the show, I was able to find on YouTube:

Hanging Out, Large Professor



Which features a sample of that great party record that the folks in Philly always seem to play. It's by "Sister Nancy" apparently:



Supa Star, Group Home



Faking the Funk



Fever for the flavor...
Similac Child, Black Sheep

And, Mushroom Jazz 6 just got released

(Click to enlarge)


I hadn't visited Streets Blog in a while, and as usual, I found interesting info.

I'm hoping that political will in our country can coalesce around an "Invest in America" agenda. Education, Health, Energy, Food, Infrastructure, Economic Growth.

Update:

Robert Reich makes a pretty strong argument for massive spending on infrastructure, here

some cost issues, story here

Grotesquely Mesmerizing

From Danny, on Positive Jam: photo gallery

it's like the ultimate vision of some america gone wrong... the bathroom is just too much to look at though!

Get your shit together

organize your office

Here are a bunch of resources for seeking employment, benefits, and getting your finances together:

NEDAP
Bethex
Workforce 1
Access NYC Back-up link
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs Office of Financial Empowerment

Starting a "recession" garden

Mexico city gardens

New York City Parks - Copenhagen

Longtime Harlem Fixture Now Sells CDs on Street

I've really been loving this song lately - Paper Planes by Mia