About Empire State Future
There's a new dawn in the citizen effort to improve our future - Empire State Future!
It's a coming together of many civic improvement organizations, planning groups, and individuals interested in advancing the principles of "smart growth" and turning them into reality in cities, towns and villages all across the Empire State.
The organization will build on the generally accepted ideas that our cities need nurturing, suburban sprawl is ruining our landscape and killing our economy, and it's no longer possible to build our way out of congestion.
Empire State Future will compliment and expand on efforts to bring sanity to the way we plan our future. And a big element of our work will involve communications: our intention is to provide the smart growth constituency and the general public with a lively web site that is current, informative, and easily used.
Front-and-center among the initial goals for Empire State Future:
Accomplishing these goals will not be an easy task, but it's a very important mission.
Sadly, many municipalities only see what they perceive as needed additions to a sagging tax base when a poorly planned, unsustainable development is proposed. And many residents seem to believe the documented ill-effects of suburban sprawl "won't happen here" until they do. Costly lessons learned the hard way must motivate us to demand action for a better future and a more livable and prosperous New York.
We're here to investigate, educate, and instigate to bring about meaningful civic change. Please let us know what you think. Thank you.
The text for Empire State Future's Web site has been created by Tom Ryan, who has become our lead chronicler of the New York Smart Growth scene. He accumulated his writing and editing skills during a varied career in journalism, government, and the nonprofit world, and he looks forward to having your reaction to what's presented here.
We hope the articles appearing on the site are informative and useful, and will inspire our readers to contribute stories or reactions of their own for inclusion. Please share your comments and suggestions with Tom at canaltimes@aol.com. Thank you.
It's a coming together of many civic improvement organizations, planning groups, and individuals interested in advancing the principles of "smart growth" and turning them into reality in cities, towns and villages all across the Empire State.
The organization will build on the generally accepted ideas that our cities need nurturing, suburban sprawl is ruining our landscape and killing our economy, and it's no longer possible to build our way out of congestion.
Empire State Future will compliment and expand on efforts to bring sanity to the way we plan our future. And a big element of our work will involve communications: our intention is to provide the smart growth constituency and the general public with a lively web site that is current, informative, and easily used.
Front-and-center among the initial goals for Empire State Future:
- Developing a legislative strategy that will result in useful new state law in areas such as -- but not limited to -- historic preservation tax credits, priority infrastructure, and multi-jurisdictional collaboration.
- Closely monitoring Albany's recently formed "Smart Growth Cabinet" and the actions of the new Patterson Administration. We plan to help them set an enlightened agenda, follow up on implementation, propose new policy initiatives, and support or oppose the administration whenever we believe it's appropriate to advance smart growth's success.
- Initiating a statewide communications strategy that assists organizations or individuals working on smart growth issues by enabling them to share experiences with one another and providing a resource for supplying important general information on the subject.
- Creating educational materials that will empower willing and able individuals throughout the state already engaged in some aspect of smart growth to augment their efforts and increase the capacity for local outreach.
Accomplishing these goals will not be an easy task, but it's a very important mission.
Sadly, many municipalities only see what they perceive as needed additions to a sagging tax base when a poorly planned, unsustainable development is proposed. And many residents seem to believe the documented ill-effects of suburban sprawl "won't happen here" until they do. Costly lessons learned the hard way must motivate us to demand action for a better future and a more livable and prosperous New York.
We're here to investigate, educate, and instigate to bring about meaningful civic change. Please let us know what you think. Thank you.
Editors Note
The text for Empire State Future's Web site has been created by Tom Ryan, who has become our lead chronicler of the New York Smart Growth scene. He accumulated his writing and editing skills during a varied career in journalism, government, and the nonprofit world, and he looks forward to having your reaction to what's presented here.
We hope the articles appearing on the site are informative and useful, and will inspire our readers to contribute stories or reactions of their own for inclusion. Please share your comments and suggestions with Tom at canaltimes@aol.com. Thank you.
Executive Director
Peter B. Fleischer
