Have Student Loans? Move to Niagara Falls and They’ll Help Pay
Niagara Falls recently announced plans to pay up to $3,500 per year of the student loans of recent graduates of both two and four-year degree programs if they commit to living in a specific neighborhood a few blocks from the falls.
Graduates would simply need to rent an apartment or buy a home in the area. They have to make the loan payments upfront, but after a year the city will cut them a check reimbursing them.
See more posts like this on Tumblr
#education #student loans #new york #cities #debt
NYC Will Turn 12,000 Old Parking Meters Into Bike Racks
- Adele Peters wrote in Cities, New York City and Sustainability
Two years ago, New York City’s Department of Transportation decided to transform some of the city’s decommissioned parking meter poles into bike racks. In part, it was a way to help fix a new problem: when the city installed an electronic multi-meter parking system for cars, and took out the tops of the old parking meters, cyclists suddenly had fewer places to lock their bikes. Of course, those were never official bike racks, and weren’t ideally suited for the task. By retrofitting the poles with new circular loops, the city created many more options for bike parking, helping solve the problem of one spot for every 30 cyclists.
After the initial trial of 200 meters was deemed a success, the city has decided to continue to retrofit the rest of the poles—12,000 in total. It’s a smart idea. The city saves money on new bike racks, and makes use of something that otherwise might be torn up and thrown out. And every small step that makes biking easier, whether it’s a better light or somewhere to park, helps get more bikes on the road. Other cities, from Boulder to Sacramento, are using similar designs.
Photo via (cc) Flickr user nycstreets
Poor Subway Station Design Creates Kinship Among New Yorkers
- Dave Burdick posted in Cities, Environment and Public Transportation
This New York Times story is a pretty entertaining look at how subway riders starting at an inconveniently designed station communicate to one another which type of train is coming—and therefore whether they should ascend or descend the stairs between platforms.
Murals and Math: One School’s Solution to Graffiti
- Ellie Balk wrote in Education, New York and News
The act of painting murals is empowering. Once a student makes a mark on a wall, it becomes his or hers. When you walk down the busy street of Graham Ave, almost every wall is covered in random tags. We help the students create public art that means something and has significance. Students living in Brooklyn need this kind of connection to their communities because when the students invest in their communities, the communities invest in them. These murals are also made for the neighborhood. The results are not only beautiful images, but also sparked conversations.
If America’s Serious About Appreciating Teachers, Here’s What it Takes
- Jose Vilson wrote in in Education, New York City and Teachers
This week America celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week, five days chock-full of poems, gift cards, and discounts for K-12 educators all across the country, and today is also National Teacher Appreciation Day. I appreciate getting a free burrito at Chipotle and homages to Taylor Mali, writer of “What Teachers Make,” as much as the next educator, but the current tenor of our national conversation about education also reminds me of the dire straits our profession is in.
For instance, President Barack Obama tainted last year’s Teacher Appreciation Week by proclaiming that same week National Charter School Week, opting to highlight only what charter schools do to the exclusion of teachers from all school systems nationwide.
Don’t all teachers deserve to be appreciated?
Why Throwing Money at Schools Actually Is the Answer
According to an analysis by 24/7 Wall Street, two New York City-area commuter hubs have nine of the 10 wealthiest school districts in the nation. Unsurprisingly, students attending schools in those districts have higher test scores, access to plenty of AP classes, and are more likely to take AP tests. In most of the districts 100 percent of students graduate from high school and matriculate into college.
How are those districts accomplishing such stellar results? It’s not that they’re more efficient with their money.
‘Girls Who Code’ Graduates Its First Class
The New York City-based nonprofit is closing the computer science gender gap.
Rebrand Your ‘Hood for Good
- Lee-Sean Huang wrote in Design, New York City and Brooklyn
How can we use the power of branding to strengthen a shared identity and spark positive change in the neighborhoods and cities where we live? An effective visual identity references the culture and history of a place’s people and reflects their hopes and aspirations. Logos, fonts, or color schemes, the most tangible parts of a brand identity, are not magical cure-alls for the financial, social, and cultural ills of a city, but they can be powerful symbols and rallying cries that galvanize people to action.
Playborhoods: Why Children Playing Street Games Is the Best Measure of a Healthy Neighborhood
- Mike Lanza wrote in Education, Living and Cities
Many decades ago, neighborhoods were bustling with life. They were also bustling with children playing in groups, with no adults supervising them. Today, most neighborhoods are dead boring, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find children playing in them.
All this is no mere coincidence. Children have always been the most prominent people in neighborhoods. In fact, in many ways, children have always acted as the catalysts for neighborhood life. In my childhood neighborhood in the Pittsburgh suburbs back in the 1960s and 70s, my activities with friends were constantly pulling my parents and my friends’ parents together. They’d call each other to discuss one kid eating or sleeping at another’s house, and then they’d end up chatting about other things.
mattjosephdiaz-blog