Last year's budget cuts have led to mounting complaints as the city's sanitation department falls behind on collections and rodent complaints surge.
As the pandemic eases and cities start trying to entice people back to their emptied cores, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio "started hiring workers for a newly created City Cleanup Corps— a 10,000-employee force to eradicate graffiti, collect litter and beautify parks" and "pledged to restore some of the sanitation budget cuts he made last year" in response to mounting complaints about public sanitation.
Despite pre-pandemic successes, the progress former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia made "skidded to a halt last year" as budget cuts made by Mayor de Blasio "led to reduced collection, rat mitigation and composting services," write Gerald Porter Jr. and Skylar Woodhouse for Bloomberg. According to city 311 data, "[c]itizen complaints about dirty conditions spiked 150% between March and August 2020, and rodent complaints surged." At the end of March 2021, "waste tonnage was up about 15% compared with the early months of the pandemic," and rodent complaints increased by 80%.
Former commissioner Garcia is now running for New York City mayor among "crowded field of Democrats," some of whom have also "seized on trash as an issue that could vault them ahead." Whoever wins "will have to undo the 'devastating effects' of the sanitation budget cuts" as activity—and trash—return to pre-pandemic levels.
FULL STORY: NYC Deploys 10,000 for Cleanup as Trash, Rodent Complaints Soar
Parked Cars Hamper NYC Trash Containerization Effort
Sanitation workers must manually collect bags from containers blocked by parked cars, slowing a process that is meant to be safer and more efficient.
New York to Cut Sidewalk Trash Service by 40 Percent
Budget cuts will force the Department of Sanitation to cut sidewalk trash collection by nearly half.
New York Garbage ‘Containerization’ Pilot Not Replicable at Scale
The city’s sanitation department says the program, while successful on one block, would be too difficult and expensive to implement citywide.
The state-sanctioned urbicide of Austin
People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
A new Colorado Treaty amendment reduces Mexico’s Colorado River water allocation by 250,000 acre feet.
New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
Jersey City will continue to allow co-location facilities, such as those meant for research institutions that store their own data.
Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
A new study from the Garden State Initiative found that NJ Transit’s budget grew 20% across a 4 year period, but reliability declined significantly over the same period.
EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
Under Monday’s plan, power plants would still have some limits on how much mercury, arsenic and other contaminants they can emit.
Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
Both new services will launch in October, and are part of Phoenix's Project Effective Access Solutions for Easing Congestion.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association