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Neat freaks, beware of Brownsville, steer clear of Morrisania and forget about Chinatown.
These are some of the neighborhoods that received the worst ratings for street or sidewalk cleanliness, according to data from the Bloomberg administration's Office of Operations.
To avoid litter-strewn streets stick to Bayside, Queens or the South Shore of Staten Island.
To some of you, these characterizations may come as no surprise.
Gotham Gazette and The Huffington Post asked you to send in photos and tales of nasty neighborhood trash. Many of you said Bushwick, the Bronx and areas of Upper Manhattan were centers of grit and grime.
A review of cleanliness scorecards for the last year and a half corroborated some of your claims. We found poorer neighborhoods afflicted with other environmental challenges were on the lower rung of neighborhood neatness. More affluent areas of the city were more likely to be trash free.
And you've noticed.
"I live in Spanish Harlem and I am always shocked at the difference in the streets there and those of the Upper East Side. Every morning I get coffee at Starbucks in the UES and see sanitation workers cleaning the streets daily. I only see them about once a week in my neighborhood," wrote one reader, who goes by tiffanykapri. The reader punctuated her message with an unhappy face.
About 93 percent of the streets in East Harlem were considered "acceptably clean" between July 2008 and December 2009. On the Upper East Side, more than 98 percent were.
This tale of trash festers all over the city.
There is the inescapable dog droppings ("It seems that no one cleans up after their dogs," one reader complained).
Or the constant search for a trashcan: "I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn and it is DIRTY! Despite numerous calls to 311 from all my friends and me to have trash cans placed in our neighborhood, we still only have one, which only just appeared about six months ago after years of begging for trash cans," another reader lamented.
One Mott Haven resident, who goes by missyfoosy, complained streets in the South Bronx have more than trash troubles:
"I lived right on Bruckner Blvd, considered the first block when you enter the Bronx from Manhattan. On the waterfront is the NYC Waste Transfer station that just renewed its lease for 99 years; to the north is I-87, which wafts truck exhaust and car fumes right into the neighborhood. Rodent infestations in the abandoned buildings make it impossible to walk the sidewalks at night; they are overrun. There is never enough trash bins nor the collection of that trash."
The community boards in the South Bronx have some of the dirtiest sidewalks in the city, according to data, collected monthly, from the mayor's Office of Operations. The only ones worse are in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in Brooklyn.
Bayside, the South Shore of Staten Island and the Upper East Side boasted the cleanest sidewalks.
Street neatness has a similar story. The Bronx's Melrose and Morrisania and Brooklyn's Borough Park scored the nastiest ratings. (For a look at your community board, check out our breakdown.) Again, the South Shore of Staten Island was kept the cleanest.
Community leaders have plenty of explanations as to why their neighborhood may fall on the gritty or gleaming side of the city.
"People are passionate about their communities and people take pride in their community," said Jerry Iannece, the chair of Bayside's community board. "You see them sweeping their streets."
In other, more pungent neighborhoods, leaders say their litter problem could be ameliorated if they had more public garbage cans and if the sanitation department swung by more often. But, said Brooklyn's Community Board 16 District Manager Viola D. Greene-Walker, the problem goes beyond that.
"People, for whatever their reason, would rather instead of disposing their litter in their buildings as they are leaving, just take it outside and put it in front of the building on the sidewalk," said Greene-Walker, whose district includes Brownsville. "'Somebody is going to take care of it.' (It's) that attitude."
The city's Department of Sanitation says it treats every neighborhood equally.
"The Department of Sanitation makes every effort to keep New York City clean for all New Yorkers," sanitation department Spokesperson Kathy Dawkins said in an e-mailed statement.
Gotham Gazette requested statistics from the Department of Sanitation on the number of litter baskets per community district as well as the frequency of pick up. The department did not provide the information by the time of publication.
Despite the disparity, New York has seen much worse. Since 1975 the city has been scoring the cleanliness of its streets, and in 1980, 53 percent of them were considered "acceptably clean" citywide -- an all time low.
Last fiscal year, according to the Bloomberg administration, 95.8 percent of streets were deemed "acceptably clean" -- the highest ever.
Even in Bushwick, which one reader called the "neglected underside of Brooklyn," community leaders say there has been a vast improvement.
"If you would have seen it the way it was when it was literally all lots," said Willie Morales, the community associate for Community Board 4 in Bushwick. "Compared to now, it is immaculate."
But that may not be the case for long.
This fiscal year, which started in July and goes to June, the Department of Sanitation has seen successive budget cuts and reconfigured trash routes to make better use of its time and money.
Since those cuts were enacted in July, almost 30 percent of community boards saw a decrease in their street cleanliness ratings.
"Current economic conditions had an impact on the city’s adopted budget," said Dawkins in a statement. "Litter basket collection is a priority and in spite of a painful $80 million budget reduction in fiscal year 2010, we will devote all available resources to servicing baskets in high-density, heavily trafficked areas as often as possible."
This year the department could face an even sharper ax. Cuts to the city in Governor David Paterson's proposed state budget threaten the city's recycling program and its regular refuse pickup. If the governor's plan goes through, the mayor has warned the city would do away with all street cleaning and all public litter baskets.
Those actions would put every community's cleanliness ratings down into the dumps.
In the short term, New York City’s budget prospects for fiscal year 2011 are much brighter than they seemed last summer. A review of recent reports from city and state fiscal monitors confirms this. At the same time, social and economic prospects remain bleak, both in the short and long term.
A review of recent reports from city and state fiscal monitors confirms both the rosier fiscal outlook and the grim consequences of the national recession. In this context, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent budget strategy -- successive waves of across-the-board cuts in agency spending -- looks more and more unresponsive to the realities of life in the city today.
The administration quietly requested the next round of cuts in a memo to city agency heads in November, and the reductions are likely to be formalized in January's preliminary budget for fiscal year 2011. So now is a good time for the mayor, the City Council and advocates to look at alternative fiscal strategies, such as targeted budget cuts, progressive revenue options and city management practices. The City Comptroller’s November Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for FY 2009, for instance, underscores the city's short-term fiscal soundness, yet raises several questions about how the city is managing its programs, especially contracted services.
Thanks to huge Wall Street profits -- nearly $50 billion in the first three quarters of calendar 2009 -- city tax revenues in the current fiscal year, as noted in the mayor’s cryptic November budget modification, are nearly $700 million higher than anticipated. For instance, the estimate of personal income tax revenues jumped by nearly $300 million to $6.3 billion.
December reports suggest tax revenues will be even higher than that this year and in 2011-2013 as well. The Independent Budget Office's December Fiscal Outlook, for example, projects revenues will be nearly $400 million higher this year and $958 million higher in 2011 than the mayor’s November estimates.
Overall revenue has grown in spite of the extreme volatility in several major taxes. The State Financial Control Board’s December report on the same modification reviews the rapid changes in three of the city’s major taxes: the bank tax and the two property transaction taxes (mortgage recording and property transfer taxes).
The bank tax, for instance, peaked at $1.2 billion in revenues in 2007, fell by 48 percent in 2008, then bounced back in 2009 with a 75 percent spurt, yet is projected to fall back to $674 million in 2010. The two property transaction taxes peaked in 2007 at a total of $3.3 billion. Revenues then began heading down and are projected to this year to a (relatively speaking) mere $1 billion.
In spite of these fluctuations, the comptroller’s November report points out the basic soundness of the city’s finances. The 2009 budget year marked the 29th year in a row that the city ended its fiscal year with a balanced budget. The city’s credit ratings remain solid and, for the fifth consecutive year, the city did not have to issue short-term notes to manage cash flow. And, although the fiscal monitors worry about long-term budget gaps (the state comptroller’s December report on the November modification projects a worst-case scenario of a $7.6 billion budget gap in 2012), there seems to be no alarm about the short term.
The way the city balances the budget is another matter. The current economic and social news is terrible. While job losses in the city are now projected to peak at 220,000 this calendar year -- 108,000 job fewer losses than projected last June -- the reality is that the city’s unemployment rate almost doubled between July 2008 and September 2009, from 5.4 percent to 10.3 percent.
The state comptroller’s report lists several consequences of the recession that the mayor and City Council will need to deal with in the 2011 budget. Between October 2008 and October 2009:
* Medicaid recipients increased by 7.4 percent, to 2,809,642.
* The number of families in shelters increased by 8 percent to 10,396.
* Public assistance recipients increased by 4 percent to 355,459
* Food stamp recipients increased by 22 percent to 1.6 million.
The social/economic contrasts in New York City could not be more stark: On one hand, a relative handful of financial firms -- and their most fortunate employees -- enjoy $50 billion of profits; on the other hand, one third of New York city residents now qualify for Medicaid, a clear sign of the depth of need in the city at the moment.
Yet at this critical time, the mayor has continued to focus almost exclusively on cutting agencies across the board, including the city’s extensive network of health and social services -- most of them run by contracted non-profit community agencies with little political clout.
The Financial Control Board's December report lays out the agency impacts of the mayor’s basic budget-gap strategy from January 2008 through the June 2009 Adopted Budget. The cumulative impact of the cuts -- or "savings" as the report calls them -- is just under $3 billion this fiscal year. Anticipated savings in the next three years average $3.36 billion a year. Projected cuts in health and welfare agencies alone average $422 million a year from 2010 through 2013.
The nearly $3 billion in savings this year is actually $776 million less than what was originally proposed. This is due to budget restorations, a hopeful sign that the City Council and others have pushed back on some of the mayor’s proposed cuts. (The outer-year savings assume $202 million in restorations each year.)
The $3 billion, however, does not include cuts proposed by the mayor in his November memo to agency heads: an additional $550 million this fiscal year and $1.2 billion for 2011. The new cuts, if implemented, would make for a total cut of $3.55 billion this year and $4.6 billion for 2011.
The mayor has generally shunned going line by line looking for cuts, preferring to take an across the board approach. Most agencies had to slash 4 percent in 2010 and 8 percent for 2011. Education cuts are to be 1.5 percent for 2010 and 4 percent for 2011.
The state comptroller's December report notes how even the smaller cuts play out in the city's biggest agency, the Department of Education: "Average class sizes have already begun to rise as a result of cuts in educational spending." The proposed cuts in the November memo would be $113.2 million in 2010 and $316.8 million in 2011.
The report also notes, "The state’s fiscal crisis puts at risk planned increases in state education aid that were part of the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity litigation on school funding. However, the report continues, the city's November modification assumes that state education aid will to the city will see a cumulative increase of $2.6 billion over the next three years.
The mayor’s January 2010 Preliminary Budget for fiscal 2011 will mark the first time Bloomberg has publicly dealt with the city’s fiscal strategy since last June. Given the good revenue news and the city's sound fiscal condition in the short run, the time seems ripe to slow down the agency cuts and deal with the social and economic consequences of the recession. That would seem to require some more creative budget-gap strategies.
Last year's one big alternative to agency cuts was various changes to the city sales tax, most regressively a 12.5 percent increase in the sales tax rate, to 4.5 percent. This would seem to preclude further sales tax increases in the near future.
What’s left to consider?
For several years, the mayor has ignored one major option, the personal income tax. The city's top rate for high-earners, 3.65 percent, is well below the rates of up to 4.45 percent instituted in recent times of fiscal and social/economic stress. Keeping it at that lower level seems an odd choice at a time of a Wall Street boom and increasing inequality in household resources in the city.
Another strategy would increase productivity – saving money through better management. The City Comptroller’s November Comprehensive Annual Financial Report in its summaries of the office's key audits and contract administration studies, identified several areas where significant savings seem possible.
For instance, the comptroller’s analysis of the city’s $925 million occupational training/employment programs "found that the city's poor coordination of this system has compromised its efficiency, accountability, and effectiveness." Given the city's 10.3 percent unemployment rate, this finding is particularly disturbing.
In another study, the comptroller's office found monitoring problems in the $2 billion Personal Care Program run by the Human Resources Administration through 93 contracts with private personal care agencies. The office identified some $203 million in outstanding overpayments to those agencies for lack of timely oversight.
The most useful information in the comptroller’s Financial Report may be its extensive list of problems identified in city contracting. The comptroller's office registers all contracts and franchise agreements, and as part of that process often returns contracts to agencies for clarification and/or revision. Sometimes it simply refuses to register a contract.
Of the 20 examples of problematic contracts listed in this year’s annual report, six involve the Department of Education contract. A $22 million the Department of Education contract with the Princeton Review was returned for a variety of reasons, including questions of "business integrity." The department did not re-submit the contract.
An $18 million contract with Verizon Wireless was returned (and not re-submitted) because of questions about lack of competitive bidding. In April 2009, the comptroller’s office "expressed concern to DOE with regard to troubling patterns of mismanagement surrounding DOE's expenditures."
Cases such as these indicate management of billions of dollars in city contracts should be a central part of a comprehensive review by the mayor and City Council.
Because of the city's sound fiscal condition and the prospects of more revenue than anticipated, the city has an opportunity to better serve the interests of those millions of city residents in distress that residents feared as recently as last summer. Agency cuts that are more sensitively targeted, better management of city programs, and serious consideration of a more progressive tax structure are three ways that the city budget could move beyond automatic-pilot agency cuts and better promote its social and economic as well as fiscal health.
Glenn Pasanen, who teaches political science at Lehman College, has been in charge of Gotham Gazette's finance topic page since 2001.
The City Council took aim at the city's largest polluter Wednesday by requiring property owners audit energy usage and make maintenance overhauls to cut back on carbon emissions.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the package of legislation would set a standard nationwide. Buildings of more than 50,000 square feet will have to upgrade their lighting by 2025, and those same buildings will now have to conduct energy audits every 10 years.
The city's existing buildings account for 80 percent of the city's carbon footprint and represent $15 billion a year in energy costs.
While environmental advocates and city officials championed the green-buildings package, some critics question the effectiveness of one piece of legislation (Intro 967-A), which originally required large buildings adopt the recommendations of the now-required energy efficiency audits. The version the City Council approved yesterday by a vote of 41 to 5 would make those recommendations voluntary.
Some charge the council backed away from the tougher legislation because of lobbying from the city's business industry, which called the bill too expensive to implement in a floundering economy. Quinn argued yesterday that the council decided not to push for mandatory retrofitting because it would require a significant capital investment by landlords that would, in turn, trigger rent increases.
Even without the mandatory retrofitting, officials have acknowledged that the entire package of legislation could be costly for property owners. But they argue overall it is a net positive.
"Once these changes are put in place very quickly the building will not only make back whatever they have put in, they will actually begin to go beyond that and save," said Quinn.
While the council abandoned the requirement for retrofitting, officials did say the city would strive to set an example. The bill requires the city retrofit its buildings if audits show it would result in savings on energy bills in seven years.
The council is also requiring owners of large buildings to conduct smaller energy-efficiency improvements, which would have less of an impact on their pockets. Before every audit is submitted to the Buildings Department, buildings of more than 50,000 square feet will have to be retro-commissioned, which is when maintenance and low-cost performance improvements are made to increase a building's energy efficiency.
Overall, the entire legislative package, said Quinn, would reduce the city's carbon footprint by almost 5 percent. Quinn also said the bills would create 18,000 green jobs.
Environmental advocates have praised the package.
"You come into a negotiation asking for more than what you were going to get," said Dan Hendrick of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "Even with all the amendments, it's still groundbreaking."
In addition to the auditing bill, the council also passed legislation (Intro 973-A) by a vote of 44 to 2 that requires buildings of more than 50,000 square feet to make lighting upgrades by 2025, including the use of sensors and more efficient light fixtures. It would also require the installation of submeters, and landlords would have to provide tenants with monthly breakdowns of their electricity consumption.
In addition, the council unanimously approved a new energy code (Intro 564-A) that requires equipment installed during renovations to meet efficiency standards, and it approved legislation (Intro 476-A) that requires large and city-owned buildings to monitor their energy and water consumption and report it to the Department of Finance. That data will eventually be made public.
In addition to its green-buildings package, the council approved a zoning and financial incentive program to spur the construction of supermarkets in neighborhoods that have a drought of fresh food. Otherwise known as the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health, the program targets neighborhoods in the South Bronx, Upper Manhattan, Central Brooklyn and Downtown Jamaica.
Its incentives include: allowing one additional square foot of residential floor area for every square foot of a fresh food store up to 20,000 square feet, allowing grocery stores of 30,000 square feet and below to locate in light manufacturing areas, and reducing the parking requirements for grocery stores in this area.