This seminar to me was the most challenging of them all. It required us to think critically an devise solutions to seemingly unsolvable issues. The housing crisis in New York is an ongoing one that affects many people from the very rich to the very poor.In this section it was important to look at every possible angle of the problem to just fully understand its intricacies and various issues. As part of the housing team I really enjoyed researching and realizing that it is impossible to make everyone happy and the ones who almost always get the short end of the stick are the poor. I feel that this section of the course made me more aware of the politics involved with government projects and how the solution will be a compromise in which not everyone may be included.
The How We Work section of the course was also very eye opening. I believe that it is important for the city of New York to diversify its economy in order to prevent a financial collapse if there is ever another crisis in the finance district.
The idea of civic tech, technology to help people with government agencies and the process of improving the technology of the federal government looks to be a step in the right direction and something that should be expanded and funded by the city. Technology although an profitable enterprise should not be the only one to have a piece of the New York economy. This section showed how manufacturing jobs are slowly decreasing to the benefit of start ups who use their space as a location for their start ups. Those who suffer are the unskilled workers who now must compete in a smaller job market.
All in all, this course made me more aware of what is happening in our city now and what may happen in the future. Although, things may seem a bit bleak for the lower class there are some glimpses of hope in community boards and other tenant organizations. organizations that provide training to unskilled workers so that they can better compete and enter a larger job market.
