What We're Doing

The Inclusive Growth Initiative is an 18-person steering committee who represent the diversity of New York City. They were selected based on their academic, professional and lived experiences, interest in local policy and systemic change, passion and connection to key New York City issue areas, and to the city itself. They come from all five boroughs and represent and reflect our immigrant communities, single parents, small business owners, educators, queer communities, veterans, labor unions, individuals with disabilities, NYCHA residents, and the SUNY and CUNY systems. Leveraging their unique New York viewpoint and love of this city, they will help to address persistent economic, social and racial inequities magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic by offering a new vision for how economic policy decisions are made and delivered.

Convened and facilitated by the New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC), the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) and Regional Plan Association (RPA) between February and July 2021, the IGI Steering Committee created 50+ recommendations for inclusive and equitable systems of economic growth -- focusing on adding good jobs, expanding affordable housing, and reducing structural inequities -- and advocate for their implementation to government and civic stakeholders. The steering committee will actively urge the next mayoral administration and the newly elected officials to implement an agenda reflective of their recommendations in the first 100 days in office.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, New York City had become increasingly trapped in stagnation, with almost all benefits of economic growth accumulating at the top. The pandemic has made this unfairness even more evident, and the movement for Black Lives Matter demands we re-center the needs of Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Home health care aids, nurses, postal workers, retail employees and others who have saved countless lives and kept our city running are living even more precariously today than prior to the pandemic. Many others who would gladly contribute are unable to find a job that lets them do so.

Long-term, we hope that economic development in New York City is more inclusive, and more coordinated with other community development goals, including housing and social justice goals in order to improve these systemic challenges.