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Design By: Jordan Johnson

A not-to-be-missed webinar sponsored by

The Living New Deal–New York City Branch

DATE:  Wednesday, September 30

TIME:   6:00 – 8:00 pm (Eastern Time)

RSVP:  Peggy Crane, [email protected]

Last year, LND’s New City Branch sponsored a public program titled “A New Deal for New York City: Looking Back, Looking Forward.” The event, held at the Center for Architecture and co-sponsored with the American Institute of Architects New York, drew close to 200 people, introducing many of them to the core achievements of the New Deal in our city and inspiring them to use the New Deal as a model for change today.

But this year, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has put the kibosh on public gatherings, we realized we’d need to go virtual.

At first, we were disappointed: Webinars are all very well and good, but can they replace the real thing? The obvious answer is “no.” But the online setting actually frees us to tackle the Green New Deal theme on a national and even global scale. The NYC Branch therefore cedes its local identity in the interest of a wide-ranging discussion—the kind of discussion that will help spur the kind of economic, social, and political changes that so many of us urgently want to see and be part of.

Please see the following descriptions of the speakers and panelists we’ve lined up for the occasion. Representing a variety of disciplines and perspectives, they will illuminate the issues you care about and try to answer the questions that keep you up at night, especially during this all-important election year.

An e-invitation will be sent out in early September, including a Zoom link. In the meantime, feel free to reserve your spot by sending an email message to Peggy Crane at [email protected].

Robert Kuttner, Keynote Speaker

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and Meyer and Ida Kirstein Professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week, and for the Washington Post syndicate. He was a founder of the Economic Policy Institute and serves on its board and executive committee.

Kuttner is author of twelve books, most recently Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? and his new book on democracy and the 2020 election, The Stakes. His best-known earlier book is Everything for Sale: the Virtues and Limits of Markets (1997).

His previous positions have included national staff writer and columnist on The Washington Post, chief investigator of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, executive director of President Carter’s National Commission on Neighborhoods, and economics editor of The New Republic.

He is the winner of the Sidney Hillman Journalism Award (twice), the John Hancock Award for Financial Writing, the Jack London Award for Labor Writing, and the Paul Hoffman Award of the United Nations Development Program for his lifetime work on economic efficiency and social justice.

Robert Kuttner was educated at Oberlin College, The London School of Economics, and the University of California at Berkeley. He holds honorary doctorates from Oberlin and Swarthmore. He has also taught at Boston University, the University of Oregon, University of Massachusetts, and Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

Kevin Baker, Moderator

Kevin Baker is a novelist, historian, and journalist. He has recently completed a book on the history of New York City baseball and is currently working on a cultural and political history of the United States between the wars, for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017. He has written for many major periodicals and is a contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine.

PANEL OF DISCUSSANTS

Billy Fleming is the Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow with Data for Progress. Billy is co-editor of the forthcoming book An Adaptation Blueprint (Island Press, 2020), co-editor and co-curator of the book and now traveling exhibit Design With Nature Now (Lincoln, 2019), and author of the forthcoming Drowning America: The Nature and Politics of Adaptation (Penn Press, expected 2021). Billy is also the lead author of the recently published The 2100 Project: An Atlas for the Green New Deal and a co-author of the Indivisible Guide (2016).

Deborah Gardner is the Historian and Curator of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House,  the former home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, and their family. Exhibitions she has curated can be seen on the Roosevelt House website. She has served on the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission and has been a member of other preservation groups, including the New York City branch of the Living New Deal. She has published articles and books in the fields of architectural, business, legal, women’s, and nonprofit history, as well as the history of the Roosevelts in New York. A native New Yorker, she has traveled widely in the US, always on the lookout for New Deal sites.

Elisa Iturbe

Elisa Iturbe is a critic at the Yale School of Architecture (YSoA), where she teaches design studios and a seminar titled The City & Carbon Modernity, which explores the spatial expression of our dominant energy paradigm in both urban and architectural forms. She also coordinates the dual-degree program between YSoA and the Yale School of the Environment. In addition, she is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at The Cooper Union, where she teaches both studio and an environmental course on carbon modernity. Recently, she guest-edited Log 47, titled Overcoming Carbon Form, and co-wrote a book with Peter Eisenman titled Lateness. She is co-founder of the firm Outside Development, a design and research team that considers race, class, labor, and capitalism alongside form, proportion, and the production of urban fabric.

Julian Brave NoiseCat is a writer, activist, and policy wonk who blends reporting and research. He is vice president of policy for Data for Progress, a liberal think tank, and narrative change director for The Natural History Museum, an artist and activist collective based in Washington State that aims to transform the museum sector into a platform for Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice. His work has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and other publications. Julian grew up in Oakland, California, and is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation.

Mitchell J. Silver

One of the nation’s most celebrated urban thinkers, Mitchell J. Silver is Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks, a former president of the American Planning Association (APA), and President Elect of the American Institute of Certified Planners. As Parks Commissioner, Mitchell oversees management, planning and operations of nearly 30,000 acres of parkland, which includes parks, playgrounds, beaches, marinas, recreation centers, natural areas and other assets. He specializes in comprehensive planning, placemaking, and implementation strategies. Commissioner Silver was named one of Planetizen’s 100 Most Influential Urbanists in 2017 and has been honored as one of the top 100 City Innovators in the world by UBM Future Cities.