Among the many effects of land-use policy in New York’s “Hamptons” over recent decades is public-school enrollment. Together with a general ritzifying of the area, the use of large-lot zoning and other measures has narrowed the availability of fulltime housing for most young families. Each school district on the South Fork of Long Island hasContinue reading “Hamptons Has Bigger Homes and Emptier Schools”
Category Archives: Newsfeed
A Post-Suburban Buildout of Long Island
It’s easy to find public expressions of nostalgia for the Long Island, N.Y., of a few decades ago–middle-class family life, payroll jobs and simple suburban pleasures. That Long Island continues to disappear, as a Newsday accounting of new building projects–mostly in the central part of the island–makes clear, sometimes unwittingly. For instance, the lede isContinue reading “A Post-Suburban Buildout of Long Island”
Add Express Lanes to Reflect Long Island Growth?
It’s rather quaint to read of an effort to widen a Long Island, N.Y., highway–reminiscent of the days when Robert Moses and others carved out easier traffic routes to bring the isle’s eastern reaches to within just a few hours of New York City. But as Newsday reports, that’s what Republican officials in Suffolk CountyContinue reading “Add Express Lanes to Reflect Long Island Growth?”
A Developer’s Faded Mark on the Hamptons
Readers of placed obituaries in the Southampton Press this week might have puzzled over the one for Francesco Galesi, who died last month in Palm Beach, Fla. at age 95. There was no mention of any connection to “The Hamptons”–perhaps he was just one of many grandees on the winter-summer circuit between the two pocketsContinue reading “A Developer’s Faded Mark on the Hamptons”
NY Struggles With the Grocery Checkout
Some people are bothered by self-checkout options at retailers, and in a place like New York, this means that legislators will try to “address their concerns.” Now, it’s not surprising that retail-staff unions would voice such objections, but the beef that others have is more vague. Some want to support the clerks, but there’s alsoContinue reading “NY Struggles With the Grocery Checkout”
When the Store Goes Shopping for You
As various press reported this week, New York city and state legislators are moving to join other progressive locales in restricting “surveillance pricing,” a latest form of digitally tailored marketing. The sinister-sounding practice is an offshoot of chip technology to guide consumers toward what either they or the retailer would like to deal on. DigitalContinue reading “When the Store Goes Shopping for You”
Fretting Before Long Island Officials Buy the Farm
Farmland and other open-space preservations are becoming more limited opportunities on the East End of Long Island, N.Y., despite abundant tax money now available for such purchases. The main reason is a dwindling number of such parcels, even as competing bids for residential real-estate development escalate. But sometimes the hangup is disagreement over just whatContinue reading “Fretting Before Long Island Officials Buy the Farm”
A Ticket Master Talks Olympics Sense
A few decades ago, I visited Fred Rosen, then the chief of Ticketmaster and–as now–an unrepentant advocate of market or “dynamic” pricing for commercial events. Here in this brief LA Times interview he reappears, defending the steep charge for seats to witness the 2028 Olympics–very much a commercial enterprise. The point he makes also appliesContinue reading “A Ticket Master Talks Olympics Sense”
Republicans Turn Out the Lights in East Hampton
Another epitaph for the “old Republican Party” was written this week in the township of East Hampton, N.Y., where no GOP candidate has filed for the top position, supervisor, in the November election. This story in the East Hampton Star lays out the contemporary context of the party’s demise there, which mirrors what has happenedContinue reading “Republicans Turn Out the Lights in East Hampton”
Socialist Mayor’s Surtax: An Idea for Hamptons-Like Homes?
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push* for a “pied-a-terre tax” on the sparsely used homes of putative plutocrats is not staying in NYC. At least one legislator from the northern Hudson Valley exurbs is seeking allowance for a similar punitive levy on such properties there. That shouldn’t be surprising: Resentments toward wealthy seasonal visitorsContinue reading “Socialist Mayor’s Surtax: An Idea for Hamptons-Like Homes?”
