CUF in the News
is a New York City-based think tank that fuses journalistic reporting techniques with traditional policy analysis to produce in-depth reports and workable policy solutions on the critical issues facing our cities.
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Funders
Center for an Urban Future Staff
Jonathan
Bowles, Director
Tel: 212.479.3347
E-mail: jbowles@nycfuture.org
Tara
Colton, Deputy Director
Tel: 212.479.3341
E-mail: tcolton@nycfuture.org
David Jason Fischer,
Project Director
Tel: 212.479.3348
E-mail:
djfischer@nycfuture.org
Jim O'Grady,
Research Director
Tel: 212.479.3346
E-mail: jogrady@nycfuture.org
David
Giles, Research Associate
Tel: 212.479.3353
E-mail: dgiles@nycfuture.org
Joel Kotkin,
Senior Fellow
E-mail: jkotkin@pacbell.net
City Futures Staff
The Center for an Urban Future is
a project of City Futures, Inc.
Andy
Breslau, Executive Director
Tel: 212.479.3352
E-mail: andy@cityfutures.org
Mark Anthony Thomas,
Deputy Director
Tel: 212.479.3345
E-mail: mark@cityfutures.org
Ahmad Dowla,
Administrative Assistant
Tel: 212.479.3319
E-mail: ahmad@cityfutures.org
City Futures Board of Directors
Chairman: Andrew Reicher, UHAB
Vice-Chair: Michael Connor, Open Mic
Treasurer: Ira Rubenstein, Spencer Clarke LLC
Secretary: Lisette Nieves, Year Up
Margaret Anadu, Goldman Sachs
Russell Dubner, Edelman Public Relations
Ken Emerson, Author, Editor and Consultant
Mark Winston Griffith, NEDAP
David Lebenstein, SIOR, Colliers ABR
Gail Mellow, LaGuardia Community College
Gifford Miller, Miller Strategies
John Siegal, Baker & Hostetler LLP
Karen Trella, Consultant
Peter Williams, Consultant
Staff and Fellows Biographies
Jonathan Bowles became director of the Center for an Urban Future in 2005 after serving as the organization’s research director for nearly seven years. He is the author of more than two dozen reports and articles, from detailed studies about key sectors of the city’s economy, like the air cargo industry and biotechnology, to broader pieces about the economic and infrastructure challenges facing New York in the years ahead. Jonathan's reports have been covered by local and national publications ranging from the New York Times and USA Today to The Economist, and he has published articles and opinion pieces in the Daily News, Newsday and The Village Voice. He was appointed by the city’s Economic Development Corporation to serve on its Telecommunications Policy Advisory Group and was a subcommittee member on Senator Schumer’s Group of 35. In 2005, he was named “New York’s Finest Troublemaker” by Time Out New York magazine. Prior to coming to the Center, he served as research director for New York State Senator Franz Leichter. Jonathan graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Sociology.
Andy Breslau was named executive director of City Futures, the parent organization of the Center for an Urban Future and City Limits, in 2006, after working the last eight years at CNN both as a senior manager and a producer. Prior to CNN, he was the director of special projects for the Democratic National Committee and served as the director of public affairs for the Manhattan Borough President's Office from 1990 through 1995. Before his time in government, Andy was the founding associate director of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Andy graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. in Politics.
Tara Colton has been with the Center for an Urban Future since 2003 and was named the Center's deputy director in 2007. She is the author of "Lost In Translation," a report about the dearth of ESOL classes in New York State, "Getting in the Game," a report on New York City's fast-growing video game industry and "A Bumpy Ride," a study of New York's cultural trolley programs. Prior to her work at the Center, Tara was the Project Manager for Listening to the City, a series of town hall meetings about the future of Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. Tara graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Government. She recently completed the United Way of New York City's Senior Fellows program and is working towards her M.P.A. in Policy Analysis and Evaluation at Baruch College's School of Public Affairs.
Ahmad Dowla began working as an intern in the Business Office of City Futures and joined the staff as the Administrative Assistant in 2006. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and is currently enrolled in Hunter College, where he is pursuing studies in music and anthropology. Dowla has lived in Queens, New York for over 10 years and was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He is an avid handball player, an indie film aficionado, loves music, and enjoys exploring new experiences.
David Jason Fischer has been project director for workforce development and social policy at the Center for an Urban Future since 2000. His research has included two comprehensive assessments of the New York City workforce system (2002, 2007); a study of potential worker shortages in a few key areas of New York City's economy (2006); a report on union-affiliated job training efforts in New York City (2003); and an analysis of the city's Summer Youth Employment Program (2007). He was also the lead author of "Between Hope and Hard Times" (2004), the Center's comprehensive report on low-income working families in New York State, and "More Hard Times for New York's Working Families" (2006), a follow-up policy brief. David has served on advisory boards for Urban Agenda and Community Voices Heard and has published a number of opinion pieces and short features in local and national outlets. David graduated from Brown University with an honors degree in History and a B.A. in Political Science and earned his Master's in Public Policy from Georgetown University.
David Giles is the Center for an Urban Future's research associate. He grew up in one of the nation’s first federally subsidized master-planned communities outside Houston, Texas, and first became fascinated with cities on a Fulbright Scholarship in Berlin, Germany. After studying philosophy at the University of Chicago, he moved to New York City and began writing about eminent domain controversies and sustainable development issues for City Limits, The Next American City and The Architect's Newspaper, among other publications. In his spare time, he is directing a documentary about a neighborhood of junkyards in Queens.
Jim O'Grady is the Center's new research director. He has lived in all five boroughs of New York, a meaningless accomplishment that comes in handy during lags in the conversation at cocktail parties. From 1999 to 2004, he covered local news for The City section of The New York Times, where he specialized in development, historic preservation, economics and politics. Since 2003, he has taught graduate level reporting classes in the Journalism Department at NYU. He is the author of the biographies Dorothy Day: With Love for the Poor, and Disarmed & Dangerous: The Radical Lives and Times of Daniel and Philip Berrigan. His grandfather Valentine was a beat cop who used to sit in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium and watch Babe Ruth clout homers; his grandmother Madeline was a telephone operator who'd connect a call by plugging a wire into a circuit board. His grandmother Elizabeth was an immigrant from County Roscommon, Ireland, who worked the counter at Schrafft's restaurant in the Chrysler building, where she once served eggs 'n' bacon to a handsome but shy Ted Williams; his grandfather James was an electrician with the Penn Central Railroad who, as a kid growing up in East Harlem, would take summer morning swims in the Harlem River. In the early 80s, Jim attended Fordham University in the Bronx, where, long before artists started moving into the Clocktower building in Mott Haven, he would go up to the roof of his dorm and watch the South Bronx burn. He is cheered by the borough's revival.
Mark Anthony Thomas joined City Futures as deputy director in 2008. He oversees development, administration, publishing and marketing for both City Limits and the Center for an Urban Future. Before joining City Futures, he was a public relations officer for an international health collaboration between Columbia University and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Before coming to New York, he worked as a community affairs representative for Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Atlanta. He has been recognized by the Southeastern Council on Foundations with a Hull Fellowship Award, serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Helping Teens Succeed, and has been profiled by Time magazine and Essence magazine. Mark graduated from the University of Georgia with a B.B.A in Marketing and is currently enrolled in the Executive M.P.A. program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
Joel Kotkin served as co-author of "Engine Failure," an acclaimed Center for an Urban Future report that painted a bold new plan for economic growth in New York City. He has also completed studies on the future of several other major cities, including St. Louis, Phoenix , Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the Inland Empire region of Southern California. In November 2005, in association with the Planning Center, he finished a year long study on the future of suburban development. He is currently completing a study for the Reason Foundation on the future of transportation mobility in the United States. Joel is the author of "The City: A Global History" and "The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution is Reshaping the American Landscape." He is also an Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.
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