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Examining the impacts of ranked choice voting (RCV) on voter efficacy is important as more areas consider adoption. The greater number of choices provided by longer RCV ballots may introduce opportunities for voters to misunderstand the ballot, make errant marks, or accidentally mark two or more candidates for one ranking, resulting in voidable ballots due to "overvoting." Using ballot data from the 2013 general election, the 2017, and 2021 New York City democratic mayoral primaries, this paper asks whether voidable overvote ballots are more concentrated in constituencies with lower levels of educational attainment, average household incomes, and differing racial make-ups, and if this relationship is more pronounced under RCV than traditional elections. In the first RCV election in 2021, voters in locations with lower levels of educational attainment and median household incomes had higher shares of overvote voidable ballots than those in locations with higher educational attainment and incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which Mexican immigrants experience, narrate, and describe stress and the extent to which it impacts their efforts at engaging in physical activity using a biocitizenship framework. Data were derived from a mixed-method study among Mexicans living in New York City recruited from a large Catholic church. The qualitative sample of 25 participated in quantitative and qualitative components of the study and as such we include some of these quantitative indicators as descriptors. Our main qualitative findings reveal that study participants experience stress and time constraint as factors that contribute to the waning of their physical and mental well-being. As such, time constraints for many of our participants were among the factors that contributed to high perceived levels of stress. They attributed this to their difficulty maintaining a physically active lifestyle due to factors like the fast-paced lifestyle in New York, working long hours, and not having enough time to exercise, though some important differences in narratives were noted across gender. Findings have implications for interventions aimed at improving the health of immigrants in general and Mexican immigrants in New York City specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I argue that indigenous Latin American food delivery workers organize to defy information and knowledge asymmetries by utilizing technology built to mediate online social interactions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper investigates transnational modes of community-building and network formation and examines how these networks are instrumental for delivery workers in New York City to exercise agency, forge their narrative, and resist platform control by resisting, pushing, and extending a variety of digital and communication technologies. I analyze how public and private means of communication facilitate and constrain social forms of organization by mapping how delivery workers communicate and engage collectively both in the physical and the digital worlds. My research reveals two platforms that workers use to share information: one that operates inwards (WhatsApp) and another that operates outwards (Facebook). These channels represent opposite sides of the spectrum between public and private and synergize to form a transnational distributed knowledge network to shape and interpret the collective identity of Latin American delivery workers. Overall, this article sheds light on how the flow of information through different spaces and times enables delivery workers to construct a place for subversion and negotiation with roles assigned to them by broader socio-political forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Health Department) has responded to an article that claimed their workforce discriminated against Asian restaurants during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Health Department conducted an investigation and found no evidence of bias against Asian restaurants in their inspectional data. They also criticized the authors of the article for using an incomplete dataset and not reaching out for assistance or collaboration. The Health Department presented their own analysis of inspection results, which showed no evidence of an uptick in violations among Asian restaurants. They concluded that the findings of the article are erroneous and rejected the accusations of discrimination. [Extracted from the article]

COVID-19 exacerbated food system vulnerabilities globally. This study assesses the impact of shock events on food accessibility in New York City (NYC) by examining its association with neighborhood characteristics between 2019 and 2020. We model food accessibility using socioeconomic and built environment factors, adjusting for spatial effects with spatial econometric models and geographically weighted regression (GWR). Our spatial modeling methods reveal diverging relationships between minority racial/ethnic groups and food accessibility, as well as a negative change in the effect of income. Overall, our results indicate that food accessibility worsened or polarized during the pandemic, suggesting the need for improved network connectivity and smaller-scale food stores to achieve equitable and resilient food systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread expansion of school choice policies has bolstered the consumer-education paradigm where parents compete for what they perceive to be a limited number of high quality schools. In this comparative case study, we examine advantaged White parents' perceptions of meritocracy in the context of a competitive elementary and high school choice system in New York City. We find that parents' critique the choice policies and the unfair burdens they place on low-income and immigrant families while engaging in opportunity hoarding to ensure their children's privileged access to the most competitive schools, all while dismissing claims that school choice is meritocratic. Ultimately, advantaged parents' suggest returning to neighborhood zoning which would preserve their access to exclusive, high performing schools and avoid the stress and inequities of school choice policies. This study offers further examples of the powerful influence of contradictory White discourse in the context of education policy and reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study aims to identify the critical hotel guest technology that enhances the hotel customer experience. By applying the two-factor theory, the study discovers the asymmetry impact of hotel guest technology on customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. This study uses an integrated approach of big data analytics and impact asymmetry analysis on a dataset of 520,757 online reviews of 435 hotels in New York City derived from TripAdvisor.com. Big data analytics is implemented to identify significant attributes of hotel guest technology. Then, the five unique roles of hotel guest technology in customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction are identified through impact asymmetry analysis. The integrated approach reconciles inconsistent findings from prior research and guides hotel operators to prioritize hotel guest technology to increase customer experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the emergence of environmental history as a field of study, with a focus on New York City. It highlights two books, "Fresh Kills" and "Coastal Metropolis," which explore the history of waste disposal and water management in the city. These books shed light on the challenges and complexities of waste management and emphasize the need for sustainable solutions. The article emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of environmental history and the importance of understanding the city's past to address its current environmental challenges. [Extracted from the article]

To tackle persistent boundary-spanning problems with limited resources, some cities engage in collaborative innovation, combining expertise, effort, and creativity within and outside city hall to overcome limitations of conventional practices and siloed work. This article illustrates how collaborative innovation works in practice by examining specifics of how the Buffalo Clean Sweep Initiative, unique in longevity, scope, and scale, overcame common challenges and managed typical trade-offs. We describe, based on analyses of interviews and focus groups with city staff, community partners, and residents, how problem-solving, making an impact, and learning together helped Buffalo, New York, improve quality-of-life in its poorest neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To coproduce better policy outcomes, governments and citizens need to work together. However, information asymmetry between the two parties influences the coproduction adversely. Nowadays, the multiplicity of information and its potential incongruence add to information asymmetry and make the impact of information on coproduction trickier than ever. This study examines the effects of political message, policy, and factual information on citizens' coproduction activities. Analyzing the effects of federal and state leaders' tweets, New York City's COVID-19 policies, reported COVID-19 cases and deaths, and the city's visits and public transportation ridership, the findings show that politicians' message, congruent or not, did not influence citizens' coproduction activities as measured by visits and public transit ridership. Policy implementation information improved coproduction, and the perceptions of factual information contributed to intended coproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age" by Zachary J. Violette and "How the Working-Class Home Became Modern" by Thomas C. Hubka are two books that provide insight into the lives of ordinary people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. These books challenge the dominant narrative that focuses on the wealthy and their lavish homes, instead exploring the housing conditions and changes experienced by the working class and poor. Violette's book specifically examines the tenements in New York City, highlighting how immigrant builders and architects adapted these structures to meet the needs and desires of the new American residents. The books also discuss the tensions between housing reformers and tenants, with reformers often imposing their values on lower-class immigrants who were satisfied with their homes. The text mentions that Violette criticizes reformer Jacob Riis for his views on tenements, while Hubka focuses on the middle 60% of the income distribution and their housing improvements. It notes that Hubka's book lacks a racial analysis, but praises Violette for addressing the anti-Semitism faced by Jewish immigrants. Both books demonstrate the improvement in living standards for working-class people during this time period, with Hubka's book specifically examining the modernization of homes and its impact on people's lives. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of this study was to better understand the role of school bathrooms in shaping the menstrual experiences of adolescents in the U.S.A. The participants were Black and Latina, low-income adolescent girls (15–19) and adults interacting closely with youth in three U.S.A. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City). Data collection methods included: (1) Participatory Methodologies (PM) sessions with adolescent girls (n = 73); (2) In-depth interviews (IDI) with adolescent girls (n = 12); and (3) Key Informant Interviews (KII) with adults (n = 23). Malterud's "systematic text condensation," an inductive thematic analysis method, was utilized to analyze the various data types (field notes, in-depth interviews, drawings). Key findings include, one, that menstruating girls experience embarrassment and a need for secrecy when accessing school bathrooms; two, the social and physical environments of school bathrooms, including poor design and maintenance, heighten girls' discomfort, especially while menstruating; and three, school policies restricting students' bathroom access are problematic for many menstruating students, especially those experiencing heavy and/or unpredictable bleeding. Schools and policymakers need to consider holistic approaches when addressing the menstrual needs of adolescents in U.S.A. schools, including better prioritizing issues related to menstrual stigma, school bathroom design and bathroom access policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City offers an example of the national trend to expand dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs, yet only a small proportion of multilingual learners are enrolled in these programs in city schools. Our examination of new DLBE programs in three city schools builds on research about the "gentrification" of DLBE. Specifically, our findings show how school leaders opened DLBE programs to re-engineer the demographics of their student population by enrolling more White, privileged students in the name of "school turnaround"—namely, to increase enrollment and popularity in a school choice context and improve performance on accountability measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inequities in exclusionary discipline result from a complex process involving students, families, and school personnel. However, little research has explored the topic from parent perspectives. This study used parent survey data from New York City to investigate the link between school-family relationships and students experiencing exclusionary discipline. Results indicate that stronger parental trust toward teachers is connected to a reduced probability that a student receives an office discipline referral, while greater trust in principals is associated with a lower chance of suspension. Several aspects of school-family relationships, such as parent-principal trust, parental involvement, and school outreach and communication, heterogeneously predict a lower likelihood of experiencing exclusionary discipline by student race and special education status. These findings demonstrate the interdependent role of families and school staff in child development and highlight the need to cultivate positive school-family relationships as a potential strategy for addressing exclusionary discipline disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores why New York City's municipal government, together with private benefactors, poured an unprecedented amount of money into the arts during the 1980s, a time of broader austerity. While other public expenditures saw dramatic cuts, the arts were considered essential to the city's future as a center for global capital—as a way to lure financial elites and young professionals to the city, create new forms of revenue-raising consumption, and cement New York's reputation as the ultimate global city. New York had always had a vital arts scene. But in the 1980s, the arts were monetized in new ways to serve capital—and capitalists. Arts and culture were central to the new urban lifestyle that helped produce the explosion of global finance. But as arts and culture increasingly came to be associated with a luxury lifestyle, the arts themselves became a luxury, inaccessible to most New Yorkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

College-educated White households have increasingly opted to live in central urban neighborhoods, transforming many parts of the urban core. While there is emerging evidence that schools may play a key part in this process, little is known about the extent of racial contract between children of gentrifier households and original residents. This study examines NYC's gentrifying areas, and the changing racial diversity in schools. Using data from the Census and the National Center for Educational Statistics, this study finds that schools in NYC's gentrifying areas have seen a reduction in racial segregation, more in traditional public schools than in charters. While this trend may be promising, high levels of segregation persist. Policy and research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]