The MacBlog

I just got home from a common event - that is, an event that is Macaulay-wide, including students from all 7 campuses - at the MHC building which was actually surprisingly good. I suppose that's not entirely fair; many Macaulay events really are pretty good, it's just that they can drag on and on sometimes. Plus anything you're told you must go to inherently has a strike against it for some psychological reason, and although I consider it quite justified that an institution giving us a free college education can tell us periodically that we must attend some things, it does get old after a while.

But I digress; tonight was a Community Voices event, a common event designed to go along with our current (the 4th and last) honors seminar, "Shaping the Future of New York." the seminar explores issues such as urban planning, development, and sustainability, and the Community Voices events give students a chance to meet representatives from various important non-profit organizations working in the city. Tonight we heard from the chief of staff at the New York Economic Development Corporation and from a representative from the Municipal Arts Society. Both speakers gave very interesting presentations, and I found the work of the Economic Development Corporation particularly interesting. In our seminar classes, the EDC (which is a semi-nonprofit arm of the NYC government) has often been cast in a rather negative light, as the "opponent," so to speak, of community members. The chief of staff, however, gave a compelling representation of the other side of the dialogue. From her perspective, while the EDC does have the City's revenue at heart, its work is really geared toward improving the city in a variety of ways by listening to the concerns and opinions of the many different actors involved, synthesizing those opinions, and trying to generate from that a cohesive plan.

The other organization represented, the Municipal Art Society, as one of the oldest beautification and urban planning non-profits in the city, is one of those many actors whose opinion the EDC tries to (somewhat) accommodate. This was all pretty interesting for me because I'm really intrigued by power and how it actually works and is manifest in reality - as opposed to fiction or conspiracy theories - and who has power and how real change is effected. I spent a few years working at a non-profit when I was a teenager, and I was often struck by the relative powerlessness. Of course non-profits do form an important part of our society and governing system, but it was very interesting to see two different forces juxtaposed tonight. Now off for a nice night of homework...