The late 2000s was a dark period for homeownership in America. Viewing the real estate bust as an opportunity to rethink affordable housing, childhood friends Jason Bordainick and Andrew Cavaluzzi pooled their entrepreneurial backgrounds and real estate experience to create the Hudson Valley Property Group.
The New York-based business works with property owners to rehabilitate blighted developments to improve the lives of existing residents and the surrounding community. Avoiding the types of projects that other real estate developers rush towards, HVPG builds upon existing infrastructure, utilizing investors with long-term financial goals.
See this unique public-private funding model in action by watching the video above.
Tag: aging infrastructure
10 Infrastructure Projects We’d Like to See Get Off the Ground
In his victory speech, Donald J. Trump vowed to “rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals.” The investment is long overdue: The American Society of Civil Engineers, in its most recent national assessment, rated the country’s infrastructure as a D-plus, just above failing. The group estimates that, by 2025, the nation will need a $1.44 trillion boost over current funding levels to meet growing needs.
Since 2009, when Barack Obama doled out roughly $800 billion in a stimulus package, that money’s been hard to come by, largely blocked by partisanship. But advocates hope the election of Trump, who made his fortune in real estate, could launch a building boom. The Republican president, so used to seeing his name on gilded skyscrapers, hotels, casinos and golf courses, could cut a deal with congressional Democrats, who view public-works projects as an engine for job growth.
Assuming Trump can indeed pass a bill, we at NationSwell have a few ideas for him to consider. A big, beautiful wall’s not one of them; instead, here’s the top 10 shovel-worthy alternatives we’d like the new administration to undertake.
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Packing the Substitute Teacher Pool With Outside Experts, Charging Cars By the Mile (Not By the Gallon) and More
What Can Substitute Teachers Do for City Schools? CityLab
The average teacher misses 9.4 days each school year. Total it up, and by high school graduation, a student will have spent six months of class-time with a substitute teacher. Rather than having a sub plod through an unfamiliar lesson plan or just distribute worksheets, a new model at two Boston schools places local experts in urban farming, animation, robotics, puppetry — you name it — at the blackboard to teach about their field.
Taxing Drivers by the Mile, Instead of at the Pump, The Denver Post
Hybrid and electric vehicles may be a boon to the atmosphere, but they’ve caused some headaches for government administrators, namely, how to pay for bridge and road repairs. Prius drivers travel farther on a tank — functionally discounting their share of the gas tax — so the Colorado Department of Transportation is testing the feasibility of a fairer standard: charging for each mile driven instead.
Can Hypothermia Save Gunshot Victims? The New Yorker
Most people who suffer a traumatic gunshot wound die within an hour. Having lost so much blood, their heart can no longer circulate what’s left. A new procedure at University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center, near Baltimore, buys more time by putting the body on ice. When a victim is wheeled in, doctors fill the body with freezing saline, pausing heartbeats and giving them just enough time to sew up the wounds.
What Can We Learn From the Horrific Harlem Blast?
Bad pipes have big problems. Old pipes are less efficient and use more energy. Leaks from eroded pipes can also contaminate the environment and impact air quality. And in the most devastating of cases, problematic pipes can take down entire apartment buildings, cause serious injuries and even claim lives, as the horrific East Harlem natural gas blast (presumably caused by leaky pipes) demonstrated last week.
The problem with pipes is their finite lifespan. And while authorities are still trying figure out the exact cause of the Harlem blast, it has brought much-needed attention to New York City’s aging gas and water mains, some of which are more than 100 years old.
MORE: 9 Surprising Infrastructure Innovations Happening Right Here in America
Simply put, we need to replace, repair or upgrade our cities’ aging pipelines. It may sound like a dramatic fix, but when it’s a life or death situation, this action is critical. When there’s a gas leak, fumes escape and a room can become a ticking time bomb, ignited by anything — from a lit cigarette to a flickering light bulb.
The tragedy in Harlem is proof that we need to fix leaks before it’s too late, especially in older cities like New York, Boston or Philadelphia. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a proponent of infrastructure repair, has said that the federal government needs to provide more aid to cities for this problem.
But there are additional reasons why the whole country should be investing in pipeline upgrades. As Grist pointed out in a recent report, doing so would not only prevent future disasters, but the environment and the economy would be better off as a result, as well. According to the report, natural gas leaks cause methane, a potent gas that’s “between 20 and 85 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as [carbon dioxide]” to be released into the atmosphere, driving climate change.
ALSO: This Filmmaker Is Investigating a Subtle Problem Plaguing American Cities
As for the economy, repairing the nation’s existing pipeline infrastructure — an estimated $18 billion investment — would create many more long-term jobs than the (controversial) Keystone XL pipeline, according to a study released by the Economics for Equity and Environment and the Labor Network for Sustainability (via HuffPo). That’s 300,000 total jobs across all sectors or nearly five times more jobs, and more long-term jobs than the KXL, the report states.
While it may not be easy or glamorous, it sounds like repairing the country’s pipelines shouldn’t be such a pipe dream.