Keys to the City with Anthony Weiner

Keys to the City with Anthony Weiner

Welcome to Keys to the City hosted by Anthony Weiner. A podcast about the problems facing New York City and the enduring power of ideas. From existential threats to pet peeves, each week together we’ll resist the temptation to curse the darkness. Instead, we’ll try to light a candle by bringing to light things that have worked before or new ways to get things done. So, if you find yourself muttering “there ought to be a law”; or “if only I were king for a day” or just something like “that’s been bugging me”, this show is for you. Dropping every Thursday, Keys to the City will take on the big stuff like crime, education, and the environment. But we will also ponder some interesting ways to make the city a bit cleaner, a tad more livable and just all around better. So where are we gonna get these ideas? These little pearls that are going to be the foundation of the show? Well, to start with, you can be sure that Anthony is going to lean heavily on the two books of ideas that he wrote when he was running for Mayor. There are 125 in total and the can be found here. Not all of them are still current – giving every school kid a Kindle seems sort of dated – and some ideas have been adopted since Anthony wrote them (yep, we see you ranked choice voting) , but there is a lot of gold in them there hills. Anthony will also look at what works in other places. Sure New York is the best city in the world, but there is no shame in borrowing ideas from other, lesser places. One other source of ideas with be the guests that will join Anthony from time to time to tell him the ideas are brilliant or that they just don’t add up. Lawmakers, think tankers, or just regular folk who are uncommonly clever - there is no telling who will show up on Keys to the City To read Anthony’s original Keys to the City books, click here and here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J7DiPkwtLdsXRmpbFJQlcNG2iW1EkXVr?usp=sharing To submit ideas of your own you can do it in the comments or by emailing us at Keystothecity@wabcradio.com.

Episodes

October 20, 2022 2 mins
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Idea 44 was so good that it got adopted. Now expensive and divisive run off elections have been replaced by ranked choice voting. It's still a fairly new idea but we’ve seen it in action in elections in our city and in places as far flung as Alaska and Maine. This week, Anthony examines what we know and what is yet to be revealed about this new type of voting. To unpack the pros and the cons, we turned to a consummate legal pro. Je...
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New York is a city of tall buildings and marquee companies. But the capital of big corporate is actually a town where most businesses are small. In fact, the anchor of our economy is the neighborhood store. In today's episode Anthony suggests one idea to make life easier for small businesses and one to make them hum with new customers. Our expert conversation is with Rob Walsh. Mr. Walsh was the longest serving Commissioner of the ...
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Everyone can agree that New York is an expensive place to live, but what to do about it? There seems to be a structural imbalance between supply and demand. So what can the government do? What are the arrows in our civic quiver? Anthony takes a stab at updating one program and breathing new life into another. Along to bring a reality check is Hon. Gifford Miller. One time rivals for mayor, now they share a title : "elder statesman"...
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Some of the Keys have been adopted and some have been overtaken by time, but Idea #84 is as fresh and vital as ever – getting Albany out of our schools. We all know who is in charge of the school. It’s the principal, of course. But who oversees the policies governing our education of 1 million school kids in over 1,000 buildings? It’s complicated and maybe intentionally so. If you like blurry lines of authority and intragovernmenta...
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If you skipped most of the cacophony of the first take, Anthony tries to make amends with a conversation with a man who has quite nearly written the book about the implementation, adoption, and future of the policies around police body cameras. Dr. Rudolph Hall now has the title of Chief, but he has had many more in his more than 20 years in law enforcement. Calm, thoughtful and insightful is the perfect palate cleanser for whateve...
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After a few years of the biggest experiment in the use of police body worn cameras, Anthony looks at how this idea is working on 24,000 officers and wonders if he got it right in with Idea #74. But issues of over surveillance, storage costs and the rights of the press took a back seat when Anthony’s guest, John Jay College Professor Eugene O’Donnell, decided he was going to do his version of “but her emails” and refuse to engage th...
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This episode may not appeal to the oligarchs, princes and masters of the universe who shop for New York apartments in the $50 million range. But Anthony has an idea for the rest of us this week. We love when the big spenders come to town but a progressive tax that supports our subways is great too. Jason Haber knows a thing or two about this subject, he sold the biggest apartment in the tallest building for $70.5 million. He and An...
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Anthony continues his search for that mythical creature – the idea we can all agree upon. On this week’s Keys to the City, it’s in sight – ending the moral blight of children in our city going hungry. He sees a policy fix and consensus in the making but his guest, Joel Berg brings decades of experience and a bucket of cold water to the conversation.   To read Keys to the City, click here for the PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/...
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Is there any ritual more New York than the morning dance of alternate side parking? But does it make sense? Anthony looks at the zero-sum game of who gets to park where, when and for how long. Idea 111 is on the agenda in this week’s episode as he is joined by a tough critic of cars in the city – and longtime fixture of New York journalism – Gersh Kuntzman of Streetsblog NYC. Listen to the end for Gersh to bring the hammer down for...
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August 11, 2022 38 mins
We learned that prohibition didn’t work as planned but the idea of taxing behavior that we want to discourage is an accepted thing. But when New York City decided to raise the tax on cigarettes by 1875% in 2002, revenue didn’t rise, it cratered. And many targets of this sin tax became something else: customers for a massive criminal enterprise. Anthony looks at Idea 40 to tackle black market smokes on this week’s episode. Joining t...
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What if there is a problem with such a wide “blast radius” that no one idea will tame it? In this episode, Anthony takes a look at the impact of addiction on our streets, our taxes, our criminal justice system and, yes, even our humanity. For a window into how vexing these issues can be, Anthony is joined by Stephen Yang, a journalist who spent time with a former NYFD firefighter whose addiction has led him to a life of shoplifting...
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There are many things that you only see on the streets of New York City, but one thing we need less of are the over 9000 scaffolds or sheds that create dark, messy canyons have spread because of old laws passed by a defunct board and are supported by a combination of a big business and a timid bureaucracy. Anthony is joined by Connor Harris of City Journal who has a plan to end the Scaffold Jungle.   To read Keys to the City, clic...
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Anthony dives into the shallow end of the pool for this episode about one of his pet peeves. Idea 101 asks a simple question, “Why can’t we park closer to the pump?”. In New York City, the 30 feet in front of a fire hydrant is a no parking zone. Other cities require less. In a world where parking real estate is under attack from bike racks, restaurant sheds and taxi zones, Anthony demands change. Former Fire Fighter and Fire Marsha...
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Does anyone like government programs that don’t work or waste money? But rarely does anything get done to change them. This episode focuses on Idea 41. Anthony proposes requiring every city agency to rank all its programs in order of most successful and efficient to the least. The next part is specific and not easy, but he makes the case to get rid of the bottom 5%. Anthony welcomes think tanker and idea drafter, Nicole Gelinas of ...
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The podcast kicks off with the hot issue of the moment, crime. Idea 76 from Anthony’s books of ideas suggests making the controversial – but necessary – police tactic of stop, question, and frisk, much more transparent by making the data public every month. Everyone wants the cops to catch the bad guys, but what are the implications of a policy that is Constitutional only if it is done by the book. Joining Anthony to discuss this i...
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Welcome to Keys to the City hosted by Anthony Weiner. A podcast about the problems facing New York City and the enduring power of ideas. From existential threats to pet peeves, each week together we’ll resist the temptation to curse the darkness. Instead, we’ll try to light a candle by bringing to light things that have worked before or new ways to get things done. So, if you find yourself muttering “there ought to be a law”; or “i...
Mark as Played

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