Lots of ifs. I'm hopeful.
I moved to the East Village last year and plan to attend to my first Community Board meeting early next month.
From a quick glance of what the board did in January 2017:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mancb3/html/calendar/calendar.shtml
The focus was mostly on quality of life for existing residents - liquor license approvals, art installations and cultural activities. These are important things and people should care about them, but it's striking that those groups had meetings while the following didn't:
- Transportation and Public Safety - Land Use, Zoning, Public and Private Housing - Public Housing and Section 8 Housing
I'm going to spend the next couple of months attending these meetings to figure out how it all works.
I should caveat however that I'm atypical in this attitude. Because I spent the entirety of my childhood in dense urban environments - Dhaka and New York - I'm attached to city living. Most of my millennial friends are planning to take make the suburban trek.
For the first time, I’m also hopeful.
The problem with this is that you only have an indirect say in the government; one can't vote if one is priced out of the city.