Albany is a problem, but so is the amount of graft we have. The MTA is fraudulently overstaffed (I saw 5 people supervising 1 power washer yesterday, and have you ever needed to speak with someone at the ticket counter). Basically the entire police force commits overtime fraud, and the publicly funded non-profits basically just pour money into the hands of administrators (the NYT profiled a guy who was making $1M/year on contracts valued at $30M). We need a though anti-corruption investigation into the city, but we'll never let that happen thanks to the way local politics work.

70 affordable housing units would have been built. How many affordable housing units will the parking lot have?

I understand the “normal” white supremacist conspiracy theory is about white people being replaced. But extremely similar conspiracy theories are built around the replacement of black people, In DC this is called “the plan [1]”. Basically racists aren’t particularly creative because racism appeals to the same lizard brain parts of us. I used the term “great replacement” because it’s more broadly known.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plan_(Washington,_D.C.)

We need to acknowledge that a number of city officials engage in "great replacement" conspiracy theories where the mere existence of white people is offensive. Kristin Richardson Jordan is another example of one such individual, who actively stopped a gas station turned into a development which would have been 50% affordable. These racists make everything worse for everyone.

The distinction is that most chains are franchises whereas Starbucks is 100% corporate. Seems like a repetitional risk to the company for their flagship to be associated with black mold and bugs.

What are they actually striking for? The article said they were striking for a contract + cleaning up the kitchen. It’s not even clear to me why keeping the kitchen sanitary would be an issue for management.