New America Nyc

The mixed economy was the most important social innovation of the twentieth century. It spread a previously unimaginable level of prosperity and enabled steep increased in education, health, and economic security. And yet, extraordinarily, it is anathema to many current economic and political elites. Like every other prospering democracy, the U.S. developed a mixed economy that channeled the spirit of capitalism intro strong growth and health social development. In this bargain, government and business were as much partners as rivals. But, according to Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson's new book,American Amnesia, what's good for business and what's good for Americans has become misaligned. As anti-government advocates of free market fundamentalism have gained power, they are bent on scrapping the instrument of a century of unprecedented economic and social progress.

Participatory budgeting is perhaps the greatest experiment in democracy that could redefine how public budgets are decided in the United States. A “revolutionary civics in action” that came to the U.S. in 2009, this global phenomenon bridges a citizen-government divide in not only what public projects get funded, but who decides. But for participatory budgeting to work, the health of American democracy is a must. According to Hollie Russon-Gilman's new book, Democracy Reinvented, current citizen disaffection and mistrust of government have stalled the best impacts of participatory budgeting and many other advances in civic innovation. The political and institutional restraints we work under now need to be opened up, and with the help of digital tools and other technological innovations, more inclusive governance is possible.Join us at Civic Hall for a conversation with New America fellow Hollie Russon-Gilman, along with John Paul Farmer and Story Bellows, on the state of civic innovation today and the digital

American attitudes toward marriage have undergone a seismic shift in recent decades. Gay marriage has become mainstream, nearly half of American households have female breadwinners, and gendered expectations of domestic roles have changed as well. Yet our attitudes toward divorce remain surprisingly unchanged. Even as marriage rates overall have fallen and long-term unmarried partnerships are increasingly accepted, ending a marriage is still widely regarded as a failure and is stigmatized accordingly. But divorce does not look as it once did. Changes in laws, customs, technology, psychology and child development research, and the evolving roles of men and women in the last decades have greatly improved uncoupling for many. And great knowledge of what helps both the adults and children involved in divorce have led to positively restructured families on the other side of marriage. Is there such a thing as a good divorce? And have our courts, public policies, or even pop culture caught up? Is a good divorce avai

In 1979, seemingly overnight, Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has largely been a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon.But inside Iran, according to Laura Secor's Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, a much different picture has unfolded. With traditions drawn as deeply from the West as from the East, religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journalists, and activists have wrestled with their country's apparatus of violent repression and reimagined what Iran should be.

Workers lose to automation, investors lose to algorithms, and even tech developers lose their visions to the demands of the startup economy.According to Douglas Rushkoff's new book, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, the digital economy has gone wrong, and no one quiet knows how to fix it. The problems lie not with digital technology itself, but in the ways we are deploying it: instead of building a distributed digital economy that new networks could foster, we're doubling down on the industrial age mandate for growth above all.But it doesn't have to be this way. In the era of big data, robots, and the gig economy, Rushkoff calls for a bridge to the human-technology divide in a way that optimizes the economy for the people it's supposed to serve.

Within 20 years, we’ll see robot suits that allow paraplegics to walk and new drugs able to melt away most cancers. But we’ll also see definitions of money blur the line between corporation and citizen and computer code being used as a weapon to destroy physical infrastructures halfway around the world. Those are some of the predictions leading innovation expert Alec Ross, author of The Industries of the Future, claims will drive the next two decades of change in our economies and societies. With stories and analysis in fields as sweeping as cybersecurity, genomics, and finance, Ross asks: can rising nations match Silicon Valley as the next innovation hotspots? What global trends are affecting the way we live and work? And how can we adapt? Join New America for a conversation with Alec Ross, along withOpen Technology Institute's Kevin Bankston and 1776's Rachel Haot, on both the advances and stumbling blocks that will emerge in the future, and how we can navigate them.

Exactly a century ago the first woman was elected to national office; 32 years ago we got the first female Supreme Court justice; and 23 years ago women got their own bathroom off the Senate floor. With more than 100 women serving in Congress today, they make up more than 20 percent of the Senate body and have finally achieved a "critical mass" of representation in American politics.Representation, though, is hardly winner-take-all. According to Jay Newton-Small's Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works, women are better at consensus building and more able to avoid ego-driven decision making, but they also report feeling more likely to default to apologies, self-consciousness, and a greater aversion to risk. In any case, it's clear that their presence and influence in Washington has reached a tipping point that affects not only the inner workings of government, but also how Americans more broadly live and work.PARTICIPANTSJay Newton-SmallCorrespondent, TIMEFellow, New AmericaAuthor, Broa

Creativity and ingenuity aren't spread evenly. Throughout history, certain locations have become hubs for artistic, business, and technological innovation, for reasons that aren't always readily apparent. Why Silicon Valley right now? Why Florence during the Renaissance?In search of answers, acclaimed travel writer and former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner traveled the world to investigate the relationship between society's innovative ideas and their surroundings. The result is his new book, The Geography of Genius:A Search for the World's Most Creative Places, from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley.Join Future Tense for a conversation between Eric Weinerand Dayo Olopade on why certain places at certain times become the capitals of human progress.

In his most light-hearted and optimistic effort yet, filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore becomes a one-man American army and sets out to "invade" several foreign nations to steal their good ideas. Where to Invade Next comedically pursues the serious mission of challenging the conventions and inequities of U.S. social policy and the mythology of the American Dream. On his global tour, he looks to Italy where workers are given 30 days of vacation and new mothers get five weeks of full paid leave. He stops in France, where well-funded school systems provide multicourse, high-quality lunches; in Slovenia, where college education is free to citizens and foreign students alike; and in Germany, where workers are sent to spas to contend with overstressed work environments. In Norway, he finds that prisons provide humane housing and extensive work and learning opportunities, and in Iceland, a strong economy and thriving middle class has been recovered with the help of strong female leadership.

Since 9/11, more than three hundred Americans – born and raised in Minnesota, Alabama, New Jersey, and elsewhere – have been indicted or convicted of terrorism charges. Among the perpetrators are Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born radical cleric who became the first American citizen killed by a CIA drone, and Omar Hammami, an Alabama native and hip hop fan who became a fixture in al Shabaab's propaganda videos. While some have taken the fight abroad, many others have acted on American soil, sparking new debates not only about extremist violence but about the controversial surveillance tactics used by U.S. government agencies to track potential terrorists, the biases experienced by innocent observant Muslims at the hands of law enforcement, and the role social media has played in revolutionizing terrorist activity. Drawing on an extensive network of intelligence contacts, from the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI to the NYPD, Peter Bergen's United States of Jihad: Investigating America's Homegrow

A Social Cinema Screening with The Marshall Project For 33 years, Mark DeFriest has struggled against what he considers to be unjust imprisonment: he has escaped seven times and accrued hundreds of disciplinary write-ups, turning his original four-year sentence into one of life in prison. Known as the "Houdini of Florida" for his multiple and improbable jailbreaks, DeFriest was condemned to Florida's worst prison after a lone psychiatrist reversed the opinions of four court-appointed psychiatrists and declared he was faking mental illness. Over 30 years later, while DeFriest continues struggling to survive in a rigid and unforgiving system, his remaining supporters have forged an unlikely alliance to argue for his freedom. DeFriest's story is both unique to him – a savant's mind, a notorious escape artist, a misunderstood troublemaker – and increasingly common to American prisoners – long sentences, brutal treatment, few chances for redemption. His surreal odyssey from jails to mental hospitals to some of Ame

In collaboration with ChinaFile When Communist Party leaders adopted a one-child policy in 1980, they hoped curbing birth rates would help lift China's poorest and increase the country's global stature. But at what cost? Now, as China moves to a nationwide two-child policy, it faces a population grown too old and too male, with a vastly diminished supply of young workers. Mei Fong's latest book, One Child: The Story's of China's Most Radical Experiment, explores the human impact of the one-child policy and its future implications: will China's "Little Emperor" cohort make for an entitled or risk-averse generation? How will the country manage to support itself when one in every four people is over sixty-five years old? Perhaps most importantly, exactly how much has the one-child policy hindered China's growth?

Please join us as we welcome the CORE Club and the Royal Norwegian Consulate General for a discussion on corporate board quotas. What do gender roles mean for business? What effect does the increasing visibility of women on boards have on women in the earlier stages of their careers? Do women leaders lead differently?When, in 2002, Norwegian trade minister Ansgar Gabrielsen unveiled a radical new plan to put more women into his country's boardrooms, many Oslo business leaders were appalled, and Gabrielsen's own conservative party publicly disowned him. Gabrielsen's announcement – that the boards of major Norwegian companies would be compelled to include at least forty percent women – generated mocking headlines across Europe.Today, just a decade after Norway began enforcing its corporate gender quotas, the jibes about "golden skirts" and "babes on boards" are long forgotten. Corporate board quotas have been imposed in Belgium, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, and though early data is mixed, it sugg

The question of whether to regulate soda consumption has become a major political issue. Rising rates of obesity and diabetes, as well as the omnipresence of soda marketing and advertisements, have raised the powerful profiles of soda corporations and soda's impact on our national health. From the fight over New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's unsuccessful 2013 attempt to restrict soda sizes to Berkeley, California's first-on-its-kinda 2015 soda tax, soda regulation is currently one of the biggest and hotly debated issues in public health and food policy. Marion Nestle's latest book, Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (And Winning), provides a history of how soda seemed to take over: How did soda become a part of so many Americans' diets? How did products containing such inexpensive ingredients turn into multibillion dollar industries and brand icons? Is there a way to push big business to adopt better social responsibility standards? Join New America's Open Markets Program for a conversation with Marion N

As calls for criminal justice reform in the U.S. are becoming all the more urgent, and the toll of gun violence mounts daily, Abigail Disney's The Armor of Light turns to the unlikely journey of Evangelical minister Reverend Rob Schenk to explore the intersection of religion and the politics of gun control. Faced with a national epidemic of mass shootings and his own personal moral convictions, Schenk, a fixture of the political Right, is forced to confront conservatives and evangelicals with his impassioned belief in the need for gun control legislation. He breaks the political orthodoxy to ask: is it really possible to be both pro-gun and pro-life? Reverend Schenck finds common ground when he meets Lucy McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, an unarmed teenager who was murdered in Florida and whose death has cast a national spotlight on controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. McBath, also a Christian but with opposite political leanings, decides to join forces with Schenk to compel others to consider the impac

The U.S. workforce, which has been one of the wealthiest and most productive in the world, is undergoing an alarming transformation. Increasing numbers of workers find themselves on shaky ground, turned into freelancers, temps and contractors. Even many full-time and professional jobs are experiencing similar shifts. Add to that the steamroller of automation, robots and artificial intelligence already replacing millions of workers and projected to "obsolesce" millions more, is there at all a bright stop in the American economic story? The answer depends: a historic mash-up of Silicon Valley technology, seemingly infinite investment dollars, and viral consumer response is ushering in the "sharing economy" era – companies like Uber, Airbnb, and TaskRabbit are freeing their workers to work more independent, flexible schedules and outside of traditional company structures. But according to Steven Hill's new book, Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers, the sharing ec

New York's economic dynamism has long been a hallmark of the city; for centuries, jobs and opportunity have attracted people to New York from across the nation and around the globe. Yet today, many New Yorkers find themselves unemployed or working in unsafe conditions for unsustainably low wages. At a moment of impassioned debate about the right to a "living wage," join New America NYC and the Museum of the City of New York to hear from a new generation of activists, journalists, and entrepreneurs who use organized labor, equitable business models, and the media to fight for a more livable and prosperous city – for all New Yorkers.

Today we carry around an almost infinite amount of information in our pockets, allowing us to instantaneously search for answers to almost any question. We hardly ever feel in the dark anymore, and we naturally tend to think that is a good thing. But is it always? In his provocative new book, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing, Future Tense Fellow Jamie Holmes argues that our informational instant gratification isn't necessarily making us wiser. He explores the positive role of ambiguity and uncertainty in forcing us to see the world from a fresh perspective, and to think more deeply about the questions before us. Join Future Tense for the launch of Nonsense with a conversation between Jamie Holmes and Maria Konnikova, contributing writer for The New Yorker, on the downside of having the answer to every question at our fingertips. This is a Future Tense event.

We text, tweet, snap, and chat all day but are we ever engaging in meaningful conversation that surpasses 140 characters? Our constant social digital engagement can prevent us from feeling alone, but are we truly connected?In her new book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age, media scholar Sherry Turkle deplores the consequences of our excessive reliance on tech devices to communicate with each other.Future Tense invites you to look up from that screen, put away your device for a little while, and join us for a conversation between Sherry Turkle and Slate staff writer Amanda Hess on how best to connect in the digital age.

The media landscape in America these days looks like it's been hit by an earthquake. Indeed, the shifting tectonic plates of media have left legacy print and broadcast outlets in crisis – cutting columns, staff, and even entire bureaus. International reporting has been acutely impacted amid all this disruption. But the picture isn't entirely one of destruction and despair: emerging and digital-native media companies are successfully cultivating a talented generation of new reporters and investing in extraordinary storytelling. In some places, there's even positive revenue growth.In a society where 39 of the top 50 digital news websites have the most traffic coming from cell phones and tablets, have we reached a new mobile majority in media? Are the tried models of advertising and circulation targets enough to sustain media's print gatekeepers? What will be the new business models that sustain great journalism?Whether it's legacy or digital media, the reality remains: the state of journalism has reached a crit