{"id":32713,"date":"2013-08-05T00:34:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T00:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=32713"},"modified":"2015-05-06T16:57:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T16:57:25","slug":"colleges-help-ithaca-thrive-in-a-region-of-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=32713","title":{"rendered":"Colleges Help Ithaca Thrive In a Region Of Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colleges Help Ithaca Thrive In a Region Of Struggles<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times
\n<\/a>2013-08-04<\/p>\n

Jesse McKinley<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

ITHACA, N.Y.<\/a> \u2014 In many ways, this city is not so special. It has a nice lake, some attractive houses with lawns, and a couple of colleges. But many places in upstate New York have lakes and lawns and places of high learning.<\/p>\n

What most sets this city of 30,000 apart from many of its neighbors these days is what is absent: fear for its future.<\/p>\n

Led by a young mayor with an inspiring back story and an idealist\u2019s approach \u2014 he talks about sidewalks in philosophical terms \u2014 Ithaca is the upstate exception: a successful liberal enclave in a largely conservative region troubled by unemployment woes, declining or stagnant population, and post-Detroit talk of bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a little San Francisco<\/a>,\u201d Nicole Roulstin, 32, an Ithaca resident, said recently, \u201cor the Berkeley<\/a> of the East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of that optimism comes from a reciprocal relationship with two institutions \u2014 Cornell University and, to a lesser degree, Ithaca College \u2014 which have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy and created thousands of jobs for everyone from professors to landscapers, and also fostered new companies. Ithaca and its home county, Tompkins<\/a>, regularly post the lowest unemployment rate in the state. In June, Ithaca\u2019s was 5.7 percent, tied with another college city, Saratoga Springs<\/a>, where a racetrack drives an annual summer boom.<\/p>\n

Ithaca\u2019s model of education as an economic engine is one that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo<\/a> has made a priority this year as a strategy for all of upstate, where there are dozens of universities. In June, he signed into law a bill that would allow State University of New York branches and some private schools to offer tax-free zones for new businesses that open on or adjacent to campuses.<\/p>\n

Ithaca\u2019s mayor, Svante L. Myrick<\/a>, who was invited to speak alongside the governor when he promoted the plan in May, playfully challenged other leaders of Ivy League cities in the Northeast to come to his. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll show you how we built in Ithaca the lowest unemployment rate in the state,\u201d he said, adding that the city had been successful \u201cbecause our universities have partnered with our private industries,\u201d and did not just rely on businesses selling \u201csandwiches and beds\u201d to visitors and students…<\/p>\n

…Soft-spoken and slyly funny, Mr. Myrick is a striking success story. Living in the tiny town of Earlville, N.Y.<\/a>, he overcame a childhood that included stints living in shelters and sometimes sleeping in a family car. His father struggled with drug abuse, and his mother raised him and his three siblings on minimum-wage jobs, with help from his grandparents.<\/p>\n

Mr. Myrick, whose mother is white and whose father is African-American, said he vividly remembers reading about Barack Obama<\/a> as a teenager. \u201cI thought, \u2018Holy moly,\u2019\u201d Mr. Myrick said. \u201cHere\u2019s this guy, he\u2019s mixed race, he\u2019s got a funny name, he\u2019s just like me. And it made me think I could go to a good school. I could do something.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colleges Help Ithaca Thrive In a Region Of Struggles The New York Times 2013-08-04 Jesse McKinley ITHACA, N.Y. \u2014 In many ways, this city is not so special. It has a nice lake, some attractive houses with lawns, and a couple of colleges. But many places in upstate New York have lakes and lawns and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,14647,8,26,20],"tags":[4984,15344,4004,15347,2711,2640,15345,15346,2327],"class_list":["post-32713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-economics","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-cornell-university","tag-ithaca","tag-ithaca-college","tag-jesse-mckinley","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-times","tag-svante-l-myrick","tag-svante-myrick","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}