Announcing Abundance New York!
Building a new political home for New Yorkers who believe our city and state's superpowers are growth and change.
Hi All,
Today, Catherine, Thomas, and I are launching the political project we’ve been building together (with each other, and with you all): Abundance New York. I’m thrilled to tell you more about it.
But first, mark your calendars for our launch party: Tuesday, June 18, at 6pm. RSVP, and bring your politically aligned or curious friends! (Forward them this email to share what we’re about.)
Over the last six months, we’ve written you about New York politics, focused on issues often left out of the conversation: housing and homelessness, public transit and the public realm, renewable energy and resiliency.
Why these issues? The common factor behind New York’s increasing cost of living and declining quality of life is a failure to adapt our built environment to changing times.
Too few homes means skyrocketing rents, homelessness, and sprawl. Car-first streets mean poor public transit, carbon emissions, and traffic violence. Failure to adapt energy production and infrastructure means more frequent, more damaging weather emergencies.
The problem isn’t just that these stories don’t get enough attention—it’s that, up until now, the major institutions through which New Yorkers come together to build and deploy political power have been at best apathetic and at worst antagonistic to the policy solutions we need.
Instead of growing resources for everyone, we fight over the scraps.
Don’t get us wrong: New York is full of advocacy groups, elected officials, and everyday residents fighting to build dense, walkable, integrated, sustainable communities. However, we are currently diffuse and disempowered—siloed in specific issue advocacy organizations or specific candidates’ campaigns.
We’re building Abundance New York to change that, providing a political home for everyone who believes that the city and state's superpowers are growth and change.
To amass and deploy political power, we must come together. Together, we can shift political decision-making and discourse towards building a New York with more: more than enough homes, more than enough public transit, more than enough green space, more than enough clean energy. More than enough for everyone.
What is Abundance New York going to do? Well, what we’re already doing—but more.
Through these emails, we’ll keep sharing key information about what’s happening from your street corner to the state capitol—so you can understand the politics and policies that matter, get involved to support better outcomes, and share information with friends and neighbors.
Beyond emails, we’re assembling folks in every electoral district to meet their legislators and demonstrate local desire for the Abundance Agenda; members of our community are hosting fundraisers for aligned candidates to uplift the next generation of leaders; and we’re helping folks learn how to take power themselves.
What do we need from you? Please fill out this very brief interest form to tell us more about how you want to get involved (even if you don’t want to do anything more than just keep getting emails)!
Otherwise, keep an eye out re: upcoming events and other calls to action offered by us, our community members, and our coalition partners.
We’re excited to unleash the best of New York, together.
– Ryder Kessler, Catherine Vaughan, and Thomas Smyth
P.S. If you want to financially support our work, become a paid subscriber! To discuss other ways to contribute, reply to this and let’s talk :)