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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has vowed to tackle New York City’s affordable housing crisis by building on thousands of vacant city-owned lots. But a NYCity News Service analysis shows a geographic mismatch that could complicate his housing pledge.

New York City owns more than 2,400 vacant parcels, city data shows. Many of the highest-vacancy districts are in the city’s least populated areas, including the Far Rockaways, southern Staten Island, and large stretches of eastern Queens. These neighborhoods have ample open land but limited transit access and low-density zoning — major obstacles for large-scale affordable housing construction.

The most realistic opportunity for Mamdani’s pledge to build 200,000 new, permanently affordable units lies in neighborhoods with both high vacancy rates on city-owned property and high rent burden among residents.

Despite record funding for new litter baskets across New York City, data shows trash can access is still inequitable across the five boroughs.

Mayor Eric Adams announced in May his intent to invest $31 Million by 2028 for new litter baskets across the city. He said at the time that the funding would “protect the cleanliness and quality of life of city neighborhoods for generations to come.” The New York City Department of Sanitation also said it’s in the process of replacing all wire mesh baskets with Better Bins, which are rat-resistant, leak-proof and harder to misuse with household trash.

Currently, however, high income neighborhoods have much greater access to litter baskets than lower income neighborhoods, an analysis of Department of Sanitation data by The NYCity News Service shows. Communities with a median household income of higher than $100,000 per year have more than double the number of litter baskets per capita compared to neighborhoods where the income is less than $97,000.

Central Harlem’s 125th Street corridor is bustling with businesses — and with garbage. While New York City officials say they’re prioritizing trash clean up, residents say the effort hasn’t reached their streets.

Central Harlem’s busiest roads — Frederick Douglass Blvd, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and St. Nicholas Avenue — hasgaps in litter basket access, according to city data. In Central Harlem, there are 576 public trash baskets. Residents of the Upper East Side have access to 1,173, while...

Hunterbrook Media review of open-source intelligence (OSINT) reveals arteries connecting high-quality quartz mines to the world — freight rail and roads — are damaged. Experts say risks could be significant but companies have stockpiles.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the horrific damage to the community appears to have extended to the roads and freight rail line connecting the mining operations to the outside world — according to images reviewed and geolocated by Hunterbrook Media.

Hunterbrook Media’s investment affiliate, Hunterbrook Capital, did not take any positions related to this article. It was like taking a victory lap at the starting line. Ground broke. Cameras flashed. Politicians celebrated a purported economic victory: an upstart Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer, VinFast (NASDAQ: $VFS), was building a factory in North Carolina. VinFast pledged to bring $4 billion in investment and 7,500 new jobs to Chatham County over the plant’s first five years. In re

On a cloudless day at the end of July, the Vietnamese electric-vehicle manufacturer VinFast broke ground on its first overseas manufacturing plant in Chatham County, North Carolina. Nine executives and political leaders thrust gold-painted shovels into the ground at once, including state governor Roy Cooper and VinFast CEO Le Thi Thu Thuy. “Today’s event marks a new milestone for VinFast,” said Thuy, “affirming our commitment to the North American market.”

The scale of the project is stunning f