Newburgh – Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress has released a new set of “Community Profiles” of the region’s urban areas, offering informative and easy-to-read snapshots of 25 cities and villages throughout the Hudson Valley.
Covering a range of communities, from larger cities like Yonkers, Kingston, and Poughkeepsie, to smaller villages like Nyack, Monticello, and Highland Falls, the 12-page profiles give elected officials, municipal staff, business leaders, civic groups, and residents, “a powerful new tool to understand and react to the changes taking place in the region’s urban areas,” says Jonathan Drapkin, Pattern’s President and CEO.
Bringing together data from a variety of sources in order to tell a compelling story about conditions and trends within each community, the profiles use charts, graphs, maps, and analysis to display information about population and demographic changes, housing costs, income and poverty, jobs and commuting patterns, municipal finances, public education, crime rates, health, quality of life, and more.
Municipal leaders from across the Hudson Valley have praised the profiles.
“The community profile offers a valuable snapshot of conditions and trends in New Rochelle, but it is also much more than useful reference material,” said Mayor Noam Bramson. “By providing a more complete understanding of our city in a user-friendly format, the profile helps us make better decisions that serve the interests of all of our people,” he added.
According to Middletown Mayor Joe DeStefano, “The profiles provide us with a great snapshot of information that we use in grant applications, attraction of developers and overall promotion for the city. Pattern is a significant resource and value-add for our staff and revitalization efforts.”
“As the Mayor of the City of Beacon, I find the Community Profiles to be a great tool to get a snapshot of trends in our community and other communities similar to ours. We use this tool as we try to help stem gentrification and continue the revitalization of our community and make its growth sustainable,” said Mayor Randy Casale.
City of Hudson Mayor Rick Rector said that the community profile for Hudson, “provides well-researched and accessible data that our officials and leaders will use to evaluate our past, present, and most importantly–plan for the City of Hudson’s future.”
The 25 communities profiled are all part of the Urban Action Agenda (UAA), Pattern’s ongoing initiative to promote growth and revitalization in urban centers throughout the nine-county Hudson Valley Region. With their existing infrastructure, access to transit, and traditions of denser development, these urban communities are well positioned to accommodate the region’s growth in the 21st Century.
Pattern began working on the UAA in 2014 thanks to a multi-year grant from the Ford Foundation. To keep the project’s scale manageable, the UAA focuses on a group of 25 higher-need urban areas in the region. An initial set of profiles was issued in early 2016 in partnership with the Regional Plan Association. Funding for these new and expanded profiles comes from Empire State Development and the NYS Department of State through the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council.
“At Pattern, we have always been committed to giving policymakers the facts they need to improve the quality of life in the Hudson Valley,” said Drapkin. “These profiles continue that tradition, and we are proud to present them as a public service to the urban areas of our region.”
All 25 profiles are available for download on Pattern’s website here:
