This morning, the NYC Council Committee on Transportation held a
hearing in relation to the suspension of alternate side of the street
parking rules on the Hindu festival of Diwali.
This is a big deal. Alternate side of the street parking is rarely suspended, and affects anyone looking for a place to park in NY. Only 32 legal and religious holidays are recognized by the City. Scroll down here for a list. From the petition organizers:
The first step in the process is the proposed legislation to get approved at the hearing on September 20th. Then, the Mayor will have to sign it into law. It is critical that the Council Members and, in turn, the Mayor appreciate the interest in and support of this legislation. The more support shown for the legislation at this stage of the process, the more likely it is that the Mayor will not veto it.
According to the NYC Department of Planning,there are over 600,000 foreign-born persons of South Asian descent in the NYC metro area; this does not even include those of South Asian descent born in America…If NYC takes this step, other cities and municipalities throughout the country will have the precedent to do the same.[link]
Since ASotS parking is suspended on Sunday, most ethnic/national parades such as the Puerto Rican Day parade are held then. (Here is a complete list of NYC ethnic festivals – read and weep :P)
Suspending parking rules for Diwali would be a huge symbolic (and practical re: parades) recognition of South Asian contributions to the city. Please read more on what you can do to show your support. Stay tuned for updates.
Update: The Committee on Transportation unanimously approved it! From the organizer’s email:
The legislation will be voted on by the full NYC Council at the Stated Meeting on Wednesday, September 28. [If they] approve the legislation it will then go to Mayor Bloomberg to be signed into law. Then the Mayor will have 30 days to sign or veto the legislation…press conference at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 28, on the steps of City Hall.
hm. the list is interesting. seems like you gotz a good argument.
but the # of south asians seems a bit high. the census says there are 200,000 indian americans. wuzup?
South Asian descent, RAzib. Not just Indian..and that doesn’t count American born 😉
the numbers above include those born here in the USA (gives foreign born % as 77). and i doubt that pakistani + bangladesh + west indian east indians, etc. ~ 400,000.
i will do a double-check….
does ‘metro’ area include new jersey?
er, sometimes? I’m not sure. There are roughly 3 million West Indians in NYC, (of which 2/3 show up to the West Indian day parade that runs by my apartment) so 600,000 South Asians doesn’t seem insanely high to me. But I could be wrong
from the census site, i got, for new york city only….
170,000 asian indians, 80,000 other asians.
assume ‘other asians’ are all non-indian browns, that’s 250,000.
new jersey also have 170,000 asian indians, 30,000 ‘other asians.’
that’s a total of 450,000. falls short.
so let’s just aggregate all browns and possible browns in the tristate area….
new york = 250,000 + 100,000 (‘other asian’) conn. = 24,000 + 13,000 new jersey = 170,000 + 30,000
that’s a total of 587,000 (remember, i’m allocating all ‘other asians’ into the brown category).
cic, census says there are three million black americans in all of new york, so three million west indians seem a bit high in new york city (unless there are lots of white jamaicans like snow).
sorry to be a data nerd, but bit round numbers in circulation often become established fact in the zeitgeist very quickly….
ok, the NYC dept. of planning has a number for 750,000 asian americans (inclusive of all groups) sourced from the census. i’ll spend another five minutes to see where this 600,000 # came from (seeing as how NYC has 8 million residents, we’re talking nearly 1 out of 10 new yorkers being foreign born browns by those #’s).
Using the whole South Asian stats here is all wrong. I doubt the non-Hindus will show any active support for this.
Razib – dude you seem to know it all.. do you think ya could find me some stats on how many South Asian cabbies there are in NYC?
ok, i think the # was an exaggeration (to put a nice spin on it).
1) from the data i cite below, the ‘nyc metro area’ does seem to include more than the 5 boroughs (you’ll see the counties if you click the link).
2) the number of foreign born from india for this metro area (remember, includes parts of NJ and lower hundson valley) is 223,000 (source).
Using the whole South Asian stats here is all wrong. I doubt the non-Hindus will show any active support for this.
i would not be surprised if jews and catholics (who are extremely well represented on the list of holidays) show a great deal of support for the sake of minimal fairness. i don’t think this needs to just be a brown thang.
dude you seem to know it all
me + google = know all? 🙂
The census numbers I’ve seen are 200K desis in the NYC area.
is this a SM post or statistics class?
It’s sort of become the latter, Sonia 😉
I think the numbers depend on whome you want to include as South Asian, and what area you define as NYC metro (now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that includes NJ, and some part of Connecticut, and PA as well. Commuting distance, basically.)
Anyway here’s just one example of what I mean:
demographic data from the good folks at saalt:
http://www.saalt.org/pdfs/Who_are_South_Asians.pdf
note also that the census data may represent an undercount — although i had understood the undercount to be a bit less than in previous censuses (censa? censi?). anyone have information about the extent of the undercount?
on a related note, did you all see the following somewhat troubling story:
Any reason not to believe that the public makes similar mistakes about other communities, such as our own?
anyone have information about the extent of the undercount?
the worst estimates for the national overall undercount i’ve seen are a few percent.
Any reason not to believe that the public makes similar mistakes about other communities, such as our own?
i looked at the percentages in the story. yeah, they suck, they are off…but do you really expect people to know offhand such statistics? i’m surprised they were as close as they were. the public also tends to overestimate the # of minorities (and jews) in the population….
Cheers to Razib for the Google searching. I think that he’s on point with his comments.
I’ve done some work with Census data in the past, and though it’s not perfect, it’s a baseline from which to work. And as some folks have mentioned, Census data revealed that the (self-identified) desi community in NYC, in April 2000, was roughly between 250,000 – 300,000. (it’s hard to get a “real” or “hard” number for a whole bunch of reasons, which I’ll post up elsewhere if someone’s really interested).
Keep in mind that this is primarily: Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, with a small community of Sri Lankans. Also – this is anyone who responded with one or more of these groups on the Census form. Also – it includes citizens (native born + naturalized), non-citizens – whoever filled out, or was assisted in filling out, a form.
I’ve heard a lot of numbers thrown around, and I’ve also heard a lot of people say “there’s no way that the community could be that number – it has to be [insert huge number here].”
I’m the first to say that the Census is not perfect, and I know that there were folks missed by the survey and enumeration process. But simple common sense dictates that the numbers can’t be ridiculously different. Their techniques may miss people, but not at the rates I’ve heard (“the Census says there were 250,000 desis, but it’s actually 500,000”). The undercount is a statistical reality, but as mentioned, it won’t be extremely high.
Anyway, I’d be really curious to see where these numbers come from. Apparently, they are “from City Planning” but I can’t find the source, and would love to know. Bonus points if someone can get a source document or info from City Planning.
I’m just curious about a few things:
1) If this data is accurate, why list only the foreign-born South Asians? Wouldn’t it make sense to list native-born also, to bolster the case? Especially if they’re using “South Asian” when they really mean “Indian.” Seems weird to me. I’m skeptical about the numbers.
2) NYC Metro Area is vague. Is this a Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA), which is huge… or is this just NYC + a couple of ‘burbs? Very unclear – and an interesting choice, given that this is a local jurisdiction who cares primarily about NYC residents. And why is City Planning spending my NYC tax dollars running projections on non-NYC areas? Something doesn’t make sense.
3) While I’m not against this philosophically – I think it’s perfectly fine to add this holiday to the others that let me sleep in and not have to worry about moving my car in the morning – I wonder why this is so important to the people pushing it. And I wonder why they can’t pick more important legislation for their energy (some of the supporters are not the usual uncle types – who would have enough wherewithal to push something like this through).
So why not focus on something more powerful, like a living wage for domestic workers, drivers, or other NYers?
Or a bill that extends the language access provisions of previous legislation (which entitles NYC residents to services at city agencies in something like 5 – 8 languages) to 1, 2, even more South Asian languages? Wouldn’t that be a great way to use the energy that is going into something like this, which will pass eventually with no real problem?
Or is this a photo-op and platform to project personalities instead of real issues? Who are these people, anyway?
4) I’m very skeptical – and I’m sure others in SM commentland are as well – of people who conflate “South Asian” with “Indian/Hindu.” I’d be curious to know more about the specific drivers of this thing.
5) Also, why now? What’s the impetus for the push? And why so close to Deepavali? If they feel so strongly, why didn’t they do this earlier?
Some of it just doesn’t sit well with me. Call me crazy.
One note of clarification:
“Other Asian” would only contain “Nepalese”, “Bhutanese” and “Maldivian” for desi groups. Their numbers, nationally, are very very small. Otherwise, it includes things like “yellow”, “asian”, and small groups that aren’t included in the detailed/disaggregated totals (16 Asian groups).
thats crazy, i once wrote a letter to the DOT asking for diwali to be considered a street cleaning holiday a couple years ago…I thought I was the only one. guess not!
And its about time too, they have some obscure-ass jewish and muslim holidays.
Regardless of whether its 200,000 or 400,000 or whatever, the street cleaning holiday per capita is MUCH higher for jews in new york that Hindus is new york.
Plus, Hindus are disproportionately affected by DOT parking rules in NYC. Why? The cabbie effect.
Bloomberg is now expected to veto the legislation: