Public money should work for the public good, not private gain. The City of New York routinely places billions of taxpayer dollars into Wall Street banks that do not invest in low-income communities and neighborhoods of color, perpetuating racial and economic inequality. Instead, this money is funneled into harmful corporate interests such as speculative real estate, fossil fuels, and the global arms trade that instigates global destruction. The counter- strategy that this project proposes is the creation of a public bank, an institution where the allocation of public assets will be made completely transparent. Through the establishment of a bank publicly owned and managed by the citizens of New York, restitution can begin for the groups that have been marginalized from the power structures of the private financial sector. This public bank will serve as an institutional pillar to divest resources away from the predatory banks of the financial district and instead into community-led economic development such as affordable housing and renewable energy.
