“America’s first suburb needs to rethink housing”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, January 23, 2011
Do we really have to make this argument again?
It’s irrefutable by now that if local governments on Long Island keep being so hostile to anything but 1950s-style, up-from-Bill-Levitt, single-family homes, America’s first suburb will end up with a vastly shrunken future – or even no future at all.
Is that too bold a pronouncement? Not according to the Regional Plan Association. The highly respected, nonpartisan group did the grunt work behind this year’s data-rich Long Island Index, which came out on Thursday.
The key point: Stubborn local planning and zoning boards, stuck in an earlier generation somewhere, are way too 
hostile to townhouses, condos, apartments, in-town retail and anything else that doesn’t have grass in the front, back and side.
The result?
Smart young people keep moving away. How can they not? They can’t afford to live in the houses they grew up in.
Oversized homes are being occupied by one or two people while growing families can’t find anywhere to live. That’s a real problem.
At the same time, companies have a terrible time finding suitable workers even as unemployment rates stay painfully high.
A new wave of downtown condo building won’t break that cycle alone. But combined with some other open-mindedness and some well planned near-the-train-station retail strips, Long Island really could have a vibrant 
economy again with great housing that people can afford.
The latest evidence has a dull, bureaucratic-sounded title: “Getting It Done: Aligning Long Island’s Development Processes with Sustainable Economic Growth.”
What that means in English in case there is any doubt:
Long Island’s future hangs in the balance! Enough obstruction already!
NOT SNOW BAD
1. It melts eventually.
2. Finally, they’ve mastered the plowing routine.
3. Most of the homes are heated now.
4. Snow day.
5. Job opportunities for 9-year-olds — don’t forget to withhold your taxes, kids!
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
NIFA – or a rusty knife in the back of Tim Sullivan, deputy Nassau County executive for budget and finance? Ouch, that must hurt!…In this age of high-tech crime, isn’t it oddly comforting that $100-bill counterfeiting still lives? 
Throw-back bad guy bought a vacuum cleaner at the Riverhead Wal-Mart with five bogus C-notes…Those anti-concert Amagansetters who packed East Hampton Town Hall – weren’t they young once?…Oh, come on, does that really look like a Confederate flag in the Elmont Fire Department logo? Are die-hard Confederates really known for displaying their flag so subtly?… Is there something about ex-cops that makes them become late-in-life mobsters?
Federal prosecutors are eager to explore that question with ex-Suffolk officer Robert Dito and ex-Nassau officer Franklin Camarano, both charged in the latest wiseguy round-up…Did Wantagh High officials overreact to the gun photos in one student’s cell phone? Aren’t gun photos considered a routine rite of adolescent passage in many parts of America?…If MTV does a Long Island spin-off of “Jersey Shore,” will Snooki and JWoww demand their names in the title? Neither star is known for her bashfulness.
LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
JACK SULLIVAN
There are volunteers. There are ardent volunteers. And then there is Jack Sullivan. A former IBM exec who lives in Glen Head, he didn’t like the idea of just sitting around. So Jack has spent the past 18 years 
giving his heart and his time at Abilities Inc. in Albertson, helping people with disabilities get integrated into the world of work. That can mean almost anything. He finds job leads, conducts practice interviews, helps with resume writing and does one-on-one counseling with hundreds and hundreds of people with disabilities (and even more abilities) as they head out to what can be a very scary work world. None of them will be surprised to hear that on Feb 6 at Carlyle on the Green, Jack will be inducted into the Long Island Volunteer Hall of Fame. Hundreds of people will be coming out, very thankfully so.
E-mail [email protected]. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
