YCLOAK

A human rights organization says millions of workers in India’s brick kiln industry are trapped in a perpetual cycle of imposed debt and low wages, which forces them to bring their children to work alongside them in the hot, dusty kilns.

An estimated 23 million workers are employed in at least 100,000 brick kilns operating across the northern state of Punjab, according to a study released Wednesday by Anti-Slavery International. Nearly all the workers are provided loans from the kiln owners before the brick making season begins, immediately putting them into debt. The owners withhold their wages during the entire season, which lasts up to 10 months, and keep no records, allowing them to pay their workers far less than what is due.

Up to 80 percent of children under 14 years old working an average of nine hours a day during the hot weather months. Because workers are paid for each piece of brick they make, families are forced to put their children to work to increase their output.

The report also says living conditions at the kilns are dire, with the air filled with dust and other chemicals and no access to running water, and entire families living in cramped rooms of just under eight meters.

Volunteers for Social Justice, which partnered with Anti-Slavery International in the report, is urging India’s government to enact a minimum wage for the brick kiln workers, along with child labor laws to ensure that children get a proper education. “It is time that the government takes that responsibility and ends this exploitation that shouldn’t be taking place in the 21st century,” says Jai Singh, the director of Volunteers for Social Justice.
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The deficit in the broadest measure of U.S. trade rose to the highest level in more than eight years this spring, reflecting in part a drop in fines and penalties paid by foreign companies.

The deficit in the current account increased to $123.1 billion, up 8.5 percent from an imbalance of $113.5 billion in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the biggest deficit since a gap of $150 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The current account is the most complete measure of trade because it includes not only goods and services but investment flows and other payments between the United States and the world.

President Donald Trump has promised to reduce America’s trade deficit, contending it costs U.S. factory jobs.

One of the biggest contributing factors to the larger deficit in the April-June quarter was a decline in receipts from foreigners after they had risen sharply in the first quarter. The government attributed the $5.2 billion decrease in receipts of secondary income from foreigners to a decline in fines and penalties paid by foreign companies. That category had risen sharply in the first quarter.

Exports of goods and services increased $2.2 billion in the second quarter. Exports are getting a lift from a pickup in global growth and a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies. A weaker dollar makes American products more competitive on foreign markets.

Imports of goods and services were also up in the second quarter, rising $11.8 billion, reflecting rising domestic demand from stronger U.S. growth.

The rise in the current account deficit put the imbalance in the second quarter at a level equivalent to 2.6 percent of the total economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, up from 2.4 percent in the first quarter. By comparison, the largest current account deficit in relation to GDP was in the fourth quarter of 2005 when the deficit totaled 6.3 percent of GDP.

Trump says America’s trade deficits have been caused by bad trade deals and abusive practices by China and other U.S. trading partners. He has pledged changes that he says will reduce the deficit and bring back American factory jobs.

 
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Toys ‘R’ Us, an iconic United States toy store, has filed for bankruptcy after struggling to compete with online retailers and racking up about $5 billion worth of debt.

In a statement Monday, the company said it is voluntarily seeking relief through the U.S. bankruptcy process, but that its international holdings would not be affected.

“The company’s approximately 1,600 Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us stores around the world, the vast majority of which are profitable, are continuing to operate as usual,” the statement reads. “Customers can also continue to shop for the toy and baby products they are looking for online.”

The company said it has begun the process of working with creditors to restructure the debt that its stores will remain open as the bankruptcy plays itself out.

The bankruptcy filing, CEO Dave Brandon said in a statement, “will provide us with greater financial flexibility to invest in our business … and strengthen our competitive position in an increasingly challenging and rapidly changing retail marketplace worldwide.”

The company said it is “well-stocked” for the upcoming holiday season, which has historically been a time when retailers can pad their bottom-line at the end of the year.

Toys ‘R’ Us has seen its popularity fall since the 1980s and ‘90s, when it began losing customers to big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Target, and more recently with the advent of online shopping giants like Amazon.
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As many as three dozen domestic and international flights at New Zealand’s Auckland Airport have been canceled Tuesday as it struggles to deal with a weeklong fuel shortage.

New Zealand’s main airport has lost 70 percent of its jet fuel supplies since a digger ruptured the main pipeline that carries fuel to the facility, forcing many air carriers to refuel at other airports in the Pacific region. The accident has also cut off supplies of high-grade gasoline at Auckland gas stations, although fuel supplier Z Energy says stocks of regular gasoline are still plentiful.

The pipeline’s owner says the repairs will not be completed until sometime next week.

Prime Minister Bill English says a naval tanker and military trucks have been assigned to transport fuel to ease the shortage, and has ordered all lawmakers and public employees to avoid any unnecessary air travel until the situation is resolved.

The fuel disruption has placed enormous pressure on English with Saturday’s national elections on the horizon. Jacinda Ardern, the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, accused English of ignoring warnings about the pipeline’s vulnerability.

“One pipeline, one digger, and New Zealand grinds to a halt,” Ardern told reporters Tuesday. The 37-year-old politician has led the Labour Party from a certain electoral defeat to a tight race with English’s ruling National Party.
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A multi-million-dollar banking flap being investigated in Vietnam this month casts light on a tough corruption problem that nips at the Southeast Asian country’s explosive economic growth.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security last week began investigating three companies under state-owned gas and oil giant PetroVietnam on suspicion of trying to divert $5.2 million from OceanBank, a domestic financial institution.

Widespread corruption

The case, analysts say, points to widespread corruption Vietnam. They point to construction, land use contracts and government procurement as particular sore spots. People are also asked for side payments to process official paperwork or get out of traffic violations.

“In terms of corruption in Vietnam, I do think it’s a serious problem here and I think the government recognizes that,” said Frederick Burke, partner with the international law firm Baker McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.

Corruption, known to cause waste in business, could hobble economic growth.

Growth driven by export manufacturing makes Vietnam a darling in Asia among foreign investors. The economy grew between 5.2 percent and 6.68 percent each year from 2012 to 2016.

The nonprofit advocacy group Transparency International placed Vietnam at 113th out of 176 countries and regions that it evaluated in 2016 for perceptions of corruption.

“It doesn’t constrain growth. It’s just an added cost of business,” said Song Seng Wun, Southeast Asia-specialized economist with the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. “When it’s corrupt, that’s just wastage without any addition to capacity or contribution to productive economic activities.”

New York-based business compliance consultancy Gan Integrity calls corruption “pervasive” in Vietnam. It says companies are likely to face bribery, political interference and “facilitation payments” across industries. Land development and construction fall especially to corruption, the consultancy says.

Reasons for the corruption

Inadequate salaries for government workers, some of whom need extra money to provide for their families, causes a lot of the corruption, said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chih Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Complex regulations have also pushed companies to seek permitting shortcuts, another source of corruption.

People with capital sometimes hold back expansion to avoid getting enmeshed in graft, adding to a large underground economy, Nguyen said.

He added Vietnamese also face graft when they ask government offices for documents and if police stop them in traffic, eroding overall public confidence in government services.

“I think it’s very bad,” he said. “I have so many friends and they don’t want to open big businesses in Vietnam because they think that they will have to deal with the government and they have to bribe them, and it violates their ethics and their principles.”

PetroVietnam probe

The PetroVietnam probe, as described in Vietnam’s English-language media, fits into a bigger issue at OceanBank.

Reports say more than 50,000 people and 400 organizations benefited from what prosecutors call illegal interest payments worth $70.4 million.

From 2010 to 2014, bank executives offered loans and set deposit rates, above state-approved limits to key customers, including PetroVietnam, local media have reported.

The Vietnamese news website VnExpress calls this case one of the biggest bank fraud flaps ever brought to court in Vietnam.

Some legal cases start with allegations brought by unhappy company employees, Burke said. Only “squeaky clean” firms can build reputations strong enough to eliminate solicitations for graft, he said.

“We do see from time to time perfectly good businesses get disrupted completely by some allegation of corruption,” he said. “Often our employment disputes turn into compliance cases and they trigger full investigations. People lose their jobs. It’s quite traumatic.”

Multinationals get used to graft as a cost of business in emerging economies, Song said, but countries that try to stop corruption grab more sympathy.

Around Asia, investors face similar barriers in Indonesia, the Philippines and China.

Most countries around the Asia Pacific ranked in the lower half of the 2016 corruption perceptions index.

Anti-corruption efforts

Government attention to the issue has surfaced in Vietnam with the roll-out of the Anti-Corruption Law in 2005, a 2009 law on government procurement and the National Strategy on Anti-Corruption, which is due to run through 2020. Domestic media may be widely reporting the OceanBank case to discourage others from graft, Burke said.

In October 2016, the government gave an unusually candid report to the legislature, saying numerous officials had been “neglecting their duties and failing to uphold moral standards and political virtues,” VnExpress reported.

Gan Integrity says sentences for graft in Vietnam range from fines to capital punishment, but that enforcement is lacking.

Vietnam’s anti-graft work, Song believes, is a “work in progress.”

But Transparency International says it sees little public information about the outcomes of anti-corruption work.

“Vietnam’s “top leaders…are not united in stopping the problem,” Nguyen said. “I don’t think they have political will to end corruption.”
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Two of Italy’s biggest coffee houses are reinforcing their brands with flagship cafes in Milan near the spot where U.S. rival Starbucks is set to begin operations next year.

Lavazza opens its first flagship cafe in the coffee-obsessed city on Tuesday, not far from the renovated 19th century palazzo where Starbucks will open its first Italian store, a ‘Reserve Roasteries’ outlet offering specialty blends and fine food.

Another top Italian brand, illycaffe, opened its own luxury cafe close to the Starbucks site in May, in a cozy courtyard in Milan’s most fashionable street.

Lavazza, which is opening near the city’s famous La Scala opera house, and illycaffe both deny their moves are a response to a global rival’s impending arrival, a first step in what may become a 200-store expansion.

Industry experts suspect it is no coincidence.

“Lavazza and illycaffe are the purists of coffee, they want to show they are there when Starbucks arrives,” says Jean-Paul Gaillard, who ran Nespresso for 10 years before founding the Ethical Coffee Company, a Swiss firm selling coffee pods.

Milan’s battle of the coffee palaces reflects global competition among major brands to capture a growing market for people who are prepared to pay a premium for quality espresso coffees in upmarket boutique cafes.

Nestle last week bought California-based Blue Bottle Coffee, one of the top boutique U.S. chains whose single-origin and cold-brewed coffees have proven popular with hipsters and have made inroads into the Starbucks franchise.

JAB Holdings, the investment vehicle of Germany’s Reimann family, has also been buying up independent start-ups selling premium brews around the world, from Europe to the Americas.

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz hopes his company’s arrival in Milan, which he calls the home of the “perfect espresso”, and the inspiration for his Starbucks vision, will show discerning Italian coffee-lovers that “we got it right.”

“We are happy to hear about Lavazza’s growth,” said a Starbucks spokesman when asked to comment on Lavazza’s opening.

The U.S. chain will open its 2,400-square-meter cafe in late 2018, seeking to attract tourists, young Italians and the business crowd. If the Milan experiment succeeds, Starbucks and its local partner, Antonio Percassi, could open more than 200 stores in Italy over six years, according to Percassi.

Some analysts are skeptical that Starbucks can crack a market where espresso typically sells for just one euro ($1.20), a fraction of the price of a Starbucks coffee.

But the local brands are also gambling Italians will spend much more than one euro for a restaurant-style experience: illycaffe charges around three times that for coffee brought to the table.

Nestle, JAB Holdings and Starbucks are the three largest players in the global coffee market, followed by several mid-tier players including Lavazza and illycaffe.

“As the biggest get bigger, mid-tier companies are in a position where they must either expand or risk being left behind or swallowed up by their massive rivals,” said Matthew Barry, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International.

Lavazza’s chief executive and some of its family owners will cut a ribbon to launch their cafe, where customers can sip a blend of coffee specifically crafted for the store, taste gourmet food and buy single-origin coffees.

“The opening of the new flagship store has nothing to do with Starbucks,” a Lavazza spokeswoman said, adding that it was solely aimed at giving people an exclusive Lavazza experience.

The group is primarily a roaster and supplier to independent cafes and restaurants rather than a retailer and its new store is a way of boosting brand visibility on the high street.

Lavazza went on an acquisition spree three years ago, buying up three coffee suppliers in Europe and Canada, boosting sales to nearly 2 billion euros last year. It has overtaken Starbucks in supermarket sales, Euromonitor International says.

Illycaffe sells its coffee both through independent cafes and 230 mono-brand stores, some of them directly owned, in 43 countries, and says it wants to develop the network further, though not via major acquisitions.

“The new store wants to be a landmark for the global nomad in search for the real Italian lifestyle experience,” illycaffe said, without commenting on the arrival of Starbucks.

Milanese coffee society is divided on whether Starbucks can make its name at the high-end of Italian market, the world’s fourth-largest coffee consumer.

“I am curious about Starbucks, I will give it a try when it arrives in Milan,” office worker Giuseppe Gaggiano, 55, said at a small, upmarket independent cafe close to the Starbucks site.

However, another customer there, Alberto Paparusso, 31, said he wouldn’t abandon his usual cafe: “I don’t like Starbucks coffee. It’s not worth going there.”

($1 = 0.8371 euros)
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Mexico’s economy minister said on Monday a successful retool of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would hinge on two or three complex areas that he called “elephants in the room,” just days before the next round of treaty talks in Canada.

Speaking at an event in Mexico City, Ildefonso Guajardo said four chapters in the agreement could be renegotiated in the third round of talks, due to take place Sept. 23-27 in Ottawa.

The areas cover smaller companies, transparency and food safety.

The “elephants,” such as the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and rules of origin, will determine the success of the trade treaty’s renegotiation, he said. Rules of origin specify the percentage of components in a product that must be from the three NAFTA nations for it to qualify as duty free.

“This challenge of resolving two or three un-traditional topics at the trade negotiation tables is what is going to determine if, at the end of the day, we’re going to have an agreement or not,” Guajardo said in a Forbes Mexico talk.

In addition, Guajardo added that as many as 13 other chapters would also be tough to negotiate.

Asked by journalists if Mexico would accept national content rules that would require a portion of products to be made in the United States, the minister said the topic had yet to reach the negotiating table.

“We would analyze it, but I believe as of today there is no trade agreement that contains this type of clause,” he said.

Guajardo reiterated that Mexico was ready to modernize the agreement, which U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scrap, and to find solutions with the United States and Canada.
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The WTO dispute settlement system is “deficient” and has often ruled in favor of free trade that overlooks details of a trade agreement, U.S. trade envoy Robert Lighthizer said on Monday.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Lighthizer, a trade lawyer, made clear that the administration was poised to push for major changes to the global trade system during upcoming meetings of the Geneva-based trade body. WTO member countries will meet in Buenos Aires on Dec 10.

U.S. President Donald Trump called the World Trade Organization a “disaster” during his presidential campaign and his administration has sought to unilaterally go after countries like China that it thinks is breaking trade rules.

“There are a number of issues on which there is pretty broad agreement that the WTO dispute settlement understanding is deficient,” said Lighthizer, highlighting problems with WTO staffing and transparency.

“The United States sees numerous examples where the dispute settlement process over the years has really diminished what we’ve bargained for or imposed obligations that we do not believe we agree to,” he said.

He added: “There have been a lot of cases in the trade remedies laws where in my opinion the decisions are really indefensible.”

Since its launch in 1995 the WTO has become the main venue for resolving trade disputes between countries. The Trump administration has begun to launch trade investigations under statutes seldom used in the WTO era, including a “Section 301” probe of China’s intellectual property practices.

Lighthizer did not threaten a U.S. withdrawal from the WTO, but emphasized his own dissatisfaction with some of its rulings.

In a letter in March, the Trump administration made clear that U.S. law supersedes WTO rules — a view that could be invoked should Congress adopt policies that are later challenged by other member countries as violating WTO rules.

“We’ve had tax laws struck down, we’ve had other provisions where the WTO has taken…the decision they were going to strike down something they thought shouldn’t happen, rather than

looking at the agreement as a contract,” he said.

Lighthizer emphasized that the Trump administration was reviewing all trade agreements and would seek to renegotiate those that did not benefit U.S. workers and businesses.

“I believe, and I think the president believes, that we must be proactive,” he said, “We must demand reciprocity in home and international markets. So expect change, expect new approaches and expect action.”
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Peru’s prime minister said on Monday that the country’s new Cabinet will focus on reviving public investments as it seeks to mend fences with the opposition party that forced President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to form a new government.

Congress ousted the former Cabinet last week following a dispute over education reforms, fueling fears that political fighting might hurt economic growth that has already slowed sharply this year due to floods and a graft scandal.

Mercedes Araoz, Peru’s new prime minister, said on local broadcaster RPP that she was optimistic about rebuilding a working relationship with the opposition. A key test will be efforts to rapidly rebuild parts of Peru hit by flooding, Araoz said.

Congress will likely vote on whether to give Araoz’ Cabinet a vote of confidence in the first week of October, she added.

Araoz is a ruling party lawmaker and former finance minister in the 2006-2011 term of former President Alan Garcia.

Forecasts for an economic recovery in Peru hinge on the government increasing public investments that fell 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2017.

“Now’s the time. We can’t fall behind in this process” of increasing public investments, Araoz said.

President Kuczynski, a center-right politician and former Wall Street banker, vowed to work to modernize Peru and strengthen the economy of the world’s second-biggest copper producer.

But his first year in office has been marked by slowing economic growth and clashes with Congress, where the right-wing populist party of his former rival Keiko Fujimori has a majority.

Fujimori welcomed the new Cabinet on Twitter after it was sworn in on Sunday and said Kuczynski’s government still has four years to “mend its ways and make progress.”

Similar remarks from opposition lawmakers signaled Congress would likely give the new Cabinet a vote of confidence. But after previous efforts to reset relations failed, it was unclear how long the new truce might last.

Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk analysis company, said Peru has a score of 4.44 out of 10 – a “high risk” ranking – on its government effectiveness index.

Despite Fujimori’s support for the new Cabinet, “the re-tooled team will remain hostage to the Fujimorista-controlled Congress, with Kuczynski’s political credibility continuing to ebb,” said Maplecroft analyst Eileen Gavin.

If Congress fails to approve of the new Cabinet, Kuczynski can summon new legislative elections.
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U.S. central bank leaders are expected to hold the key interest rate steady this week, but they may begin trimming a huge bond-buying program that was intended to boost economic growth.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is scheduled to speak with reporters about those decisions Wednesday afternoon, following a two-day strategy meeting in the U.S. capital. Surveys of economists show they do not expect the Fed to raise interest rates at this time.

During the 2008 financial crisis, Washington slashed the key interest rate nearly to zero in a bid to boost growth and jobs. Over the years, it has worked well enough to help cut the unemployment rate to its current low of 4.4 percent. As the jobless rate improved, interest rates have been raised, but remain below historic averages. 

An additional effort to boost growth involved purchasing trillions of dollars’ worth of bonds. The Fed is expected to gradually reduce this program over the next few years. 

Some experts worry that cutting back stimulus efforts too sharply or too soon could cause the economy to stumble back into recession. But continuing ultra-low interest rates or bond-purchase programs for too long could spark a sudden and sharp increase in prices. That inflation could also damage the economy.
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The man tasked with overseeing Texas’ Hurricane Harvey rebuilding efforts sees his job as “future-proofing” before the next disaster, but he isn’t empowered on his own to reshape flood-prone Houston or the state’s vulnerable coastline, which has been walloped by three major hurricanes since 2006.

Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp will face the same political and bureaucratic challenges that have long stalled meaningful improvements in storm protections, and some doubt that even Harvey’s record flooding and huge price tag will bring about real change.

“It doesn’t give me very much confidence at all,” Houston resident Steve Sacks said of the prospects that the government will get the recovery right. Sacks’s home has flooded four times since 2012, and even before Harvey’s floodwaters near the rooftops in his Meyerland neighborhood, he was frustrated by delays and what he believes is the mismanagement of a government project to elevate homes in the city.

“It’s all spur of the moment and not thought out. It’s just, ‘Let’s go ahead and react now to make it look good,”’ said the 46-year-old Sacks.

Sharp, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, follows a line of fix-it men charged with picking up the pieces following major storms in recent years, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. He has won early bipartisan praise as a practical choice to preside over the efforts to recover from Harvey, which killed more than 70 people and damaged or destroyed more than 200,000 homes.

Sharp is the rare Democrat with sustained relevance in Republican-controlled Texas. He is former lawmaker and state comptroller who was U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s college roommate at Texas A&M, which Sharp has led since 2011 and will continue to lead while overseeing the rebuilding effort. Abbott joked that he’s now getting calls, texts and emails from Sharp “up to and sometimes well after midnight.”

Sharp hasn’t laid out a long-term rebuilding plan yet and most of his public comments so far have been aimed at reassuring hard-hit communities that he won’t be a bureaucratic cog. But he has indicated that he’s thinking about the next disaster, saying “one of the guiding principles will be to future-proof what is being rebuilt so as to mitigate future risks as much as possible.”

Abbott spokesman John Wittman said Sharp will be involved in developing a rebuilding plan to “minimize the impact” of future natural disasters and will advocate for funding.

But Sharp is constrained in how far he can go in reimagining a more resilient Texas coast. His mandate only pertains to public infrastructure, and not housing, which experts say is crucial to any comprehensive mitigation plan, including buying out particularly flood-prone neighborhoods.

Sharp’s mandate also doesn’t mention zoning changes — Houston is the largest U.S. city with no zoning laws — or how much money the state will put up to deliver on his eventual recommendations. Abbott, who has estimated that the recovery could cost more than $150 billion, has suggested the state will dip into its $10 billion rainy day fund, but not by how much.

“When you’re dealing with a limited amount of funds, there are always trade-offs that have to be made,” said Marc Williams, deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation. His agency will work closely with Sharp’s commission, which could recommend elevating certain roads that flooded during Harvey.

All rebuilding czars are eventually tested by political and financial realities. Donald Powell, who left his role as chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to be the federal coordinator of Gulf Coast recovery efforts after Katrina, expressed frustration over not being able to speed up the rebuilding.

Marc Ferzan, who was appointed by Gov. Chris Christie to oversee New Jersey’s recovery after Sandy, said his biggest struggle was jumping from agency to agency to get funding.

“Whether it’s Katrina or Sandy or any major event you’re going to hear the same story. It’s just the way disaster aid is administered. It’s a slow, cumbersome process that is too bureaucratic to respond to the urgency of the situation,” he said.

After Hurricane Andrew caused $26 billion in damage to the Miami area in 1992, Florida installed the most stringent building codes in the country. Since 2001, structures throughout the state must be built to withstand winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph), and new codes also require shatterproof windows, fortified roofs and reinforced concrete pillars, among other things.

Sam Brody, an environmental planning expert and director of the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores at Texas A&M University, said drainage is among the “low-hanging fruit” that could be addressed immediately to begin future-proofing the coast for the next major storm. But he said the funds and the political determination must be solved.

“In terms of will, there hasn’t been the will in the past. Maybe this is a wake-up call, and maybe with his leadership and personality, he can change the way we can think and act,” Brody said of Sharp.

This week, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner endorsed long-stalled plans for a sweeping reservoir project that might have spared parts of the city from Harvey’s flooding. He also has joined some top Texas Republicans in urging Congress to approve billions to build a coastal seawall that could protect Houston and other areas from deadly storm surges that Harvey didn’t unleash but that future storms could.

Turner said Houston “cannot talk about rebuilding” if “we do not build the coastal spine.”

How active the federal government will be in making the Texas coast more resilient is unclear. Following Sandy, the Obama administration commissioned a design competition that ultimately resulted in nearly $1 billion in federal funding to kickstart projects that include turning the low-lying Meadowlands into a flood-protected public park and installing bulkheads and seawalls along the Hudson River.

The project, known as Rebuild by Design, was just a one-time initiative. And even when things go right, such enormous undertakings are slow to materialize: the first projects aren’t scheduled to break ground until 2019, seven years after Sandy.

“You are receptive when you feel like something ripped the heart out of your city,” said Amy Chester, managing director of Rebuild by Design. “Everyone is going to need to say, ‘We’ve had enough.”’
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