So what’s next for Long Island?

That’s one of the core questions we will try to answer on nextLI, and over the coming months we will explore it through commissioned research, polls, forums and more.

But we believe just as important as finding solid data on the future of the region is hearing the voices of the people who will live on the Long Island of the future.

Throughout the summer we have asked Long Islanders what they envision and their insights on how we can get there. Check next.newsday.com in the upcoming days to see what they had to say. The first essay up is from someone who left but hopes to return to his LI roots one day.

And we definitely want to hear from you too – email nextli@newsday.com with your thoughts on the future of Long Island’s economy, housing, transportation and more.

Happy August!

Amanda Fiscina, nextLI project manager and Coralie Saint-Louis, outreach and engagement manager

We’ve been out introducing nextLI to the region and also learning from the different groups we’re meeting with about their work and how nextLI can help with their missions. Here are some topics we’ve explored in the past few weeks:

• Education: Outreach and engagement manager Coralie attended this year’s Reimagining Education conference at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she met with the Long Island delegation sponsored by the Rauch Foundation and participated in a workshop led by student leaders organized by Erase Racism.. This year’s conference aimed to address the growing segregation in our education system and to find ways to integrate our schools by creating an open dialogue between students and educators.
• Development: We met with Seritage Growth Properties, the development group submitting a proposal to the Town of Oyster Bay for the former Sears property in Hicksville. Their reimagined site includes housing with shuttle service to the nearby train station, as well as amenities such as a Main Street, movie theater and grocer. Is this the right direction for this empty property and could it be a model for others like this? That’s a question we’re mulling as we begin to explore the future of housing on Long Island.
• Social Services: In the fall we will be presenting at a forum at Nassau’s Department of Social Services, so we are preparing a presentation that will highlight data on population changes, housing issues, trends in racial and ethnic composition and what it costs to make ends meet on Long Island. We hope to discuss with stakeholders the ways in which this research can be used as benchmarks for their programs at community-based organizations.

We’re always on the lookout for articles, websites and projects to inspire our work. Here are a few links that caught our attention since our last update:

• The New York Times just published an extremely detailed map of how each district voted in the 2016 election and it reveals that on the neighborhood level many of us “really do live in an electoral bubble.” Zoom into Long Island to see what your neighbors did in the voting booth.
• This summer Pew Research Center launched a blog to take you behind their research projects and it’s a fascinating peek behind some of the dense data sets they publish. It’s a priority for us to model that transparency on nextLI as we head into the fall and our research projects.
• The Globe and Mail posts a series highlighting the best comments that they receive. The comments featured are thoughtful and show comments add a lot of value, like your future ones on nextLI will.