Abby Ferla

Abby Ferla is a reporter for Remapping Debate. She graduated with a B.A. in American Studies from Bard College where she had been an executive editor of the campus newspaper.

af@remappingdebate.org
What happened to kindness?
Leads | By Abby Ferla | Quality of life
According to Remapping Debate's preliminary inquires, a range of factors have conspired to make us, in general, treat both family and strangers with less generosity of spirit than we once did. A relative lack of kindness would be disconcerting in any time, but it has special resonance at a time of pressing economic hardship and pronounced inequality. The diminution of kindness calls out for further study and reporting. More
Open spaces, closed files
Original Reporting | By Abby Ferla, By Craig Gurian | NYC, Role of government
Wouldn't facility by facility information on operating costs, staffing, and level of use help New York City's Parks Department and outside observers assess whether there is equity in funding between and among parks as well as the related question of whether and to what extent to rely on private as opposed to public funding? Good luck getting the data. More
ERA: historical curiosity or needed weapon against bias today?
Original Reporting | By Abby Ferla | Gender equity
No, the Constitution still doesn't say that equality of rights shall not be denied by the U.S. or by any state on account of sex. Why advocates fought so hard in the 1970s and 1980s for an Equal Rights Amendment, and why some are still fighting to secure its ratification. More
National parks: window on America
Original Reporting | By Abby Ferla | Environment, History, Quality of life
What do 84.4 million acres of national parks have in common with a B-2 bomber? The annual appropriation for the parks is about the same as that bomber’s life-cycle cost. The result is a National Park Service that is understaffed, under-resourced, and often unable to imagine the park system that would help fulfill America’s best vision of itself. More
Caution: going to work may still be dangerous to your health
Readable Research | By Abby Ferla | Regulation
Part 2 of Remapping Debate's series on chronic under-regulation examines the history of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The complaints about OSHA recur through the decades: under-funding, under-staffing, under-enforcement, lax penalties, a tortured process under which it routinely takes several years to promulgate regulations on a vast array of workplace hazards. More
Chronic under-regulation
Readable Research | By Abby Ferla | Health, Regulation
Remapping Debate begins a new series that examines recurring patterns of regulatory failure across industries, and across administrations. Part 1 looks at the FDA and the cosmetics industry: under-regulated for over 30 years. More