Tag Archives: economic development

NYC’s Economy: Charter Revision Can Help

“Wall Street Must Recover Before City Can Overcome Recession, Economists Say.”

That’s the headline over Patrick McGeehan’s NY Times article Wednesday about an interview with economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He repeated this message in a follow-up story on unemployment rates on Thursday.

What are the prospects for a Wall Street recovery? Not good, according to McGeehan’s sources at the Fed.

Quoting one of them, Fed regional economist Rae D. Rosen, McGeehan reports that “Wall Street still appears to be shrinking. The latest figures from the State Labor Department showed that the number of jobs in the city’s securities industry declined by about 2,000, or 1 percent, in February, while most other sectors were adding jobs.” Continue reading

Charter Revision: What the Mayor Really Wants

Michael Bloomberg

How does Mayor Michael Bloomberg view the goals of his 2010 charter revision commission? Celeste Katz, the new editor of the DN’s Daily Politics blog, answers this in her April 13th piece on the mayor’s changing stance on the future of the Public Advocate and the borough presidents. Katz quotes Bloomberg about the BPs:

“I for one have come to believe that the Borough Presidents really do provide value added. I don’t agree with everything everyone does but on balance the Borough Presidents provide, at a local level, working with community boards and working with the City Council people, a valuable service and whether you could do it more effectively or not, whether they should be allowed to do A, B or C, those are the details.” Continue reading

Why Charter Revision Matters: Our Core Principles

Some of our readers may wonder why we repeatedly worry about giving the mayor any additional powers. It’s because we believe that our current system of government tends to select city-wide leaders who support the interests of Manhattan’s finance and real estate industries — to the detriment of other boroughs and other industries. As important as finance and real estate are for the city’s financial solvency (right now, they’re still crucial), they don’t tend to create middle-income jobs, which can leave us in a vulnerable place in an economic downturn, as in 2008-2009. Simply put, we’ve placed too many of our eggs in one or two baskets. Continue reading

Building NYC’s Tech Industry

A week ago we asked our readers to comment about why NYC’s middle class has vanished 44% faster than in the rest of the United States since 1970. We cited reasons suggested by a NYC think tank, the Center for an Urban Future. One of them: a NYC job mix that had “shifted away from positions that provide middle-income wages and benefits.”

In a companion 2009 report, “Building New York City’s Innovation Economy,” CUF suggested specific ways for NYC to encourage job growth in the tech sector, including linkages between research universities and tech entrepreneurs. Continue reading

Does Big Business Understand that NYC Has Five Boroughs?

Ester R. Fuchs

Many New Yorkers, including the folks at the Center for an Urban Future, believe that the city’s economy must diversify geographically and industrially for its middle class —and the city — to survive. Whether this happens will depend on whether local political power reflects a five-borough perspective. The current relationship between the mayor and the City Council does not suggest that this will occur soon; nor does a recent move by Professor Ester R. Fuchs to the Partnership for New York City. Continue reading

Marty’s State of the Borough: Keep the Beeps!

One of our favorite bloggers, Faye Penn, was among the Brooklynites honored tonight by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz at his swearing-in by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his State of the Borough address — as always, a spectacular tribute to Brooklyn’s diversity and achievement. Faye’s accomplishment? Her snappy new blog for savvy consumers, Brokelyn.com. (Full disclosure: Faye’s News Editor, Jonathan Berk, also serves as Associate Editor of CityPragmatist.com.)

Although Marty never quite said “it’s the economy, stupid,” his message was clear: Faye and the other stars on the stage at the Park Slope Armory are the reason that Brooklyn continues to grow and prosper. As to his own role, which is rumored to be threatened by an anticipated Bloomberg charter revision commission, Marty promised his audience that he will “demand charter changes to beef up the borough presidents, the Public Advocate, and the community boards.”

In Marty’s audience were the borough presidents of The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, which, to this observer, implies that at least four of the city’s five beeps — and the Public Advocate — may be aligned in an effort to preserve and strengthen the voices of boroughs and neighborhoods in New York City.

Evidently the Mayor Needs Editorial Support

A NYC blog about small businesses, The Neighborhood Retail Alliance, calls the Daily News’ editorial treatment of job losses in The Bronx “a classic case of misdirection!”