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What’s been the key to New York City’s success? The creativity and drive of our people? Sure. Our diversity? Definitely. But more than anything else has been that New Yorkers have always looked to the future and worked together to build the city of tomorrow.
Our administration has stayed true to this principle from the very beginning. We’ve made decisions not based on whether they’ll produce headlines or votes, but on whether they’ll generate a new century of economic growth – and last week provided clear examples of this work.
The first was the launch of a new high-tech system to reduce congestion in Midtown Manhattan. Congestion isn’t just a detriment to our quality of life. It’s also a drain on businesses – and perhaps no part of our city is affected more by the slow crawl of traffic than Midtown. But now, from a control center across the river in Long Island City, engineers can identify traffic jams as they occur using data from video cameras, microwave sensors, and EZ-Pass readers throughout Midtown. The engineers can then instantaneously adjust traffic signals to help clear up choke points and get cars moving again. That doesn’t mean the end of traffic jams; but it will make them less common.
Our efforts to diversify our economy also picked up speed last week. We released our offer to top-tier universities to build or expand a world-class science and engineering campus here in our city. This has the potential to be a real game changer for New York’s economy, because it will strengthen our position as a leader in the high-tech industry, which will drive the 21st century economy.
Boston and Silicon Valley have become centers of high tech largely on the basis of their research institutions, which fuel innovation and new business. There’s no reason why more of that can’t happen here. The field of applied sciences epitomizes the kind of new ideas and bold thinking that’s always propelled our city forward. What’s more, we estimate that in its first 30 years, an applied science campus could spin off 400 new companies and create nearly 8,000 construction jobs and 22,000 permanent jobs – not just for PhDs, but for people of every educational level.
And as we lay the groundwork for our economic future, we also continue to make the investments that our growing city will need. Last week, for instance, we reached an important milestone in our efforts to build or preserve more affordable housing. Affordable housing is the anchor of strong, vibrant neighborhoods – and we are now more than three-quarters of the way to reaching our goal of financing 165,000 units across the city for half-a-million New Yorkers. Nearly 16,000 of those units were financed within the past year, despite the tough economy – which just goes to show the strength of our commitment to this endeavor.
We simply can’t stop reaching for the future. It’s what New Yorkers have always done. The future of New York City lies in our willingness to be true to our past: Always bold. Always innovative. And I firmly believe that if we embrace that history and keep looking forward, then the best days for our city are still to come.
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