The Future of New York City

If I had a dollar for every time a writer sold New York City’s future down the tubes, New York would be forever free of fiscal problems. George Will’s column (“Manhattan Dreams and Nightmares,” Commentary, May 26) reminded me of the woeful evangelist who endlessly walks the streets with a worn placard that reads “The End Is Near.”

Will heralds the apocalypse with such exotic fervor that I feel compelled to respond, not only as a governor of New York, but as a son of the city, whose hometown has just been demeaned. Like the evangelist whose predictions are proven wrong as we reawaken each day, Will will be disillusioned by the inevitable rebound and resurgence that will be New York’s future as they have regularly been New York’s past.

It is true that New York City is undergoing a difficult period that will require all of the intelligence and creativity, commitment and hard work that we can muster. But our problems now should not obscure our grand history--or our vast potential. Let me just point out a few facts: The city is still the largest corporate capital, the largest shipping center and the leader in financial services, insurance and communications in the entire nation. While Will has us succumbing to the “epochal change” that is altering the face of traditional industrial cities, we, instead, surpassed London as the world’s largest international financial center. According to Will’s analysis, America’s central cities have withered as they lost their pre-eminence as manufacturing and retail centers. But New York defied the odds and was one of only two old, industrial American cities that actually increased in population over the past decade.

Moreover, New York City is poised to take advantage of the transition to technology industries that will likely dominate the 21st-Century world economy. The city is home to two state Centers for Advanced Technology in the all-important industries of telecommunications and computers. In any given year, we have some 380,000 students working toward degrees at 90 colleges and universities in the city--some of them the finest in the world.

But perhaps the greatest strength of all, New York remains the destination for millions of immigrants from abroad in search of prosperity and freedom. Some 30% of the city’s population is made up of people born in other countries, who bring with them their vitality and creativity, their unique cultural assets and their contributions of hard work and entrepreneurship. Just as our forebears helped build New York City into the greatest city in the world with immigrant hands and hearts, so will our future be built by energetic seekers from all over the globe.

Even more important, however, is what often passes beyond the attention of television cameras and reporters’ notebooks--the daily lives of the New Yorkers who raise their families, work hard at their jobs and perform, in the words of former Mayor Robert F. Wagner, “hundreds of thousands of unsung and uncelebrated acts of charity and kindness and heroism every minute of every hour and every hour of every day.”

These people have never given up on their communities, or on New York City. And they have always been vindicated by the Big Apple’s unique resilience. They will be again. Sorry, George.

MARIO M. CUOMO

Governor of New York