Mapping Out the Global City

NEW YORK CITY-The world’s cities, recently losing population numbers, hold the solution for future economic recovery and development. That was the overarching theme of the Regional Plan Association’s “Innovation and the Global City” event Friday at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria. The RPA event featured keynote speeches and breakout sessions on subjects such as seaports, airports, governance and energy. The day also saw the launch of a $3.5-million bi-state sustainability initiative. The initiative is the result of a grant won by New York and Connecticut from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We live in an age in which it is effortless to telecommute across the planet,” Edward Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of the recent Triumph of the City, told the audience. “And yet over and over again in countries throughout the world, we choose cities.” Glaeser, in a keynote address to the group, also talked about the importance of building a flourishing knowledge base in the city. He emphasized the need for science and engineering. Robert Steel, New York City deputy mayor for economic development, touched upon his belief that science and engineering are key components to successful future growth as well. He told the RPA audience that he sees it as a “Times Square type” issue that will require many years of work to bear fruit, as did the repositioning of Times Square into the retail and tourism corridor it is today. “One thing that might enhance our map of opportunity is to have an extraordinarily strong complement to the existing activities in science and engineering,” Steel said. “In several decades, we’ll have skills here that might be more like MIT or Stamford or Caltech which we believe can be the seed corn for the innovation of the future,” he added, to an eruption of applause from the audience. The $3.5-million HUD grant will directly affect several areas in addition to transportation, since the issues of housing and transportation are so closely tied in urban areas. “Let’s not forget what the ‘H’ in HUD stands for,” cautioned Joan McDonald, commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation. Further emphasizing the connection between the two issues, New York City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden spoke about using the money to increase affordable housing near major transportation hubs in the Bronx. “We have made already remarkable progress in directing new mixed-income housing and commercial growth to areas that are well served by mass transit,” Burden said. “Together with our consortium partners, we will expand on the success of transit-oriented growth with the focus on new mixed income housing and jobs.” Conspicuously absent in the discussion—hence the term “bi-state coalition,” rather than tri-state—was New Jersey. The Garden State opted to go it on its own and apply for a sustainable communities grant, which was ultimately denied.