This overview presents the first results of the Urban Age investigation for the case of New York in the project’s four core themes: labour market and work places; mobility and transport; public life and urban space; and housing and neighbourhoods. Focus areas were chosen for two main reasons: firstly, based on their relevance to the ongoing strategic discussion within each city; and secondly, because of their potential to inform a broader urban agenda. For all four topics, New York presents a complex and even contradictory picture, carrying over several problems from its former period of decline at the same time that it faces new issues and challenges brought about by its reinvigorated growth and unprecedented affluence.

Labour market and work places | New York’s enormous economic growth over the last 20 year has become one of the most apparent symbols of resurgent urban economies in the developed world. The city still benefits largely from its command and control functions in the global economy that contribute to the vitality of its FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) sector and the wide array of specialized producer services linked to it. However, more contemporary discussions on New York’s labour market also looked at the creative industries and their dependency on urban lifestyles on the one side, and at the future of urban manufacturing on the other. The investigation aimed to assess the relevance of both issues for other cities in similar development paths by recognizing New York’s experience in dealing with them. The vibrancy of New York – manifested in increasing densities, intensity of land uses and sky-rocketing real estate prices – generates competitive pressures that threaten to displace sectors of urban manufacturing vital to the city’s economy. Concrete examples of these sectors include the designers and manufacturers of Manhattan’s Fashion District and even the new media entrepreneurs of Lower Manhattan’s Silicon Alley, subject to the dynamics and needs of project-based work. Furthermore, there are conflicts between alternative land-uses and intense competition between industrial and residential uses in several areas in the outer boroughs. These areas include the rapidly changing Brooklyn neighbourhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, where those seeking middle class housing proximate to their work in central Manhattan collide with existing industries and the gentrification pioneers connected to the design and art industries.

Mobility and transport | The impact of New York’s physical structure becomes nowhere as evident and measurable as within its transport system and mobility patterns where millions of metropolitan commuters need to be taken daily to the job-rich city’s core. The most relevant characteristics of mobility in New York are first its reliance on public transport – the city accounts for almost half of all public transport use in the United States; and second the importance of walking as a fully developed mode of transport – this being almost exclusively a Manhattan phenomenon. Together with a general recognition of New York’s success in turning around its historically decaying public transport system in recent decades, a criticism raised on local transport planning was its lack of vision of transports, private cars and walking as pieces of an interconnected system, and the need for more inter-modal strategies that include creative uses of sidewalks and other spaces for pedestrians. Combined, these issues raised the first relevant question for the wider focus of this investigation: Does the New York of today – seemingly the smartest American metropolis mobility-wise – offer solutions for the sustainable and energy efficient transport of tomorrow? On another level, New York’s struggle to provide a continuous funding stream for operating its transit system but also to devise strategic inter-regional planning schemes leads to a the second question: What are the financing, management and development programmes needed to secure the continuous maintenance, upgrading and expansion massive and complex transport systems responding to the contemporary needs of urban living such as New York’s?

Public life and urban space | New York’s comeback as a viable model of urbanity is perhaps best exemplified by the city’s ability to rein in crime. As violence has waned and a growing feeling of security regained its streets and public places, criminologists identify a number of concurrent economic, cultural and demographic factors contributing to New York’s receding crime epidemics. They remind us that there is a lot more to the city’s turnaround than heightened policing and stricter measures of social control. This context of causal indeterminacy notwithstanding, neighbourhood responses and local strategies are clearly visualized in the built environments of some of the communities formerly or still affected by crime most severely. For this investigation, the case studies of the South Bronx and Brooklyn Red Hook were chosen. In the South Bronx, crime was controlled by the transformation of physical space; the attraction of long absent investment; and the raise of local stakeholder participation motivated by increasing homeownership and sustained home values. In the case of Red Hook the emphasis is rather placed in the transformation of socio-legal space and in making legal institutions visible to the community to build the local legitimacy of the law and engage citizens as stakeholders in the co-production of safety. A second focus within the public life investigation was New York’s resilience in confronting the new threats of international terrorism and acts of massive urban destruction.

Housing and urban neighbourhoods | Similarly to many other cities, New York is confronted with its need to accommodate its expanding population and generate higher residential densities, while preserving the character and liveability of its neighbourhoods. Housing is also in the crucible when the leading cultural and educational institutions of New York require additional land to grow and ensure the city’s continuing international leadership in these fields. The plans for Columbia University’s expansion in West Harlem, together with their discontents, illustrate the importance of adequate design in integrating institutions to an existing urban fabric in need of revitalization, and the challenges posed by the spatial juxtaposition of elite and disadvantaged communities. However, intervention is not limited to finding the right architecture or the best strategy in physical planning. City initiatives to increase New York’s housing stock, especially its affordable brackets, are forced to weight in a number of concurrent factors such as: the right mix of regulatory safeguards of affordability and on the other hand incentives for developers to continue building highly needed new housing; the citywide benefits of allowing increased densities to accommodate demographic growth versus the localized costs of congested neighbourhoods and infrastructure requirements above existing capacity; and the need to balance the creation of new affordable housing with accessible jobs for residents to secure their livelihoods. These conditions are present in the discussions regarding the re-zoning and redevelopment plans for Williamsburg, their strengths as well as weaknesses and omissions.

City Profile | In addition to the thematic investigation, a set of key statistics, maps and other relevant background information were provided to inform the conference debates and to serve as reference for the general public interested in a more in-depth knowledge of the cities related to the Urban Age project.