New York City
Geographic Info
New York City is broken down into 5 main areas:
Manhattan
Brooklyn
Queens
Bronx
Staten Island
There are 21 cities on the edges of greater New York City.
Main Waterways around NYC:
Hudson River
East River
Long Island Sound
Newark Bay
Category:Upper New York Bay
Lower New York Bay
Jamaica Bay
Atlantic Ocean
Financial Crisis
Lehman Brothers Case
In 2008, Lehman faced an unprecedented loss due to the continuing subprime mortgage crisis.The Bloomberg administration has accused Lehman of shortchanging the city of $627 million in corporate and other taxes, beginning in 1996. It is now trying to convince federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan that the city should jump closer to the front of Lehman’s long line of creditors.Because of the Lehman Brothers bankrputcy, the stock market significant went down. Alot of money and jobs were lost due to the Lehman Brothers case.Governor's Budget Proposal
New York City would take hits in school aid, local government assistance, social services and transportation under Gov. David Paterson's state budget proposal.The city's school aid would be cut $469 million, and local government would lose $302 million. Paterson said the cuts are necessary while the state is facing a $7.4 billion deficit.New York City would also lose $53 million in funding for social services and nearly $4 million for transportation.A $1 tax increase on tobacco that would give New York the highest cigarette tax in the nation, resulting in $5.25 per pack in combined local and state taxes in the city.Paterson is proposing $47.7 million in cuts from the City University of New York, but would allow CUNY to set its own regular tuition increase. It could vary by campus and wouldn't require legislative approval. Public and private college students would also see a $75 cut in their Tuition Assistance Program financial aid.Currently, taxpayers who earn more than $250,000 receive more than 50 percent of the overall benefit from the tax rate reduction, but represent 2.9 percent of the total number of recipients.Why New York needs a New Economic Stradegy
The city cannot simply rely on inertia and the disbursements of Wall Street megabonuses to save its economy. It needs to rebuild its middle-class neighborhoods and diversify toward a wide range of industries that can capitalize on the city's advantages—including its appeal to immigrants; the port; and its leadership in design, culture, and high-end professional services.To do that, it needs to diversify its economy beyond Wall Street, which in 2007 provided roughly 35 percent of all income earned in the city. Since the recession, the city has lost 40,000 financial-service jobs. According to an analysis by the Praxis Strategy Group, finance now accounts for barely one in eight jobs in New York City. Most job growth has come instead in lower-paying professions like health care and tourism.To become economically sustainable, New York needs to create policies that help encourage development in areas where its less wealthy citizens live. Impact of the Financial Crisis
Governor David Paterson was among the first to call this the worst crisis since the Great Depression.this is both a crisis in our economy and also a fiscal crisis for the budgets of city and state government as tax revenues fall and demand for public spending increases. The city's private sector has lost about 100,000 jobs in the past year. The biggest losses are in financial and professional service.The consequences of federal restraints and a failing economy is the credit crunch, in which banks have to hang on to their cash and loans are unavailable to consumers and small business.Retail sales in the city are down 8-10% from this time last year, with high end retailers suffering even greater losses.Governor Paterson has formed a Small Business Task Force that is working to improve access to capital, reduce regulation and enhance state support for small business.At the federal level, Congressman Rangel championed an expanded tax credit for employers that hire and train unemployed workers.
Social Issues
Unemployment
Layoffs on Wall Street drove NYC’s unemployment rate to 10.3 percent in August.
The number of unemployed city residents has risen to more than 415,000, the highest total on record.
The State Department of Labor has begun using a “national emergency grant” of $11 million in federal funds to help those laid off on Wall Street shift into other fields.
More than 450 people have begun classes to prepare for a career shift.
Homelessness
As of November 2009, there are 37,000 people in shelters in New York City. This brings up the homeless rate to an 11 percent increase over the past year, and highest number of people seeking shelter.
Mass unemployment is main cause for the increase.
The city spent over $856 milion for their shelter services in 2009.
"On November 7, the Department of Homeless Services announced that it would close the city’s largest drop-in shelter to make way for the construction of a new subway line."
One of the mayor's plans to decrease homelessness is provide a one way plane or bus ticket for the person to go to where they have family or somewhere to say.
People against this plan said the governor is simply moving the problem over to another city and not actually fixing the problem.
High rent and mortgage costs can be traced back to the cause of the problem.
Crime
New York City's worst crime rate was back in 1980's. Since then they have slowly lowered the rate. In 2005, NYC had the lowest crime rate out of the ten largest cities in America. But crime is still an issue in the city. The city is on track, to have the fewest homicides in a 12-month period for the second time in three years."But challenges persist: With the city facing a $4.1 billion budget deficit, the police force — which has been reduced by 6,000 officers since 2001 — may have to shrink further." The flow of illegal guns from other states is a huge part of the problem. The police say 90 percent of the guns they confiscate after a homicide is illegal.Environmental Issues
Trash/littering
8 million residents and millions of vistors generate as much as 36,200 tons of garbage every day.
The city’s Department of Sanitation handles nearly 13,000 tons per day of waste
In 2001 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani closed the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.
The City did not have a subsequent plan for garbage disposal. An interim system was put in place in which most of the city's garbage was trucked out of the city to land fills in other states.
This generated an unacceptable amount of truck traffic in low-income neighborhoods, leading to exacerbated air pollution.
In 2006 Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation establishing a new solid waste management plan, which will use barges and trains to export 90% of the city’s 12,000 daily tons of residential trash. Under the previous scheme trucks and tractor-trailers were used for 84% of the trash.
Passage of the new legislation was delayed by opponents in a Manhattan neighborhood who protested the use of a marine transfer station in the Hudson River Park.
Environmentalists and social activists argued the plan promoted environmental justice because no one borough or neighborhood would bear a disproportionate burden under the proposal, and they therefore supported it.
Air Pollution
Air pollution remains a major problem.
The city's air has high levels of ozone and particulates, and residents in some neighborhoods have very high rates of asthma.
Pollution varies greatly from borough to borough, and residents of Manhattan face the highest risk in the country of developing cancer from chemicals in the air.
The 2004 annual report of the American Lung Association ranks New York City as 18th of the 20 regions in the United States most affected by year-round particle pollution.
New York City ranks 13th of the 20 regions most affected by smog.
While none of the outer boroughs of New York City rank in the top 25 U.S. counties most polluted by annual particle pollution, Manhattan ranks 22nd.
The city has made efforts to reduce particle pollution with measures like fitting catalytic converters to the exhausts of diesel city buses.
A large percentage of the city-owned vehicle fleet, including the personal cars of top city officials, are required since 2005 to be fuel efficient hybrid vehicles. Factors to Environmental Issues
Causes of NYC's environmental issues:
city's size
density
abundant public transportation infrastructure
location at the mouth of the Hudson River.
Mass transit use is the highest in the nation and gasoline consumption in the city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s.
New York City's dense population and low automobile dependence help make New York among the most energy efficient in the United State.
The average New Yorker consumes less than half the electricity used by a resident of San Francisco.
New York has the largest clean air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis.
