From The Mayor’s Desk ...
Creating An Even Stronger New York

There are presently 8.2 million of us living in New York City. That’s an all-time high. And with our city safer than ever, our public schools improving, our unemployment rate lower than it’s ever been, and our average life expectancy getting longer –– there’s every indication that New York is going to continue growing. In fact, by 2030, we expect to add nearly one million more people — the equivalent of the populations of Boston and Miami combined. That’s why I recently outlined the challenges we’re facing, and also set out 10 goals for meeting those challenges and making sure that the city we leave for our children and grandchildren is even better than the one we have today.

Our growing population could be a good thing; by 2030, New York City can expect three-quarters of a million more jobs and billions of dollars of new economic activity. But to protect our quality of life, we’ve also got to begin making the right decisions now about managing that growth. That in-cludes creating housing for nearly one million more people, and finding new ways to make housing more affordable, expanding access to parks and playgrounds, and adding to the capacity of our transit system, so that travel times stay better, or even improve.

Our growing population also intensifies the challenge of maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure that under-pins our city, and that we largely take for granted in our daily lives. By 2030, virtually every system that makes up that infrastructure –– things like water and sewer lines –– will be more than 100 years old, and under severe strain. So to prepare for our city’s growing future, we’ve got to develop back-up systems that will ensure the reliability of our world-famous water delivery net-work, reach a full state of good repair on New York’s roads, subways, and rails for the first time in history, and upgrade our power plants and transmission lines so that every New Yorker has cleaner, more reliable power.

Finally, we’ve also got to do more to preserve and improve an urban environment that’s going to be facing new stresses. Over the past five years, we’ve made a good start in cleaning up our air and water and reclaiming hundreds of acres of former industrial “brownfields” for new parks, housing, and jobs. But much more needs to be done. So our environmental goals for New York City through the year 2030 include cleaning up all the contaminated land in our city, opening 90% of our waterways for recreation by reducing water pollution and preserving natural areas, and reducing emissions of “greenhouse gases” by 30% –– which will help us to achieve the cleanest air quality of any major city in America.

Together, we can create an even bet-ter, more sustainable city. And every New Yorker has a role to play in the planning process. This week, many of the city’s daily newspapers will include a brochure explaining the challenges ahead of us. And over the next three months, New Yorkers can bring their ideas about our future to meetings and civic forums we’ll hold all over town, or you can log onto this interactive web site: nyc.gov/planyc2030 . Your ideas will help us devise a detailed plan for making New York a safe, growing, and sustainable city—one we’ll be proud to turn over to our child-ren and grandchildren in the years to come.

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