In a city as large and influential as New York, a city’s legacy is often judged by the boldness of the projects it implemented. What big ideas did they come up with to solve the problems of their time? And how did they benefit the next generation of New Yorkers? By that standard, two and a half years into Mayor Adams’ first term, I am confident that history will judge us well.
Every administration faces monumental challenges. The Bloomberg administration, for example, was entrusted with a city whose confidence was shaken and its future uncertain after the attacks of September 11. It responded by rebuilding the city, and its boldness boosted the economy and gave the world a reason to believe in New York again.
Our administration faced a different challenge: a city still reeling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated an affordability crisis, changed the trajectory of our economy, and made it even harder for low- and middle-income New Yorkers to remain in the city they called home.
Too often, development approaches have been limited to a neighborhood or a site. The projects that grabbed headlines often represented progress. But there is another way: a fundamental, citywide path that involves an unwavering commitment, above all, to creating opportunity in every neighborhood. This does not mean shying away from bold projects, but ensuring that each project leads to the deeper, more sustainable accessibility that our times demand.
Our strategy begins by rethinking the foundations of our city to ensure that opportunity can finally spread across all five boroughs. Our historic “City of Yes” initiatives will disrupt outdated zoning for the first time in decades to protect our environment, grow modern small businesses, and build much-needed housing that has been blocked by restrictive and discriminatory rules.
These efforts will be reinforced by ambitious neighborhood plans, our consecutive years of creating new affordable housing, our historic investments in NYCHA, and projects like Willets Points, the City’s largest affordable housing project in nearly 40 years.
We’re also building new economic engines in every corner of our city. Just look along our waterways to see our efforts to build climate innovation centers on Governors Island and the Brooklyn Army Terminal, create a new life sciences hub at Kips Bay, transform more than 100 acres at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Red Hook, redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory, electrify Hunts Point Markets, and create thousands of jobs on Staten Island’s North Shore. We’ve designed these projects with real-world on-ramps so underserved New Yorkers can learn and train in emerging fields.
What makes our approach most relevant to our times is our efforts to provide opportunity for New Yorkers. right awayThat’s why we’ve set up hiring offices right in underserved neighborhoods. We’ve also launched a community hiring program that will leverage city contracts to create new jobs for economically disadvantaged New Yorkers. And we’ve awarded billions of dollars to nearly 2,000 certified minority- and women-owned businesses—the most in city history.
Why am I so confident in the success of our approach? Because it’s already working: We’ve reduced unemployment among Black and Latino New Yorkers by about 30 percent, created more small businesses than ever before in our city’s history, and continued to break our own employment records.
Equally telling, our approach is on track to surpass—by far—the strategies of the past. The number of housing units we plan to build through our citywide and neighborhood-wide zoning efforts is more than twice as much as was planned during the Bloomberg administration’s 12 years in office, and more than four times as much as was planned during the de Blasio administration’s eight years in office. This monumental achievement will serve generations of New Yorkers long after we leave office.
Our strategy is not to build up, but to build out. To build outward to embed opportunity in the foundations of our city, to create entirely new ways to participate in our economy, and to meet every New Yorker where they are so they can thrive in the promise of New York. If that’s not bold, I don’t know what is.
Torres-Springer is New York City’s deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce.
