NYC-WTC_000230752

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

What the City ) I Needs Immediately New York took a heavy hit on Sept. 11. How do its citi­ 2:

o zens and government go about restoring the damage — to the ground zero area, to the rest of the city and to the ( metro economy? The Post Opinion pages will look at ) these questions aff week fond return to the subject fre­ I city — not just downtown, but o quently in the weeks ahead). Today, we begin with the the whole economy — quickly . and intelligently, and here are , first of several excerpts from Steven Malanga's impor­ the reasons to think such a plan tant essay on the rebuilding effort from the forthcoming t I will work. issue ofThe Manhattan Institute’s City fournal. — The editors ■PO clear the way for the city’s a I natural energies to reassert I themselves, the first, most D

New Construction Now! phe in the early 1990s. when urgent task is to replace the 18 million square feet of modern office space lost in the attack, so that companies wanting to o the Cuomo and Dinkins admin­ be in New York have some­ istrations heaped higher public where to go. H STEVEN spending and tax increases. - Building the necessary space onto a local economy buffeted O -rrZkaX MALANGA doesn’t mean providing more O by the Gulf War and a national j lavish subsidies to developers; OD Hl economic slowdown, turning a > it means clearing away the pl H ■ T is impossible to overstate mild downturn into a three- ■ choking jungle of impediments ■ ■ the danger facing New York year recession that drained the to private builders that New ■ I right now. city not only of jobs but of , hs fl The city confronts obvi-. York has allowed to grow up kD GJ much of its fighting spirit. over decades. It means, above fl OUS problems that the Sept. s 11 attack precipitated: a devas­ all, getting government out of ro /Building ihe needed space doesn^t mean lavish subsidies to the way. O tated downtown, thousands of businesses struggling and some ' leaving, a steep drop-off in visi­ developers; it means clearing away a choking jungle of gov’t This task was a priority be- I fore the attack; the current cri­ 8 . o sis needs to focus policymak- o tors and consumer spending, ers' attention and political will I . and a national recession, to the impediments to private builders, f on what has now become a o especial detriment of the finan­ matter of the utmost urgency. cial industry that is the city’s- The office space we need top economic dynamo. To stave off disaster — to right now can’t rise on the prevent jobs and residents , co from fleeing the city, crippling ; World Trade Center site: clear­ GJ B |UT in addition to these woes, the big government, high-tax solutions that lie at the heart of the city and state's traditional political culture are the local economy for years to . come — political leaders at the , state and local levels need to ■ consider carefully their solu- ' ing away the rubble and re- ■ building the infrastructure there will probably take a year, and no construction can begin tions before they push New | until that’s done. CaJ ' sure to compound the problem. , To produce the space we’ll These are the measures that York off the precipice again. need soon, when the national produced economic catastro- Here’s the first step of what they need to do to rebuild tlm J

NYC-WTC_000230752