Roger Starr’s “Making New York Smaller” took a new approach to the city’s economic issues. This article began off with various fiscal and monetary policies, but then took a unique spiral into this concept of planned shrinkage. While this is definitely an interesting concept, I was surprised that Starr would even think that this was possible. Everyone has their own “doomsday” planned out in their head, and despite all the past events this city has gone through “doomsday” has yet to come, and that’s why I believe Starr’s ideas are far too radical.
One theory that I found very interesting was how Starr broke down the city into different cities; a political city and an economic city. There were two different sources of revenue and expenses, with the economic city including all of the public and private enterprises that create goods and services in the New York. The economic city was the main source of the city’s wealth and it also produced jobs for the citizens. The biggest issue with the economic city is the foreign imports and exports that mess up the cycle, causing foreign investors loosing interest in investing in the city. New York City underestimated costs and overestimated revenue in regards to this and the city’s constituents were forced to default on the loans causing major upheaval in the political city.
The political city is responsible in providing necessary services to the citizens such as the education and judicial system. Revenue in this sector comes from taxes and funding from the federal government to directly provide for families with dependent children, the disabled and the homeless. The issue is that the political city is unable to provide services that people require because of their failure to meet their rising costs of their programs and services due to the limited amount of revenue they receive. Their lack of revenue with the economic decline leading to increasing unemployment leaves New Yorkers to leave the city so that they can move elsewhere for jobs.
One important thing to note is that Starr wrote this piece in 1976, and the so-called “doomsday” he was predicating never occurred. In the past 35 years the city’s population has gone up from 8 million to 20 million. Another thing is that in the 1976, prior to the Times Square Redevelopment Project, the tourism sector was barely tapped. In those days New York City was a dark and foreign place to visit, but now it is the tourism capital of America. People from all over the world come here to visit the Empire State Building, the red stairs at Times Square. Another thing Starr mentions that is no longer true is that New York is not the “classiest address for a major corporate headquarters,” considering the multitude of companies here.
Looking back at Starr’s plan of shrinking is obviously ridiculous to the New Yorker today. Today we face a similar economic recession, and if someone like Starr were to bring up his plan of urban shrinkage I am positive he would face the same amount if not more resistance now than he did in his time. I feel as if New York Cities has gone through many potential “doomsday,” but this city has always further developed and grown, and that is why Starr’s concept of pulling away from the city is not the right course of action. I am sure he would have never guessed how much the city has improved and grown since 1976, and perhaps even he would have changed his mind for the right course of action. I think it would be interesting to look at what other radical plans are out there right now, which don’t help us plan for the future.
