Naive as it may sound, I used to think that New York was always (at least for a very long time) one of the greatest cities in the world, a place where everyone wanted to live and be a part of, including major corporations. The reading in Brash’s book has definitely shown me otherwise.
Instead, Brash shows that New York was a declining place for corporation headquarters and business location in general. Apparently, many were leaving the city due to heavy property taxes and crime rates (though Giuliani managed to reduce the crime rate in the mid 1990’s), and many office jobs were being moved to New Jersey. To keep New York on top, Bloomberg and his administration used their business senses and began marketing New York City to potential corporations that did not have offices in New York. Though real estate and property taxes were high, instead of offering tax cuts that did more harm than good, Bloomberg focused on the value of being in New York and its great asset of a large, talented, well-educated work force in a large and well-known city.
Other than learning of New York’s economic problems, there are two points that really strike me. One is that this concept of “branding” that the Bloomberg administration used (and still uses?) is very recent. All this “marketing” of the city took place in 2003, only 10 years ago. Perhaps it is still going on?
Also, this branding of the city seems to be taking place exclusively in Manhattan, as opposed to the other 4 boroughs of New York City. Of course, this is most likely taken for granted as Manhattan is the primary borough of New York that everyone thinks of when they think of New York. Along with the popular “I Love NY” slogan that became famous as part of branding New York, I’m wondering if the term “the city”, which is the name by which virtually all New Yorkers call Manhattan, is also a by-product of the branding of New York? I remember learning in my cultural anthropology class that we can learn a lot from studying the language of a people. She used the example of Manhattan being referred to as “the city” to demonstrate the prime importance of the place to the population. If so, the branding has really worked well socially. From my very limited knowledge of NYC business, it seems that it has worked economically as well. It would seem like Wallace’s push toward bringing back manufacturing on a large scale is not going to happen anytime soon. The luxury city, with its “high end” businesses that can afford the value of being in New York, has won out. The question simply remains as to how this will affect the future of New York City.
