The growth of technological innovation has several benefits that can be brought to New York. One benefit as stated by Steve Blank in The Hacking NYC panel discussion is that the startup scene in NYC makes “economy more diverse and not as dependent upon Wall Street”. This is positive because when the Lehman Brothers collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in 2008, this caused a financial global crisis. The technological innovation in NY helps NY to move away from relying on Wall Street to be able to stand on its own. Thus any busts in Wall Street won’t impact NY’s economy as heavily as it did in 2008. The second benefit due to the growth of technological innovation in New York is the rapid creations of tech jobs. Jason Bram and Matthew Ploenzke, the authors of “Will Silicon Alley Be the Next Silicon Valley?”, organized data to show the growth of the tech sector in New York. They stated that, “New York City’s tech sector still outpaces growth nationwide, 60 percent to 27 percent, or more than double”. The tech sector in NY is not only growing rapidly but even bypass the growth of tech sectors nationwide. In addition, these jobs pay fairly well with an average of $118,000 per year citywide as of 2013. I think disagreements on these benefits are possible because people can argue that there are too many employments focused in the tech sector and not enough employments focused on other sectors. People can also argue that these benefits can just be temporary and that if there is a boom, a bust will be inevitable.
A potential negative issue I can see emerging is that the tech sector is very concentrated in certain areas of NY. Adam Forman’s “New York’s tech Profile” shows that Manhattan has the highest tech employment of the 5 boroughs with 94, 717 employment in 2014 compared to Bronx’s employment of 1, 284 and Staten Island’s employment of 1,286 in 2014. Staten Island actually has a -6% growth in tech sector from 2004-2014. This can become a problem because if Manhattan has more employments, the employees will be more likely to move to Manhattan to live since it will be around the area where they work. These employees with a higher income than the average income in the city ($84,000) will gather there which will also influence the landscape of Manhattan and other boroughs. More investments will be put in Manhattan such as more expensive stores to easier access to transportation. Manhattan will be the priority in New York while the other boroughs won’t have as much benefits as Manhattan will receive. The wealth gap will grow between Manhattan and the other boroughs and this will lead to an imbalance in New York. This can lead to the discontentment of the working class and the lower class people which will cause internal conflicts with their wealthier counterparts. David Streitfeld in “In San Francisco and Rooting for a Tech Comeuppance” brings up the point that “The consequences for people who do not make their living from technology are increasingly unpleasant”. The traffic there is horrible because of the increase population of people either moving to live there or commuting to work there. Rent increased with tenants living in fear and the tech elites are corrupting the local government by buying elections. What is happening now in San Francisco can easily happen in New York. It is something to be wary and aware of, that technological innovations can have many benefits but they can also cause many negative consequences.
Very good summary of advantages and disadvantages of tech innovation in New York (and San Francisco), Jenny. Higher incomes in one sector may indeed concentrate investment on the people who work in that activity while neglecting others. Lower-wage workers will have to commute longer distances to work, whether they are “mere” coders, retail sales associates, or street vendors of exotic foods.