By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Smoke drifts down from Canada, climate-accelerated extreme weather floods the streets and subways, and the Trump Administration continues to attack science, international students, and immigration. Despite the headwinds, New York City is thriving and remains a dynamic center of creativity, innovation, and economic growth. Last weekend, I drove through Rockaway on the way to my eldest granddaughter’s birthday party at the “Urban Air Trampoline and Adventure Park” on 2nd Avenue in Sunset Park. I drove through Rockaway, which is finally developing into the set of urban oceanfront neighborhoods that the federal government promised when urban removal (renewal) tore down the waterfront summer bungalows during the 1960s. We then drove through Brooklyn, and everywhere I looked, I saw new buildings and businesses. When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, Sunset Park had plenty of homes, located there to house the factory workers who worked by the waterfront. While most of those factories are gone, today we see a wide variety of service businesses and commercial developments all over the neighborhood. New construction of glass apartment buildings is popping up, and tree-lined streets with older homes are gentrifying, a source of economic energy but also neighborhood displacement. The issue of affordability is a fact that requires public intervention and expanded private development to remedy.
After we left the birthday party, we shopped at the Wegmans supermarket located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Navy Yard is an example of a long-term and concerted effort to redevelop a piece of abandoned city property. Many efforts at various forms of economic development are simply functions of the private market and organic efforts to build businesses. However, at times, the city itself and nonprofit organizations it has either established or partnered with are needed to accelerate development. The Navy Yard Development Corporation is one such organization. According to the 2025 report of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation:
“The story of the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of constant evolution, rooted in a legacy of national service and transformed into a mission of civic and economic vitality. From its origins in 1801 as an epicenter for American shipbuilding, the Yard has grown into a hub of inclusive industry, home to more than 13,000 employees and generating over $2.5 billion in annual economic impact. Today, the Yard is more than a hub for business; it is a dynamic ecosystem where a tangible, more equitable future is being built. The heart of our work is innovation. Our campus is home to advanced manufacturing labs, research and design studios, a film and TV production hub, the Brooklyn STEAM Center, a tech accelerator, and more.”
The “more” includes a huge supermarket, a rarity in downtown Brooklyn. One of the problems of building a business or building a building in New York City is the complex and daunting set of regulations that must be navigated when trying to locate a business or build a structure here. Some would argue that these rules are not needed. Many places in Texas, Arizona, and Florida are virtually rule-free. Construction in those places is quick and market driven. But frankly, in a place as crowded and interdependent as New York City, rules are needed. We saw that recently with the near-collapse of an office building in Midtown that is being renovated into residences. The city’s Department of Buildings approved a design that included reinforced support beams that apparently were never installed. The danger caused by this possible violation of rules is that many people, as well as surrounding buildings, were placed at risk. The free market in construction cannot be rule-free in a place like New York City. Of course, it’s worth remembering that nearly 100 people died in a building collapse back in 2021 in Surfside Florida—a clear failure of a highly deregulated building environment.
There is probably a middle ground between too much and too little regulation. In New York, a set of nonprofit institutions has been set up by the city and by engaged citizens to facilitate economic development and cut through the city’s cumbersome red tape. One example is the NGO developing the Navy Yard, and a city-wide example is the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC). Both facilitate business development, and the EDC also measures and reports on economic development to facilitate public-private partnerships. It appears that Mayor Mamdani is not sure what to do with this pro-business, development-oriented agency and there has been some discussion of shifting EDC’s mission to economic “justice.” To date, the mayor has still not appointed a head of EDC. The Navy Yard NGO (started by EDC) has focused its efforts on minority- and women-owned businesses, but the overall EDC, while also promoting those goals, appears to prioritize all forms of business development. According to a late May 2026 report in the Wall Street Journal by Kevin T. Dugan and Rebecca Picciotto:
“There is a gaping hole in the administration of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and it is the one that is making executives in real estate and finance very, very nervous. As the Mamdani era nears its sixth month, City Hall’s search for a chief executive to run the Economic Development Corporation is moving at a crawl. The little-known but powerful organization behind megaprojects such as Manhattan’s Hudson Yards plays a key role in greenlighting new developments and historically has heavily relied on input from the city’s business elite…The EDC has long been the New York City real-estate industry’s primary bridge to City Hall. It doles out city-owned land, tax breaks and financing subsidies for big developments. It can also help fast-track reviews and cut red tape to move projects along, and helps encourage the growth of certain industries, like life sciences and tech, and the high-paying jobs that come with them.”
The economic dynamism I saw last weekend in Rockaway and in Brooklyn is repeated all over the city, including Long Island City and several other neighborhoods in every borough. The current business development ecosystem has worked for decades to facilitate the city’s economic growth, and the results are visible and quantifiable. According to a 2025 report by the city’s Economic Development Corporation:
“Employment and labor force participation are at all-time highs, and the unemployment rate is improving: With over 4,261,000 private sector jobs as of August 2025, and over 152,000 more private sector jobs compared to February 2020, the private sector job market has more jobs than at any other time in the city’s history... At the same time, the unemployment rate has fallen from 5.6% in December 2024 to 4.9% in August 2025. The city has seen a geographic diversification of jobs since 2019, with the outer boroughs adding over 200,000 jobs in the past five years…New York City continues to be the place where young workers want to live: More than 565,000 recent graduates from the classes of 2022 to 2025 are now working in the city, up from 490,000 the year before. Forty percent of these graduates studied at New York institutions, and a majority are women, pointing to the city’s role as a destination for early-career talent. 1 in 8 New Yorkers is either a college student or recent college graduate.”
This trend is continuing in 2026, according to EDC:
“New York City added 15,300 private sector jobs in May and has now seen a net gain of 21,600 private sector jobs through the first five months of 2026…Employers posted 83,900 New York City job openings in May, the most jobs posted in a single month since August 2022, signaling stronger hiring demand across the city’s labor market”
According to a May 2025 report of the Center for an Urban Future, technology jobs are the fastest-growing part of the city’s economy, growing four times as fast as the rest of the city’s private economy.
What is the source of the city’s economic dynamism? A key cause of New York’s economic energy is the global diversity of the city’s population and the fact that, apart from too many hate crimes, we all seem to get along pretty well with each other. I saw this at the trampoline venue I visited last weekend. The place was a living, breathing manifestation of Mayor Dinkins’ gorgeous mosaic. Asian, African American, Hispanic, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, White, English-speaking, Chinese-speaking, and Spanish-speaking grown-ups together watched their kids screaming with glee as they bounced together and ran from ride to ride. Stephen Miller’s vision of America excludes Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and is a backward-looking, low-energy approach that will never pulsate with the energy of New York City’s street-level diversity. Its racism and xenophobia are the opposite of the vision New York City has been built on. It is also out of touch with the America that foreign visitors saw when attending World Cup events this summer. Americans are typically generous and are welcoming to people who do not look or speak like them. We love community and look for connection—be it the World Cup, the Knicks, or the Taylor Swift Eras tour.
The challenge we have here in maintaining a diverse community was highlighted by EDC and is encapsulated in the term “affordability.” The mayor was elected on that issue, and it remains a critical problem. As EDC also notes:
“Affordability pressures have intensified and remain a defining challenge for New Yorkers: Since 2019, according to the regional Consumer Price Index, overall inflation and housing costs in the New York City metro have both risen 24 percent, utilities 37 percent, groceries 27 percent, and childcare and tuition expenses 19 percent. Meanwhile, according to data from StreetEasy, asking rents have risen nearly 30 percent in the city, while an analysis from the state’s Office of Children and Family Services showed that citywide market-rate childcare costs have risen 43 percent. New York City has long been unaffordable for its low-income residents. Over the past five years, the city has become even less affordable for low-income families, and now middle-income families are feeling the affordability crunch as the cost of everyday essentials are rising. Collectively, these cost increases threaten the city’s livability and long-term competitiveness.”
I am hopeful that the threats to New York City’s affordability and diversity will be overcome. It will not be easy, and it will be a case of two steps forward followed by one step back. But the city’s energy and seductiveness will overcome these obstacles. As it’s already been said: “Concrete jungle where dreams are made” …and “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” We just need to make it easier for people to immigrate to New York City and for families to afford to live here. The fact that 400,000 New Yorkers live in public housing indicates that we once knew how to do this.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
