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CityAndStateNY.com
August 24, 2020
COMMENTARY
HOW TO BRING NEW YORK CITY BACK New York isn’t dying – it just needs leadership and creative policymaking. by Tom Allon
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EW YORK CITY is dying – or, at least, so I’ve read in the newspapers. The New York Post claims that families are fleeing the Upper West Side because of hotels turned into homeless shelters, The New York Times reports that national retail chains are shuttering their Manhattan locations and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is fearful that Billionaire’s Row has permanently moved from West 57th Street to East Hampton – and along with it a large chunk of New York City’s tax base. Like every longtime New Yorker, I’ve seen such claims of its imminent demise before. They weren’t proven out then, and they won’t be this time. The question is not whether New York will ever come back, but when and how. The COVID-19 crisis can be shortened if the city and the state stay the course and adopt the right package of measures to effectively combat the virus through the fall and winter, get schools up and running and bring back residents and businesses sooner rather than later.
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