WEBVTT - New York City's Post-COVID Future 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:05.600 I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing. 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:11.600 This pandemic continues to affect not just New York City's health, 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:16.280 but its economy. Almost one hundred thousand New York City 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:21.520 residents filed for unemployment benefits the week of May fourth alone. 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.920 Total claims in the age of coronavirus are now at 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.760 one million. That's one out of every eight New Yorkers. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.479 Is this a blip or is at the beginning of 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.879 a fundamental change? A couple of weeks ago, via zoom 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:40.440 from my home on Long Island, I spoke to the 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:44.720 two people perhaps best able to answer these questions. Tom 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.320 Wright has both the perspective and the influence to shape 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:51.880 New York's future. He's the head of the century old 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:56.680 Regional Plan Association. Many New York fixtures that we take 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.680 for granted, from a pedestrian Times Square to the George 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.240 Washington Bridge, came from the minds at the r p A. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.959 Every twenty years, they put out their plan, thinking about 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.160 how the demographics and economy of the tri state area 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.520 are changing and what policies will best meet these new challenges. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.840 The last one came out in two thousand seventeen into 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.199 a very different world than the one we inhabit now. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.479 Katherine Wilde is the head of the Partnership for New 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.720 York City. She's on every Most Powerful New Yorker's list 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.039 every year. That's because the Partnership is the main condudate 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:41.000 for communication, lobbying, and philanthropy for New York City's major 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:47.600 corporations JP, Morgan, Jet, Blue, IBM, Google, Deloitte, Bloomberg, Blackstone. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.640 The list goes on and on. Anytime they want to 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.960 speak with one voice, it's Kathy they go through. Her 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.960 career began in nineteen seventies Brooklyn, during what had been 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.000 the worst of the city's then fiscal crisis. Despite crime, 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:07.280 crumbling transit, and terrible city services, wild helped lead public 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.680 private efforts that revitalized the neighborhood of Sunset Park. She 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:16.400 sees foreboding parallels between New York's current crisis and the 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:20.679 last time industry fled the city well in the nineteen seventies, 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:25.280 we saw the industrial waterfront literally disappear in the matter 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.959 of five years. American Can, American Machine and Foundery, Bethlehem Steel, 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.760 Rhinold Brewery, uh Domino, Sugar, Revere sugar. They were gone 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:39.760 in five years between seventy and seventy five, and Brooklyn 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.760 shrunk by four hundred thousand people. The city shrunk by 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.680 a million people, lost half its fortune, five hundred companies, 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.280 and there was a ripple effect both in the economy 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.720 in terms of unemployment and at the same time in 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.640 the city fiscal situation. As you know in v New 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.000 York's city went to bankrupt. They were saved by a 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.920 bailout by the banks and the pension funds, the labor unions, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.400 and we got out of that crisis very slowly. It 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.520 took forty years in vent Brooklyn's population was two point 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.639 six million people. It did not reach that again until 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.120 last year, so it took more than forty years to 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.960 come back. That's more what we're looking like if we 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.360 don't really get our act together quickly in New York 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.480 City and the greater metropolitan area and figure out how 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.480 to recoup what this pandemic is doing to us. We 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:42.680 have almost a million people lost jobs, so we are 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:48.000 really facing a crisis that's very similar loss of GDP. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.880 It's is of our growth city product of our economic 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:54.000 output is what's projected. So we're gonna look very much 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.920 like we did at the end of the seventies when 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.440 the city was totally broke and people were out of 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.600 work and leaving the city in droves. Yeah. Yeah. The 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.880 only thing I'd add to what Kathy said earlier was 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.480 that the million person loss actually would have been twice 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:15.720 as much but for the one really successful policy during 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:17.960 that time, which was that we were open to immigrants, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.800 and essentially for every two people who left the city, 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.160 one rejoined from somewhere around the world, and it would 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.000 have taken us even longer to recover if we hadn't 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.800 been an open society. Good point in Under current immigration policy, 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:38.000 we won't have that luxury exactly now Um described for 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.720 people you go first time, who you represent, and what 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.039 they exactly do. Sure Regional Plan Association is a private 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.440 civic group. We've been around, uh next weekend it will 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.600 be ninety eight years. And what we've done for almost 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.000 a century is look at not just New York City 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.840 and it's five boroughs, but the entire metropolitan region, all 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:01.119 of Long Island, southwestern Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, northern New Jersey, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:06.159 and think about the long term health, wealth, prosperity, growth 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.920 sustainability UM of that entire region. There is no public 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.640 sector entity that thinks about that. At the federal state levels, 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:16.200 we have a couple of things like the m t 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.800 A and the Port Authority that work on portions of it, 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.359 but there's nobody kind of thinking about the entire region. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.920 So our p A is an independent voice has UM 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.840 once every generation created a long range plan saying here 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.840 are the major transportation investments, the economic development investments, the 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.320 kinds of policies that we're going to need, and then 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.640 we advocate for them. And we've been around since things 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.880 like nine eleven and two thousand and eight Superstorm Sandy, 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:44.960 and we played a role in the rebuilding and each 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.680 of those. What is the regional plan that your regional 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.440 plans are based on a certain level of economic growth, 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:53.720 and the bottom seems to have fallen out of there. 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.280 What are you guys talking about? Yeah, no, you know, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.479 that's absolutely correct. I mean when we released the plan 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.640 three years ago, it was about how to deal with 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:04.599 the kind of catastrophic growth we were facing at the time, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.800 and nowadays it's going to be much more about what 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.159 do we do to get back on the path to growth? 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.840 The way I think about what's happening right now is 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:15.440 that certain parts of life in our economy and society 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.440 have been on pause, and so nobody's going to restaurants, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.880 we're all staying home and things. But other parts of 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.480 our lives, changes that we're coming slowly have been accelerated. 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:30.440 Um using zoom to do a podcast, distant remote learning, telemedicine, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.880 and so things that we're going to happen over time 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.599 but we're happening fairly slowly have suddenly happened in just 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:37.560 a couple of weeks instead, and they're not going to 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.599 snap back to how they were before. And so we're 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.239 going to be doing a kind of planned four point 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.800 two after this to take a fresh look at that 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.159 some of the things, I mean, the two most controversial 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.000 things we proposed three years ago. We're charging people to 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.520 drive into Manhattan and shutting the subways down in the 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.440 middle of the night for maintenance. Um, we're now doing 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.279 the shutting, and we're going to need congestion pricing even 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:03.640 sooner then next year, because I worry that as businesses 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.000 start to open and people avoid mass transit, we will, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.560 like cities in Asia already have see unbelievable traffic congestion. 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.080 Were there discussions ever along the way about what we're 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.960 dealing with now? No, I honestly, we look at we 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.880 looked at climate change, we looked at energy policy, we 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:26.760 looked at economic policy and things, and we've even talked 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.120 about public health in terms of social determinants and the 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:34.320 built environment. But no, honestly, we never did see something 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.560 like this coming. And I wish we had obviously now 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.040 Katherine wild to tell us what group you're working with 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.360 now and what's their mission so to speak. Well, for 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.960 many years, I've worked with the Partnership for New York City, 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.200 and it's an organization that was created at the end 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.840 of the seventies by David Rockefeller and the other bankers 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:57.960 that worked with organized labor and with Governor Hugh Carey 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.720 to restructure the city these finances and Rockefeller felt that 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.360 the city had gone into a tailspin. Business had paid 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.840 no attention, and as a result, he felt that we 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.720 should make sure that New York City never have that 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.440 situation again where no one was paying attention. So he 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.440 organized the Partnership to work with government, with labor, with 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.160 civic groups like Tom's to bring the business leadership, the 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.480 CEOs of the city to the table with their resources 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.720 so that we could solve these kind of challenges. Like Tom, 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.640 we didn't anticipate a pandemic would be the biggest challenge 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.079 the city would ever face in the twenty one century. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.320 But here we are. When did you become involved with 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.440 the Partnership for New York. Originally I went to work 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.720 for the Partnership as a volunteer in one when David 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.959 Rockefeller announced that he thought it was the responsibility of 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.319 the business community to rebuild the neighborhoods that had burned 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:58.960 down in the nineteen seventies. You were raised in Madison, Wisconsin. 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:05.320 I were brought you to New York. They said, people 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:07.400 moved to New York because they don't fit in where 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.600 they grew up. That's I'm not a chiefe head. I'm 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.040 not a chiefe head, but but I've been at the Partnership. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.120 I went there to rebuild neighborhoods. We did over forty 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.320 units of affordable housing ownership housing. So if you go 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.400 to any of the communities of the city that are 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.640 thriving today but burned down in the seventies and eighties, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.840 they're full of owner occupied homes where people moved out 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.840 of public housing, bought a home at a very low 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:41.679 cost on free city land, private bank financing, UH, combination 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.800 of resources, limited developer profit. That's the kind of solution 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.400 that we're going to need again today, where everybody's pitching 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.280 in the banks, the builders, the community, the home buyers 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.680 put down their savings as the down payment for the 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.040 equity before the houses were built. UM, and it's repopulated 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.640 the city with UH, with middle class families that had 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.640 fled in the previous decade. It says here that you 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:09.000 played a role in the incredible story of New York 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.079 City's pushed to make its own ventilators. How did you 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.600 get involved with that? We have an investment fund at 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.199 the Partnership that invests in sort of what comes next, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.040 And we had invested in a company in the Brooklyn 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.560 Navy Yard, which is probably the most exciting economic development 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.320 project in the twenty one century. And so one of 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.760 the companies, their new lab that we had supported, got 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.720 the idea when we had not enough ventilators in the 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:36.719 city for the number of people coming into the I 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.480 c U. They said, let's invent a ventilator. And in 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.760 four weeks. It was actually built in a factory in 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.720 Long Island City, and my role in that was simply 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.120 when they needed a part, to get to the CEO 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:50.199 of that company and say we need a part now, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.679 and we know there's a long line for this, but uh, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.640 let's get it first. You know, there's a lot of 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.400 uh neurosis and a lot of anxiety uh out there 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.080 right now. So there's a lot of speculation of what's 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.400 going to happen. And I thought people say to me 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.079 that they anticipated over the next two to three years 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.640 about a half a million people will leave New York City, 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.480 maybe even more. Many people feel that that New York 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:20.640 in particular is a feted Petrie dish of viralogical threats 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.360 to them. Now they're very, very scared. We live on 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.200 eastern Long Island for our weekend slash summer home, and 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.960 we're out here now, living out here since March twelveth. 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.200 We're gonna stay out here through the summer. And we 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:34.959 have friends of ours who are here who said told 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:36.920 us they're not going back. They're going to stay in 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.400 their houses here and enroll their kids in school here 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.400 or do an online thing. Are you worried about that ton. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.319 I'm worried about it, but but I think it's very addressable. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.200 I mean, we did see after nine eleven there were 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.480 concerns that New York was going to see continued terrorist attacks, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.880 and we managed to make the city safe again. Um, 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.000 the barometer of the city, a lot of it is 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.640 around the transit system. If people feel safe getting on 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.040 the subway and busses again, then they'll generally feel safe 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.160 in New York. They'll feel safe going to a restaurant, 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:09.640 and they'll feel safe going to school or an office. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:12.800 And so we've been looking at this through the lens 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.120 of what's it gonna take to make it not just 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.320 feel safe but be safe. Do we shift resources towards 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.600 the transit police and have a lot of transit cops 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.200 down They're saying, if you don't get a mask on, 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.640 you ain't getting on the subway. That's it. In London, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.920 when the Tube before they invested and it would get overcrowded, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.240 they would during rush hour in the morning, they would 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.679 close the gates and say nobody's able to get onto 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.960 the system until some people get off because of the 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.120 overcrowding conditions, and they were worried about people I think 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.840 literally falling into the tracks. I think that we're going 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.560 to have to start to actively manage these systems much 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:48.920 more than we've been doing it. And by the way, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.920 earlier today, about twelve hours ago, the New York City 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.400 subway shut down for the first time in its history 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.959 so that in the wee hours they could do cleaning 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.560 and maintenance of the system. It's something we posed about 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:02.320 three years ago, and I took a lot of heat 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.000 for it, um but I think that to make it 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:10.080 safe for the the people who use it between five 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.000 am and one am, uh, you have to shut it 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.000 for a couple of hours just to just to do 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:19.319 that maintenance. So we've already taken that first very dramatic step, 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.079 and I think more of those things are going to 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.559 be coming online. I think the m t A is 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.600 going to be learning from other global cities about best 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.520 practices and what they're doing to make the system safe. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.080 And I think that wearing masks, more frequent cleaning of 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.760 the system, making sure that it's not overcrowded. You can't 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:38.880 just leave it up to bus drivers to tell people 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:40.360 they can't get on a bus. You've got to come 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.920 up with better ways to do it, and so I 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.520 think all of that's on the table. Well, he's brought 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.839 the governor has brought in Mayor Bloomberg, who's going to 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.960 set up a contact tracing system, which will be important 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.000 for transit because if you do come in contact with 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.160 someone who comes down with the virus, you'll be informed, 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.360 you'll be tracked. There's going to be a whole new 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.840 public how regime, and New York will probably do that 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.400 better than any place else in the world and throw 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.360 more resources at it than any place else in the world. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.240 So that's what we've got to sell now. On the 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.120 other hand, I heard about creating space for private officers, 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.920 for folks to work from their Long Island area if 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.960 they don't want to be at home with their four kids. Um. 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.480 I heard the same thing today about Palm Beach, Florida, 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.720 that they're looking at developing similar kind of facilities, and 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:28.000 we're going to hear more and more of that. And 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.360 what we've got to start thinking about, which is something 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.480 the Regional Plan has been thinking about for a while, 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.360 is thinking about our region from northern New Jersey to Fairfield, 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.000 Connecticut to Long Island and saying, okay, if third of 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:41.960 the people that come into the city want to work 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.480 from home. How do we make sure that the region 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.800 as a whole benefits from that, How do we replan 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.920 our transportation system to work for those people? And what 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.640 are we going to do, most importantly within New York 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.320 City to develop the next generation of jobs, whether it's 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.240 the folks to wing, public health tracing, or or the 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.480 other things that we're going to have to develop to 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.000 reinvent the city. The only other thing I wanted to 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.200 mention on this note that I'm really worried about that 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.320 you don't hear much about, is our universities. So much 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.280 of our leadership in the innovation economy and of the 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:23.480 kids that the talent that stays to New York and 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.160 grows here comes from overseas to go to our great universities. 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.080 They're having a terrible time. They had to close down 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.400 in March, uh complete the semester, complete the year, and 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.080 summer school online. They've got people suing them to get 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:47.040 their tuition back. They've got horrible time lining up, especially 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.280 international students for next year, who really pay the freight. 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.480 So all these are issues that we have to figure out. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.960 I think the university situation is something we should be 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.560 paying a lot of attention to. One thing I was 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.160 also curious about, is what do you think is going 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.960 to happen to city, state income taxes and sales taxes 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.480 in the immediate sense in New York About the state's 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:17.040 projecting thirteen billion over the next year um of lost. Yeah, 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:24.480 the city's about UM seven point four billion. Yeah, reduced revenues, 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:29.600 So that's what or some substantial yeah. Catherine Wild of 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.720 the Partnership for New York City with Tom Wright of 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:37.080 the Regional Plan Association. Tom has the distinction of being 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.840 here's the things only two time guest. Hello Tom, How 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:44.120 are you good to see you? Tom? I always assumed that, 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.440 like Paul McCartney, Billy Joel or Barbara streisand would be 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:54.240 our person. We've decided to have pandemic to do it virus. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:59.520 Tom could book you twice. Last year, Tom fiscal watchdog 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.080 Nicole Julys and two thousand twenty one Marrow front runner 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.679 Corey Johnson came on the show. The discussion was about 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.199 how to fix the city's troubled transportation agency, the m 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.480 t A, which is largely controlled from Albany. Long before 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.960 the crisis of COVID nineteen, Johnson had strong feelings about 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.800 Albany's type grip. The m t A is set up 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.040 to deflect any level of accountability. So we can talk 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.119 about all these super important issues on repairing, contracting, and 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.359 on negotiating with unions and expanding the subway system. But 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:37.000 until you get down to the fundamental issue of singular 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.160 accountability and responsibility, everyone is always going to be able 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.600 to point fingers, which is why I called for municipal control. 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.600 For our full conversation text m t A to seven 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.520 zero one zero one. That's m T A to seven 0:17:53.600 --> 0:18:08.960 zero one zero one. This is Alec Baldwin and you're 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.719 listening to here's the thing now. More on the post 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.920 COVID future with Kathy Wilde and Tom Wright. The New 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.679 York region's transit agencies, the Port Authority, the mt A, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.400 New Jersey Transit, and the Long Island Railroad have received 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.320 some money from the federal Cares Act, but it's not 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:32.560 nearly enough. They are facing a devastating operating deficit. Um 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:37.720 they are seeing, you know, roughly their ridership decline. And 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:42.159 we are more reliant in New York on transit fares 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:45.320 paying for operations than anywhere else in the country. In 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.920 Los Angeles they subsidize that. They don't they don't charge 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.560 people that much and and so it doesn't make as 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.440 big a difference. Um So, the m t A is 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.600 losing about two hundred million dollars a week right now 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.000 because of the loss of ridership on the subways, bus, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.440 is Long Island Railroad, Metro North. Uh. They got some 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.399 money from the federal government, but it's not enough and 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:08.760 they're gonna need They've gone back and asked for another 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.679 three point nine billion dollars and if they don't get that, 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:15.640 the only option for them is essentially to raid their 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.399 capital budgets and to take They had just approved a 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.960 fifty one billion dollar mt A five year capital plan. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.040 It was the largest and historic plan, funded by congestion 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.680 pricing and other things. And if they have to raid 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.960 that for the operations, it means that the system will 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.600 start to decline in what all the things we talked 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:42.640 about on the show exactly, signals and and everything like that. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.960 And so it's really important to protect that capital budget. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.639 At the same time, the capital plans were created in 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:52.159 a different environment. Um I was talking to ahead of 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.680 the Port Authority the other day, and you know they're 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.880 going to have to take a fresh look and think 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:00.280 about whether they can spend the kind of money on 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.320 on the airports and the Lincoln Tunnel and the tolls 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.200 and others that they expected. And all of those capital 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:10.000 plans were driven by projections of future growth that may 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.480 not materialize either. So I think a kind of reassessment 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.040 of the capital plans is going to come. There's going 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:17.960 to be a reduction in them. The key is to 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:20.159 make sure that we don't raid them too much for 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.199 the operating and that we think about what are the 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.359 new demands that the system is going to have again, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:27.879 making sure that the subway is safe, making sure that 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:32.360 we can um collect tolls efficiently and and things like that. Well, 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.320 the other piece of this is, though, if we can 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.800 get the federal government to come up with a rational 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.000 response in terms of helping us close the gaps not 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.639 just on the transit system, but the loss of city 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:50.160 and state revenues and the expenses that have been incurred 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.320 by the city and state to get us out of 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:57.240 the hole. Our tax structure is already uncompetitive, but the 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:01.440 inertia of loving New York, loving its call cultural activities, 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:06.000 its public gatherings, Broadway, all the things that are now gone. 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.800 At least for the moment, there was, there was a 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.320 stickiness to New York that kept us all here paying 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.960 high taxes, putting up with the longest commute in the country. 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:21.000 That that is threatened right now, and to the extent 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:27.479 our local government solution is to raise taxes more. That's 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.639 going to actually have the exact opposite effect, will end 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:33.840 up further gutting the city. We've got to figure out 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:36.440 how to come together with plans Number one. We should 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.879 be fighting together to make sure that Washington comes through 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.080 with at least half a trillion dollars for cities and 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.320 states across the country, and then make sure that that 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.440 money is allocated on the basis of the harm done, 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.280 the injury done. It doesn't bother you that we're just 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.600 ladling on more debt for the federal government. Well, since 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.680 these cities are our city is a response sable for 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.600 a big chunk of the federal economy. That and we 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.080 send twenty one billion dollars more in taxes to the 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.280 federal government than we get back every year up to now. 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.639 Their vested interest is in making sure that our cities 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.119 are functional, that we can keep the police going to 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.720 great point. I don't want to say as goes New York, 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:23.919 so goes the country, but it's true. It's true in 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.600 that giver taker thing. I mean, you sit there and 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.520 see you want to say that, McConnell. You want to say, Hey, Kentucky, 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.120 you guys just live off of all the money you make. 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.280 Absolutely so Cole and you guys just live off of 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:36.960 all the money that you collect. Him of it, and 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.919 we'll keep all of our money. I'll give you another number. 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.000 In the two and a half trillion that's been allocated 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:48.120 so far under the Federal Cares Act, new York got 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:54.119 five hundred dollars per COVID case. Montana, which had a 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:58.080 total of four hundred and fifty seven cases, received two 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:03.760 point seven million per case. That's how the politics have worked. 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.920 And when New York was doing great as an economy, 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.680 that was okay, we subsidized the rest of the country. 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.280 That situation is reversed. We are the hardest hit city 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:20.159 in the world. We're twenty percent of the deaths in 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.880 this country. We're in our city. We have to reverse 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.880 that conversation and make our case is four more years 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.399