re: #112 Decatur Deb

It may make sense to have an advanced auto incubator center - combining incentives for tech/net companies and the lower costs for the downtown area to bring back high paying jobs and stabilize the tax base.

But the state has done an awful job with redevelopment considering what’s happened in places like Pontiac and Flint. Industrial towns that haven’t recovered from the loss of the manufacturing lines there.

Thing is, there were more than a few people who wrote off NYC as ungovernable - that the Bronx would burn - from shore to shore, and that the City itself would go belly up.

They had been contemplating bankruptcy before the Governor and Mayor came up with a stabilization plan, and within a few years, the ungovernable not only became governable, but the historic high crime rates were replaced with unimaginably low crime rates, Times Square was turned from a peep show haven to the crossroads of the world with global titans of business clamoring for space in the gleaming new skyscrapers that now tower over the most expensive real estate in the US.

Having the right people at the right time helped - whether it was Ed Koch, Rudy, or Bloomberg, as well as their NYPD commissioners who helped implement community policy and compustat, and other efforts to make people feel safer to live and work in the City. Rezoning opened up new parts of the city for development on the fringes - Williamsburg, Dumbo, parts of Manhattan, the Bronx, and all the other spots in the city that are now up and coming because of their relative low cost for real estate compared to other parts of the city.