New York City, New York According to the 2000 census, New York City had a population of 8,008,278, an increase of 685,714, or 9.4 percent, since the 1990 census. Contributing greatly to this increase was international immigration. The recession and the lingering effects of September 11, 2001, continue to limit New York City’s economic recovery. Total nonagricultural employment declined by 91,600 jobs, or 2.5 percent, during the 12-month period ending December 2002. Job losses were concentrated in the service-producing sectors of the local economy; employment in securities and commodity brokerage firms employment fell by more than 10 percent during the year. The unemployment rate increased from 6.1 percent in 2001 to 7.2 percent in 2002. Federal regulators have recommended that major banks and securities firms relocate part of their operations from the Wall Street area to other sites to ensure that business operations can quickly resume in the event of future disasters. Law and financial firms have already begun establishing disaster centers or satellite operations centers outside Manhattan. In some cases they have transferred portions of their operations outside the metropolitan area. Some are concerned that as large firms decentralize financial and related support services, further erosion of the city’s financial services job base, now at 167,000, could occur. With a $5 million grant from the State, the Lower Manhattan Bioscience Project, a public-private partnership intended to draw biotechnology and other high-technology firms into Lower Manhattan, was recently launched. Initially the partnership will focus on converting approximately 300,000 square feet of empty space into suitable commercial space. Manhattan’s financial district has suffered from increasing commercial vacancy rates as a result of decades of gradual migration by financial firms away from Wall Street. Now that New York City and New York State are proposing to dramatically reinvent the area as part of rebuilding the World Trade Center site, the backers of the downtown location see it as the logical place for such a development. Total project costs are estimated to be $90 million; an expected 1,300 jobs will eventually be created. Residential building permit activity in New York City totaled 18,500 units in 2002, a 10-percent increase over 2001 levels. Multifamily activity in the city for the year totaled 17,163 units, of which more than 30 percent was in New York County, with Brooklyn accounting for 29 percent. With a weaker economy, some sectors of the rental market have shown weakness, particularly newer units in the upper rent ranges. All sectors of the sales market—single-family, condominiums, and cooperatives—showed signs of slowing during 2002. In the latter half of 2002, the number of properties for sale and number of days on the market both increased. The high end of the market has been particularly weak; however, the demand for affordable sales and rental housing in the market area remains very strong. Recently announced were plans to increase the city’s housing production 25 percent by investing more than $1 billion in building and housing preservation throughout the five boroughs. The city’s current commitments call for building or rehabilitating 38,000 homes and apartments over the next 5 years, but the new plan will add 27,000 units to that number. Of the 5,400 new units targeted to be built each year, 1,700 will be affordable to families earning less than $37,680 per year. Additional initiatives within the housing plan include enacting measures to encourage the building of residential housing on industrial land, rezoning parts of the city for residential development, and streamlining the building code and approval process.

Previous Profile	Next Profile

Home | Table of Contents | Summary | National Data
Regional Activity | Historical Data | Subscription Form