New York faces a great challenge from the globalization of markets and the revolution in communications technology. You and you advisors must determine what infrastructure changes and improvements, what taxation policies, what recreational and cultural amenities, and what governmental structure a twenty-first-century city must have to be competitive.

In the same way that the city's leaders early in the century understood the need for a massive rapid transit system, the city's leaders today must proceed with the steps necessary to make New York an efficient and productive place in a communications-driven world economy. The lack of conceptual economic thinking within city government for some three decades has caused many of New York's economic advantages to dissipate and left us behind in an increasingly competitive race.