New York City (officially the City of New York) is the most populous city in the United States of America and one of the major global cities of the world. The city's business, financial and trading organizations play a significant role in the economy of the nation and in the world, as a result, the city has the largest regional economy in the country.[1] The city is also one of the world's most important cultural centers and is the home of the United Nations.
The city is divided up into five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island) and has a population of 8.1 million within a land area of 321 square miles (830 km²),[2] making it the most densely populated city in North America. With a population of 18.7 million, the New York metropolitan area is one of the largest urban areas in the world.[3] The city is also the center of the so-called BosWash megalopolis, an urbanized region containing 45 million people and approximately 16 percent of the population of the United States.
New York City has been a center of the world's financial system since World War II and home to many of the world's most influential stock markets and financial institutions. In addition, it is the birthplace of many American cultural movements, including the Harlem Renaissance in literature and visual art, abstract expressionism in painting, and hip hop in music. The city's cultural vitality has been fueled by immigration since its founding by Dutch settlers in 1623. In 2005, 36.6% of the city's population was foreign born.[4] New York City is also notable for having the lowest crime rate[5] and the highest tax burden[6] among the ten largest American cities.
GeographyNew York City is located on the coast of the Northeastern United States at the mouth of the Hudson River in southeastern New York state. The city's geography is characterized by its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean in a naturally sheltered harbor. This position helped the city grow in significance as a trading city. Much of New York is built on the three islands of Manhattan, Staten Island, and western Long Island, making land scarce and driving the city's high population density. Environmental issues are chiefly concerned with managing this density, which is also a factor in making New York among the most energy efficient and least automobile-dependent cities in the United States.
The Hudson River flows from the Hudson Valley into New York Bay, becoming a tidal estuary that separates the city from New Jersey. The East River, actually a tidal strait, flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River, another tidal strait between the East and Hudson Rivers, separates Manhattan from the Bronx.
The city's land has been altered considerably by human intervention, with substantial land reclamation along the waterfronts since Dutch colonial times. Reclamation is most notable in Lower Manhattan with modern developments like Battery Park City. Much of the natural variations in topography have been evened out, particularly in Manhattan.[9]
The city's total land area is 303 square miles (785.5 km²). The highest point in the city is Todt Hill on Staten Island, which at 409.8 feet (124.9 m) above sea level is the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine. The summit of the ridge is largely covered in woodlands as part of the Staten Island Greenbelt.
ClimateAlthough located at a slightly more southern latitude than the Italian capital city of Rome, New York has a humid continental climate resulting from prevailing wind patterns that bring cool air from the interior of the North American continent. New York winters are typically cold with moderate snowfall averaging a total of about two feet (around 62 cm) annually. The Atlantic Ocean helps keep temperatures warmer in the city than in the interior Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and has on average a 220-day frost-free period between seasonal freezes. However, there has never been a winter since record keeping began in 1869 in which enough snow to cover the ground did not fall at least once. April, May, and November are usually the wettest months. Spring and fall in New York City are mild while summer is very warm and humid.
New York City's climate patterns are affected by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of hurricanes and coastal storms in the region.
EnvironmentNew York's population density has environmental benefits and dangers. It facilitates the highest mass transit use in the United States, but also concentrates pollution. Although gasoline consumption in the city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s,[10] New York City has some of the dirtiest air in the United States. Pollution varies greatly from borough to borough, and residents of Manhattan face the highest risk in the country of developing cancer from chemicals in the air.[11]
Recently, the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. The city government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in city offices and public housing.[12] New York has the largest clean-air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis.[13] The city is also a leader in energy-efficient 'green' office buildings, such as Hearst Tower and 7 World Trade Center.[14] The average New Yorker consumes less than half of the electricity of someone who lives in San Francisco and nearly one-quarter the electricity consumed by someone who lives in Dallas.[15]
The city is supplied with water by the vast Catskill Mountains watershed, one of the largest protected wilderness areas in the United States. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration process, New York City drinking water that originates from this reservoir does not require purification by water treatment plants, and under normal conditions, only chlorination is necessary to ensure its purity at the tap.[16][17]
Cityscape ArchitectureThe building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper, a pioneering urban form that saw city building shift from the low-scale European tradition to the vertical rise of business districts. Surrounded mostly by water, New York's residential density and extremely high real estate values in commercial districts saw the city amass the largest collection of individual, free-standing office and residential towers in the world.[18][19]
New York actually has three separately recognizable skylines: Midtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, and Downtown Brooklyn. The city has architecturally important buildings in a variety of styles, including French Second Empire (the Kings County Savings Bank Building), gothic revival (the Woolworth Building), Art Deco (the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building), international style (the Seagram Building and Lever House), and post-modern (the AT&T Building). The Condé Nast Building is an important example of green design in American skyscrapers.[14]
The historic residential parts of the city have a distinctive character defined by the elegant brownstone rowhouses and apartment buildings which were built during the city's rapid expansion from 1870–1930. Stone and brick became the city's building materials of choice after the construction of wood-frame houses was limited in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1835. Unlike Paris, which for centuries was built from its own limestone bedrock, New York has always drawn its building stone from a far-flung network of quarries and its stone buildings have a variety of textures and hues.[20]
BoroughsNew York City is comprised of five boroughs, an unusual form of government used to administer the five constituent counties that make up the city. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, many with a definable history and character all their own. If the boroughs were each independent cities, four of the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx) would be among the ten most populous cities in the United States.
Writer Tom Wolfe said of New York that 'Culture just seems to be in the air, like part of the weather.' Many major American cultural movements began in the city. The Harlem Renaissance established the African-American literary canon in the United States. The city was the epicenter of jazz in the 1940s, abstract expressionism in the 1950s, and the birthplace of hip hop in the 1970s. Punk rock developed in the 1970s and 1980s, and the city has also been a flourishing scene for Jewish American literature.
Wealthy industrialists in the 19th century built a network of major cultural institutions, such as Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that became internationally established.
Artists are drawn to the city by opportunity, as well; there are 2,000 arts and cultural non-profits and 500 art galleries of all sizes, and the city government funds the arts with a larger annual budget than the National Endowment for the Arts.[24]
The advent of electric lighting led to elaborate theatre productions, and in the 1880s New York City theaters on Broadway and along 42nd Street began showcasing a new stage form that came to be known as the Broadway musical. Strongly influenced by the city's immigrants, these productions used song in narratives that often reflected themes of hope and ambition. Today these productions are a mainstay of the New York theatre scene. The city's 39 largest theatres (with more than 500 seats) are collectively known as 'Broadway,' after the major thoroughfare that crosses the Times Square theatre district. The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, which includes Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, is the largest performing arts center in the United States. City Parks Foundation is one of the largest presenters of performing arts in the city, offering Central Park Summerstage among 1,200 free concerts, dance, and theater events across all five boroughs.
40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year.[25] Major destinations include the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Broadway productions, scores of museums from the El Museo del Barrio to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum (closed until 2008 for repairs), Washington Square Park, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage. Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.
New York City has 28,000 acres (113 km²) of parkland and 14 miles (22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States.[26] Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36 Hectare) meadow. Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair.
New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels and New York style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors licensed by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food.[27] The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.
SportsNew York is home to teams in each of the major American professional sports leagues. Baseball is the city's most closely followed sport. There have been fourteen World Series championship series between New York City teams; such matchups are called Subway Series. The city's two current Major League Baseball teams are the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, which enjoy a fierce rivalry. New York City is also home to two minor league baseball teams, the Brooklyn Cyclones and Staten Island Yankees.
The city is represented in the National Football League by the New York Giants and New York Jets, who share Giants Stadium outside the city limits in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and in the National Hockey League by the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders. The National Hockey League is headquartered in Manhattan.
New York City has a rich basketball history. The first national college-level basketball championship, the National Invitation Tournament, was held in New York in 1938 and remains in the city. Rucker Park in Harlem is a celebrated court where many professional athletes play in the summer league. The city's National Basketball Association team is the New York Knicks.
As a global city, New York supports many events outside the big four American sports, including the U.S. Tennis Open, the New York City Marathon and the Millrose Games of track and field held at Madison Square Garden. Red Bull New York, formerly known as the MetroStars, is a professional soccer club based in New Jersey that participates in Major League Soccer. Many sports are associated with New York's immigrant communities; stickball, a street version of baseball, was popularized by youths in working class Italian and Irish neighborhoods in the 1930s. In recent years several amateur cricket leagues have emerged with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia and the Caribbean.
MediaNew York is a major global center for the television, advertising, music, newspaper and book publishing industries and is also the largest media market in the United States. Some of the city's media conglomerates include Time Warner, the News Corporation, the Hearst Corporation, and Viacom. Six of the world's top ten global advertising agencies are headquartered in New York. Three of the 'Big Four' record labels are also based in the city. One-third of all independent films in the world are produced in New York. More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city. The book-publishing industry employs about 13,000 people.[29]
Two of the three national daily newspapers in the United States are New York papers, The Wall Street Journal (circulation 2.1 million) and The New York Times (circulation 1.1 million). Other major newspapers in the city include The New York Daily News (circulation 730,000) and The New York Post (circulation 650,000), founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. The city also has a major ethnic press, with newspapers published in more than twenty languages. El Diario La Prensa (circulation 265,000) is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.[30] The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African-American newspaper.
The television industry developed in New York and is a major employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, are all headquartered in New York. Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including MTV, BET, Fox News, HBO, and Comedy Central. In 2005 there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.[31]
New York is also a center for non-commercial media. Public access television began in the city in 1968. WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary provider of national PBS programming. WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.[32] The City of New York runs NYC-TV that broadcasts several original Emmy Award-winning shows covering music, culture and vast ethnicities in city neighborhoods. CUNY TV is the City University of New York's 24/7 educational cable channel providing educational, cultural and multi-lingual programming.
EconomyNew York City is a global hub of international business and commerce and it is one of four 'command centers' for the world economy (along with London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo).[33] The city is a major center for finance, insurance, real estate, media and the arts in the United States. Other important sectors include the city's television and film industry, second largest in the country after Hollywood; medical research and technology; non-profit institutions and universities; and fashion. Real estate is a major force in the city's economy. The total value of all New York City property was $802.4 billion in 2006.[34] The Time Warner Center is the property with the highest-listed market value in the city, at $1.1 billion in 2006.
The New York metropolitan area had an estimated gross metropolitan product of $901.3 billion in 2004, the largest in the United States. The city's economy accounts for the majority of the economic activity in the states of New Jersey and New York.[35] In 2006 the average weekly wage in Manhattan was $1,453, the highest among the 325 largest counties in the United States. The national average was $784.[36] Wages in Manhattan were also the fastest growing among the nation's 10 largest counties.[36]
The city's stock exchanges are among the most important in the world. The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest stock exchange by dollar volume, while the NASDAQ is the world's largest by number of listings. Many major corporations have headquarters in New York; it has more Fortune 500 companies than any other city.[37] New York is also unique among American cities for its large number of foreign corporations. 1 out of 10 private sector jobs in the city is with a foreign company.[38]
Creative industries, like new media, advertising, design and architecture account for a growing share of employment. High-tech industries like software development, game design, and Internet services are also growing; because of its position at the terminus of the transatlantic fiber optic trunk line New York City is the leading Internet gateway in the United States.[39]
Manufacturing accounts for a large but declining share of employment. Garments, chemicals, metal products, processed foods, and furniture are some of the principal products.[40] The food-processing industry is the most stable major manufacturing sector in the city.[41] Food making is a $5 billion industry that employs more than 19,000 residents, many of them immigrants who speak little English. Chocolate is New York City's No. 1 specialty-food export, with $234 million worth of exports each year.[41]
Demographics
New York is the largest city in the United States, with a population more than double the next largest city, Los Angeles. The estimated 2005 population of New York City is 8,213,839 (up from 7.3 million in 1990).[21] This amounts to about 40% of New York State's population and a similar percentage of the metropolitan regional population. Over the last decade the city has been growing rapidly. Demographers estimate New York's population will reach 9.4 million by 2025.[42]
New York's two key demographic features are its density and diversity. The city has an extremely high population density of 26,403 people per square mile (10,194.2/km²), about 10,000 more people per square mile than the next densest large American city, San Francisco.[43] Manhattan's population density is 66,940.1 people per square mile (25,845.7/km²).[44]
New York City is exceptionally diverse. Throughout its history the city has been a major point of entry for immigrants; the term 'melting pot' was first coined to describe densely populated immigrant neighborhoods on the Lower East Side, and according to some estimates, as many as 1 out of 4 Americans trace their ancestry roots back to New York City. In 2000, 36% of the city's population was foreign-born. Among American cities, this proportion was higher only in Los Angeles and Miami.[44] While the immigrant communities in those cities are dominated by a few nationalities, in New York no single country or region of origin dominates. The eight largest countries of origin are the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Russia, Italy, Poland, India and Romania.
The city and its metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. It is also home to nearly a quarter of the nation's Indian-Americans, and the largest African American community of any city in the country. Manhattan's Chinatown is the largest Chinese enclave in the Western Hemisphere. Among Latino New Yorkers Puerto Ricans have long been the city's largest ethnic group, but that has begun to change with new immigration from other Latin American nations. There is also a sizeable Filipino community in Brooklyn. Another historically significant ethnic group in the city are Italians, particularly southern Italians who emigrated in large numbers from Sicily and Naples in the early twentieth century. The Irish also have a notable presence; a 2006 genetic survey by Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland found that one in 50 New Yorkers of European origin carry a distinctive genetic signature on their Y chromosomes inherited from Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the fifth century A.D.[45]
GovernmentSince its consolidation in 1898, New York City has been a metropolitan municipality with a 'strong' mayor-council form of government. The government of New York is more centralized than that of most other U.S. cities. In New York City, the central government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply, and welfare services.
The mayor and councillors are elected to four-year terms. The New York City Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 Council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries. The mayor and councilors are limited to two four-year terms.
The Democratic Party holds the majority of public offices. 66% of registered voters in the city are Democrats.[46] Party platforms center on affordable housing, education and economic development. Labor politics are important in the city. New York is the most important source of political fundraising in the United States. Four of the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The top zip code, 10021 on the Upper East Side, generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John Kerry.[47]
The city has a strong imbalance of payments with the national and state governments. New York City receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the federal government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). The city also sends an additional $11 billion more each year to the state of New York than it receives back.[48]
The mayor is Michael Bloomberg, a former Democrat elected as a Republican in 2001 and re-elected in 2005 with 59% of the vote.[49] He is known for taking control of the city's education system from the state, rezoning and economic development, sound fiscal management, and aggressive public health policy. In his second term he has made school reform, poverty reduction, and strict gun control central priorities of his administration.
As the host of the United Nations, New York City is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 122 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulate offices.[50]
CrimeCrime in New York City is the lowest among the 25 largest cities in the United States.[51] The city has seen a continuous trend of decreasing crime since 1991. Violent crime has dropped 75% since then. Neighborhoods that were once considered dangerous are now much safer. The murder rate in 2005 was at its lowest level since 1963. Overall, New York City had a rate of 2,802 crimes per 100,000 people in 2004, compared with 8,960 in Dallas; 7,904 in Detroit; 7,402 in Phoenix; 7,347 in San Antonio; 7,195 in Houston; 5,471 in Philadelphia; 4,376 in Los Angeles; and 4,103 in San Diego.[52]
EducationThe city's public school system, managed by the New York City Department of Education, is the largest in the United States. Over one million students are taught in more than 1,200 separate primary and secondary schools. New York is also home to many major libraries, universities, and research centers.
There are also about 1,000 additional privately run secular and religious schools in New York. These include some of the most prestigious private schools in the United States. About 30,000 city students attend private schools in New York, compared with about 1.1 million in the public system.
Much of the scientific research in the city is done in medicine and the life sciences. New York has the most post-graduate life sciences degrees awarded annually in the United States, 40,000 licensed physicians, and 127 Nobel laureates with roots in local institutions. The city receives the second-highest amount of annual funding from the National Institutes of Health among all U.S. cities.[53] Major biomedical research institutions include Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University.
There are 594,000 university students in New York City, the highest number of any city in the United States.[54] The City University of New York, the nation's third-largest public university system, provides post-secondary higher education in all five boroughs. There are also many private universities, including Columbia University, a prestigious Ivy League university established in 1754 and the oldest educational institution in the state, and New York University, the largest private, non-profit university in the United States.
The New York Public Library is one of the largest public library systems in the country. Its Library for the Humanities research center has 39 million items in its collection, among them the first five folios of Shakespeare's plays, ancient Torah scrolls, and Alexander Hamilton's handwritten draft of the United States Constitution.
TransportationNew York City is home to the most complex and extensive transportation network in the United States, with more than 12,000 iconic yellow cabs,[55] 120,000 daily cyclists,[56] subway, bus and railroad systems, immense airports, landmark bridges and tunnels, ferry service and even an aerial commuter tramway. While nearly 90% of Americans drive to their jobs, only about 30% of New Yorkers do; about 1 in 3 users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York and its suburbs.[57][58] Data from the 2000 U.S. Census reveals that New York City is the only major city in the United States where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75%; nationally, the rate is 8%).[44][58] New York's high rate of public transit use and its pedestrian-friendly character makes it one of the most energy-efficient cities in the country. A study by the environmental organization SustainLane found New York to be the city in the United States best able to endure an oil crisis with an extended gasoline price shock in the range of US$3 to US$8 per gallon.[59]
The New York City Subway is the largest subway system in the world when measured by track mileage (656 miles or 1,056 km of mainline track) and the world's fourth largest when measured by annual ridership (1.449 billion passenger trips in 2005).[60] New York City's public bus fleet and vast commuter rail network are the largest in North America. The rail network, which connects the suburbs in the tri-state region to the city, has more than 250 stations and 20 rail lines.[61] The commuter rail system converges at the two busiest rail stations in the United States, both in Manhattan, Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, the latter also served by long-distance Amtrak trains.[62] Long-haul buses depart from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the nation's busiest bus station.[63] Three major airports serve New York City and its surrounding suburbs: John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and LaGuardia Airport (LGA), both in Queens, and Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in nearby Newark, New Jersey. About 100 million travelers used these New York–area airports in 2005 as the metropolitan region surpassed Chicago to become the busiest air gateway in the nation.[64] Rail service is now available to Kennedy Airport via AirTrain JFK. The service connects with the Long Island Rail Road and the city subway system at Jamaica and with the subway also at Howard Beach; it runs down the median divider of the Van Wyck Expressway for much of its length.
New York City has ten sister cities.[65] The year each relationship was formed is shown in parentheses.
Notes
