We need a big, bold, positive move that can capture the civic imagination, build optimism and draw tourists back to NYC.
We need a big, bold, positive move that can capture the civic imagination, build optimism and draw tourists back to NYC.
Invent City 2024 is a proposed micro urban World’s Fair in NYC. Invent City will be a big, bold, positive move to capture the civic imagination, build optimism and help show how Lower Manhattan could be a model for existing cities needing to evolve.
In autumn 2021, 19% of NYC’s offices are vacant. Worse, only 62-76% of workers are expected to return by the end of January, and 70% of those will be hybrid. If this is the new normal, the net result will be a lot of excess office space, more independent businesses which support offices going out of business, and lower tax receipts (real estate generates 41% of NYC tax receipts).
Pre-Covid, tourism in NYC created about 400,000 jobs, injected annually about $72bn into the NYC and generated $7bn of tax revenue. But covid brought that to a halt. While many may consider tourism annoying, it is a great low impact source of tax receipts. And while tourism is slowly returning, it still needs a sustained boost so that NYC can return to the 66mm visitors it had in 2019.
CO2 levels hit a record 419 ppm in May 2021. New York, London, Tokyo, Shanghai and other critical cities increasingly exposed to flooding and oppressive temperatures and enormous financial risk. Just this past decade, NYC experienced two very different flooding events: Sandy (tidal surge) and Ida (massive downpour). Tidal surges are doubly problematic because salt water will damage electrical infrastructure from subways to any new EV paradigm. And going forward, according to the New York City Panel on Climate Change, sea level rise in 2050 (relative to 2000 to 2004) ranges from a low of 8” to a high of 30,” and by 2100 from 15” to 75”
Lower Manhattan has already been transforming into a live, work, play community. Since 911 residential population doubled from 32,000 to 64,000. Invent City 2024 can be a catalyst to help further that effort. Sample improvements: walkable, pedestrianized streets (note Stone Street), converting disused older office buildings into a range of housing, and a new last mile transit paradigm for people and packages.
From an urban improvement perspective, covid has had positives: extensive use of QR codes in the public realm, delivery bikes/trikes instead of vans, and outdoor dining making streets more engaging and safer at night.
With 8.8 mm people, NYC has the largest local base in North America. In fact, if metro NYC with its 20mm people were a separate country, it would be the 8th largest in the world. And regionally, the northeast's 58 million people is the largest in the US. Invent City will especially target those on the Acela corridor from DC to Boston and encourage them to visit by train.
With over 800+ languages spoken in NYC, and 36% of NYC population foreign born, NYC is often called the world's second home. The United Nations is here as are many leading non governmental organizations (NGOs).
NYC, home to NBC, ABC, CBS and Bloomberg, is a world media capital, and with a major presence by Google, Facebook, twitter and others, it is also a social media titan.
NYC has excellent tourist infrastructure with over 700 hotels and a very strong tourist arm in NYC&Co.
Regionally, NYC is easily accessible from the northeast on Amtrak and MetroNorth, the Hudson Valley via MetroNorth and from the south via PATH and ferry services. Within NYC, Lower Manhattan may be the most transit accessible location in North America.
Invent City 2024 is using the world’s fair brand to capture attention and imagination of locals and also people worldwide.
That said, operationally Invent City 2024 will be lean and hyper focused. It will be an integrated series of events, exhibitions and competitions in will use existing spaces. Projected attendance is 5mm. In comparison NYC’s last fair 1n 1964/65 drew over 50mm people.
Team Invent City would welcome a chance to meet with you.
375 South End Avenue, 18N
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