Amy's Robot

NYC is really, really big

[Time's visualization of US population density]

Most of us who live in New York probably only experience a few small bits of the city in our daily lives--our home neighborhood, work, favorite bar, Trader Joe's. It can be easy to forget how absolutely enormous this city really is, and how impressive it is that this whole operation functions as well as it does (notable exceptions: finding affordable housing, transit strikes, Ludlow St on Saturday nights, walking through Rockefeller Center anytime between now and New Year's Day.)

Last night at an event held by Robin Hood, Mayor Bloomberg threw out a few statistics that reminded me of the giganticness of our city:

• The projected increase in New York's population over the next 10 years will be larger than the population of Pittsburgh (pop. 335,000)
• The number of students in the NYC public school system (1.1 million) is more than the population of Detroit (887,000)
• The number of people that will live in the new affordable housing units slated to be built is more than the population of Atlanta (471,000).
• NYC's annual budget ($53 billion in 2007) is bigger than every US state budget except for New York, California, and Texas.

Plus, over 300,000 people work for the city.

Then when I think about how most of us all take showers at about the same time as everybody else every morning, my head really starts to spin.

categories: Economics, NYC
posted by amy at 10:49 AM | #