New Yorkers Need Not Look Far For Resilience
Jane Jacobs, the great urbanist said cities “differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of these is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.”
Yet in today’s atmosphere, there’s a great deal of anxiety when we think about what the future of cities such as New York will hold. From fears of public transportation ridership never being able to rebound to cubicles making a return to office environments.
As New Yorkers, there are certain episodes that we hope never occur, but still recognize the possibilities by being the largest, most dense city in the country. For many, 9/11 was one of those instances that have cultivated that level of fear.
The COVID-19 pandemic in many ways evokes the nostalgia of that similar distress, albeit from a menacing circumstance of a much different nature.
Power of the People
In late March, Mayor De Blasio was criticized for not closing the public schools quicker than he should have.
Still, while it’s fundamental to keep our leaders in check, we should ask ourselves, is it the Mayor that is the one who decides whether we live to survive another day? Is it him that controls our mental health and self-sustenance?
In many instances, it may be so, and it would be dismissive to ignore the thousands of essential workers that are still going to work, placing themselves often in the direct line of fire of the virus. No level of clapping or lighting up of the Empire State Building can make up for what they have done and continue to do every day.
Still, when we look at the data and what experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have said, the solution is not found in the words of politicians, but through largely of our own volition; by practicing social-distancing and self-hygiene.
Thousands of deaths continue in the city, taking a toll on our economic well-being where city-dwellers are being laid off, but also to our subconscious minds affecting our mental health, which is entering a phase of anxiety that hasn’t been felt since September 11.
Hope for the City
The expectation of the future is gripping, but New York City has a history of braving storms.
In the financial ruin of the 1970s, which was characterized by the famous Daily News headline “Ford Tells New York To Drop Dead”, a subsequent economic revival was undertaken by the city during the late 1980s, up until 9/11.
Post 9/11, New York City, led by Mayor Bloomberg, grew extensively through aspirational projects, investments in parks and subways, and even a failed yet fruitful Olympic bid. Just last year, New York City remained the best place for startups and tech entrepreneurs according to a report from Adecco.
Even for DACA recipients like myself or and millions of immigrants who have averted third-world conditions, the city has given us prosperity that was unfounded in our native countries.
Critics have blamed the city’s density as a failure to respond to the outbreak, yet overlook the economic divisions that are inherent in its structure. New York City remains a tale of two cities as Mayor De Blasio described in his inaugural address, but it is Our city, a community where people can experience, be creative, conduct their day to day business, raise their families, and be the “place where things happen in real-time”.
The French newspaper Le Monde the day after 9/11 published the headline “We Are All Americans”, a recognition that New York City is a community that every individual across the world can in some way relate to and look towards as an example of recovery and rejuvenation after the worst of tragedies.
Despite being the epicenter of the virus, New York City will still remain a city where people will want to travel, and move to, where nearly 40% of the population is foreign-born, with thousands from other states “moving to the big city to make it big”.
New Yorkers’ history of resiliency is timeless, and while political leadership is certainly important, the past teaches us an important lesson; the people of this city through their diligence, faith, and talent have always adapted to situations and made it a better place than it was before.
The city will be different when we return, Orwellian to us in many logistical aspects because of our large population, but with equanimity and prudence, we will rebuild our metropolis better than when we left it.
Parveen Singh is a writer based in New York City.
