Cutting-edge technology can revolutionize your pipeline, making it more efficient. However, it comes with risks that can impact your bottom line.
New York City must craft a strategy to attract and keep knowledge workers, especially after Covid-19 almost halted global migration. That starts with the right message and incentives for startups.
Investing in the Future
New York City is home to one of the world’s most important technology sectors. The sector is worth more than $189 billion and it has grown tremendously over the last decade. The city has a strong mix of big established companies and more than 25,000 tech startups, and it is also a global leader in many key industry verticals. NYCEDC is dedicated to continuing to cultivate and grow this critical ecosystem by attracting talent, leveraging assets, and developing opportunities for businesses of all sizes.
The city’s next mayor must take a holistic approach to growing the cutting-edge tech industry in NYC. He or she will need to think beyond the Amazon HQ2 debacle and devise an ambitious strategy for attracting the best and brightest people in what is now a highly competitive marketplace for top tech talent. The city’s next mayor will also need to work with Washington on a modernization of immigration laws that ensures that New York City remains the global hub for innovation and talent that it has been for decades.
A robust innovation economy requires that the city offer a robust array of amenities and supports for knowledge workers. This is why the city must continue to invest in its public schools and provide funding for a wide range of community organizations that support innovation and creativity. It must also offer the right incentives to attract the types of startup firms that will drive future innovations. The city should create more experimental districts in areas such as autonomous vehicles and transportation; rocketry and space; next-generation semiconductors, manufacturing, and quantum computing; and agriculture and food tech.
In addition, the next mayor must continue to expand the city’s $500 million commitment to LifeSci NYC and seek opportunities to establish itself as a global leader in life sciences and health care technology. The city is already well-positioned to do so, as it has one of the world’s best medical schools, Rockefeller University; the country’s most expansive hospital system, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical College; and its proximity to other top biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Creating More Experimental Districts
The next mayor must not only invest in new technologies, but also create more experimental districts where these companies can thrive. These will require investment in rezoning and incentives for real-estate development. But they can also make the city a leader in areas as diverse as autonomous vehicles and transportation; rocketry and space; advanced manufacturing and next-generation semiconductors; and agriculture and food technology.
Creating these experimental districts can be challenging. In addition to the challenges of zoning and real estate, they often pit new tech companies against older industries and local residents. In New York, a booming innovation district called Industry City in Sunset Park has ended the leases of garment factories that employed members of the Chinese and Latino communities nearby, transformed their buildings into a “innovation ecosystem” of workshops, design studios, artisanal food manufacturers, and tech and creative offices, and pushed the companies out of town (Hum 2017).
Other areas have experienced similar conflicts. In Brooklyn, a new development called Greenpoint Gateway has brought in a few big technology firms, but it also is displacing small businesses and residents. The city government has invested in the area, but private developers have been driving the expansion. In some cases, the city has backed rezoning changes that shift industrial uses to offices and commercial spaces.
Despite these problems, the new mayor must continue to foster a vibrant tech economy. In particular, he or she must work with Washington to modernize immigration laws so that New York and other cities remain one of the world’s top destinations for tech talent. Countries such as Estonia and Singapore are experimenting with digital entrepreneurship visas and remote work permits to attract talented people, and New York must not fall behind.
The next mayor must ensure that the city has neighborhoods that offer robust amenities for knowledge workers throughout the day, such as great coffee shops and alluring restaurants. It will be important to address housing costs as well, but the most pressing challenge is to keep the city a magnet for the best and brightest tech talent.
Creating More Amenities for Knowledge Workers
NYC’s tech companies are vital economic generators, creating well-paying jobs, and filling municipal coffers with tax revenue. In the long run, helping this industry thrive is critical to the city’s future success.
To do that, the next mayor must focus on three things. First, he must transform the way local government thinks about talent in technology. The next mayor must also identify three to five growth verticals where deeper concentration could jump-start the industry’s growth. Then, he must offer the right messaging and incentives to attract knowledge workers and entrepreneurs to those sectors.
Moreover, the next mayor must ensure that NYC continues to be attractive to new businesses in emerging technologies by improving its existing infrastructure and building new ones. This includes ensuring that the city’s public transit system is the most advanced and safe in the world.
The city must also create neighborhoods that provide the robust amenities that knowledge workers demand. This means providing great coffee shops, alluring restaurants, vibrant parks, and more. It also requires investing in rezoning and incentives for real-estate development. This can be difficult in a city like New York, where battles over density and quality of life often drag on for years.
As demographic trends continue to shift, this challenge will grow. Knowledge workers will become more selective about where they live and work. Millennials, who make up the majority of this group, tend to prefer urban lifestyles and are more likely to stay in their jobs. By 2029, these younger workers will account for 40 percent of the nation’s work force and have an outsized influence on site selection and relocation.
Fortunately, the next mayor has ample opportunities to invest in urban amenities that will appeal to knowledge workers. From Staten Island and Far Rockaway to Bayside and Coney Island, strategic investments in quality of life, amenities, and zoning can yield economically vibrant neighborhoods that would be attractive to knowledge workers, as well as new families seeking space and a backyard.
The city’s leading tech companies have built global brands that are known for their innovation and cutting-edge products. The likes of Peloton, a local consumer-exercise hardware firm that debuted on the stock market in late 2019 with an $8 billion valuation, and Datadog, a cloud-monitoring platform that launched in early 2020 at a $20 billion valuation, are just two examples.
Investing in Emerging Critical Technologies
The city needs to build a strategic framework to invest in cutting-edge technologies that are poised to disrupt the global economy. For starters, the next mayor must rethink the way that local government thinks about talent in tech. This includes transforming how the city attracts, supports, and retains the workers who generate the incomes that pay for the city’s extensive public services. It also means embracing the notion that the city can no longer restrict its tech workforce to a few convenient hot spots. Rather, the next mayor must recognize that New York City is home to a wide variety of tech workers—from residents in neighborhoods and so-called transit deserts to commuters based in suburban offices and downtown hubs.
The 2021 mayoral race provides a unique opportunity to strengthen the city’s tech-driven innovation ecosystem. The next mayor should take care not to squander the industry’s potential, though. For example, the Amazon HQ2 imbroglio left a deep stain on the city’s reputation as a magnet for leading technology companies.
It’s crucial to encourage the growth of emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence (A.I), the Internet of Things, and cloud computing. These technologies are growing rapidly, and their adoption is accelerating at a faster pace than many of the world’s major industries.
Moreover, these technologies are highly interconnected, and they can drive new opportunities across sectors. For example, A.I is increasingly being used in areas such as customer service, where it can be deployed to help improve the efficiency of call centers and transform the user experience.
Finally, these technologies can help address key infrastructure challenges that impact global economic competitiveness. For instance, A.I can be used to make data more accessible and usable, which can enable decision-makers to gain new insights and optimize their operations.
With an emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity, NYC has attracted a thriving tech community. The city is home to several incubators and accelerators, including Techstars NYC, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and NYC Seed. In addition, networking opportunities are available through groups such as Women Who Code and Startup Grind NYC. Additionally, the MTA is piloting a transit tech lab with nine start-ups to improve accessibility and revenue generation for metropolitan area transit agencies.
