New Yorkers should expect more from our streets

In July 2021, a flight scheduling mix-up gave me an unexpected evening in Paris. It was just a few weeks after the EU had re-opened to Americans. I hadn’t been to Paris in several years, and I was shocked at how its streetscape had transformed: bike lanes and pedestrian plazas everywhere, surprisingly few cars on the road. The pace of change has only continued to accelerate over the past few years as Paris moves into its future.

As a New Yorker of 15 years, I keep asking: What do they have that we don’t?

The French are better known for their bureaucracy than their speed, yet the pace of change in their built environment is extraordinary. And it's not just Paris. Cities across the U.S. and around the world have embraced new approaches to become better places to live, work and visit.

While New York leads the world in many ways, I know that it can be an even better place to live, that our residents can be healthier, that we can tackle climate and carbon challenges faster.

Walkable, sustainable streets and sidewalks aren't a nice-to-have—they're essential. As the founder of Justworks, a tech company employing over 1,000 people in the city, I've seen this firsthand. Our employees can choose where they want to live, and many have chosen New York because of its energy and vitality.

Frankly, as the streetscape has deteriorated, some have started to wonder if New York is still worth it. Industries like tech, higher education, and tourism are tremendous contributors to our economy and tax base, and each involves people "choosing" New York. We can't take them for granted.

This is part of what led me to recently become Tech:NYC's urbanism fellow. Like me, they are thinking deeply about what it will take to ensure that tech companies want to continue to build here—which, to a large degree, is driven by their ability to hire talented people who want to live and work here. (Tech employees, more than others, have been leaving the city while keeping their jobs.)

I am obsessed with this challenge. I can see so clearly how New York could adopt strategies from other cities while creating some of its own to simply become a better place to live. Nearly everyone I talk to here in the city can see it too. Humanity faces many intractable problems, but delivering a city that is safe and clean and easy to get around is not one of them.

If it's so easy, why aren't we doing this? New York has talent and resources that are the envy of the world.

There's a mandate for a better streetscape, too: Quality-of-life matters for all New Yorkers, even as other urgent issues such as housing affordability and public safety dominate the conversation. Whether someone drives, bikes, or takes the subway or bus, they're a pedestrian first, and their first and last steps of the day are taken on our streets and sidewalks.

Despite the talent, resources and mandate, we don't have the leadership today. We haven't had it for some time. New York's streetscape was evolving fast with leaders like Mike Bloomberg, Dan Doctoroff and Janette Sadik-Khan. They were willing to take risks and try new things. These days, despite best efforts by many, it feels as if we're going backward.

Leadership means having a vision for a better city and bringing people along. It means convincing people that change can be good in the long term, even if it's difficult in the moment. Every bold project that New York has ever undertaken—the icons that define our city—has required determined leadership and thoughtful tradeoffs.

New Yorkers should expect livable, sustainable streets from a government that delivers. They should expect creativity, innovation and experimentation. It's a two-way street, though: New Yorkers should expect to do their part, too. They should be open to change, open to experimentation, and open to respectfully sharing their streets and sidewalks with their eight million fellow New Yorkers.

As we select our next mayor in the coming months, we must help them understand that they have a mandate to deliver walkable, sustainable streets to all New Yorkers. We must demand that they lead us in transforming New York into the livable, sustainable city that can serve as a role model for the next part of the 21st century.