Remarks By Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
Keynote Address at the World Summit of Mayors
Old Parliament Building, Athens, Greece
September 20th, 2002

As many of you know, I'm a new mayor…still learning on the job…but I've already come to appreciate what mayor's can do.

It's really the most hands-on and influential post in government. Small town or big city, if we decide something in the afternoon, it's on the streets the next morning.

No position in public service has such a direct linkage between cause and effect. Good results or bad, with mayors, you know who's responsible.

In New York, the Mayor's decisions affect eight million people! There's no more challenging or satisfying job in the world than having the potential to improve so many lives in such tangible and immediate ways.

Mayors have the opportunity-- and the responsibility. High risk, yes-but no job with a higher reward.

It's also a pleasure to be in Athens-the "divine Athens" of the ancient poets--the historic birthplace of democracy.

Here, ancient glory coexists with the sights and sounds of a modern capital.

One of the great challenges cities face is preserving their history and heritage…the soul of the place, as it were. At the same time, they must construct the infrastructure a modern city requires, and deliver the services today's public demands.

Athens' preparation for the 2004 summer Olympics shows how that challenge can be met.

By hosting the games, Athens is not only recapturing its rightful and historic Olympic glory. It is also making massive enhancements to its infrastructure, and planning to present itself to the world as a great city of the future.

When a city prepares for the Olympics, it must focus all of its efforts and resources on the success of those two weeks of international games. But the new housing, transportation improvements and other world-class facilities that are constructed will last for a century.

Yesterday, I toured the facilities being developed for the 2004 games, and I have to say, I was very impressed.

As you may know, I am working to bring the 2012 summer Olympics to New York- which made that tour valuable in a very direct way. In New York, we also plan to use the Olympics to build for the decades that will follow the closing ceremony.

New York is the world's most international city, and I can think of no city-save the birthplace of the modern Olympics- that is better suited to host the world games. Hopefully, we will have that opportunity.

Athens has given the world an incomparable legacy in a tremendous range of endeavors-not just in athletic competition, but also theater, sculpture, science, philosophy and political thought.

An important part of that legacy is the very concept of the city, an urban template that remains vital to this day: A self-governing "polis," nurturing civic pride and, in the words of Pericles, the leader of Athens during its golden age, "honoring every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason, but on grounds of excellence alone."

Pericles was not noted for being modest about proclaiming the virtues of his city. In that respect, he set the model for the mayor since, right down to me today.

More than twenty-five hundred years after Pericles sang the praises of Athens, the great cities of the world-the cities that you serve and represent at this conference-continue to follow the trail that Athens blazed.

Our cities remain the world's great reservoirs of talent and wellsprings of creativity. And in the 21st century, such talent and creativity will-- more than ever- be the hallmarks of the most successful cities in the world.

At a time of enormous and fast-paced change, the cities that thrive will be those who reinvent and renew themselves. Human talent will be the key to that process.

This is not a new story; great cities have always placed a premium on having the best and brightest as citizens.

In renaissance Italy, the rulers of Florence and Milan vied for the talents of Leonardo da Vinci, because their leaders recognized the value of having someone as brilliant and productive as Leonardo working in and for their city-states.

Today, the world's cities are still in competition with one another, not simply for the single exceptional genius like Leonardo, but for all of the world's best and brightest. Because they are the ones who supply the talent an information age, global economy requires.

New York city provides an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Built around one of the world's great natural harbors, New York was once the leading industrial city of the United States. Even as recently as fifty years ago, more than a million people worked in New York City's thousands of manufacturing plants.

That number has now dwindled to fewer than a quarter-million. Yet over the last half-century, the focus of New York's economy has successfully shifted from manufacturing to other sectors.

Some of our longtime signature industries, such as financial services and entertainment, have been reinvented to take advantage of new forms of electronic production and distribution.

As the founder of Bloomberg LP, a worldwide financial information company, I witnessed and contributed to this transformation. Our success, like that of many of the firms in New York's new economy, resulted from the entrepreneurial spirit and creative talent of people who want to live and work in New York City… and nowhere else. That's because of all that New York has to offer: culturally, intellectually and professionally.

For corporations and individuals, New York possesses the unique critical mass of markets, suppliers, designers and competitors that makes it the preeminent place to live and do business.

To retain such employers and such productive citizens, New York-and other great cities-must deal successfully with a number of critical issues. Let me list five:

Public safety. The greatest achievement of my predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, was proving that crime in big cities could be dramatically decreased. That was an essential pre-condition for New York's economic prosperity during the 1990s.

Under my administration crime has continued to decline and New York remains the safest large city in the United States. Maintaining that level of public safety is my top priority, because it is fundamental to New York's ongoing economic recovery.

Public education is another key area. New York loses too many of our most talented citizens who are also parents. That's because the performance of our public schools - with honorable exceptions - has not been competitive with schools in surrounding communities.

Improving education is therefore critical to New York's long-term prosperity. Not only will better schools provide us with an educated workforce; they will help us attract and retain the skilled and motivated people our economy needs.

Transportation: If you can't get there, you won't go. Just because that sounds obvious doesn't make it any less true. Being economically competitive means having modern, high-speed systems for local, regional and international movement of people and goods.

Housing: Jobs, and the tax revenues they generate, tend to move to where people live, not the reverse. That makes it imperative for cities to have an adequate supply of affordable housing for people of varying incomes and family sizes.

From new entrants to the workplace straight out of school… to those who are newly arrived in a city and ready to work their way up the economic ladder… to the most established, the most accomplished, the most productive, the wealthiest… we need housing to attract them all.

And finally, efficiency. Operating city government that is waste- and corruption-free is essential. It keeps a city economically competitive, by preventing the local tax burden from becoming oppressive.

Great modern cities, as I've suggested, are those that can reinvent themselves. New York is in the middle of a major reinvention of one of its most significant areas.

The immense destruction caused by the terrorist attack of last September 11th has presented New York with the unprecedented opportunity, to reinvent an entire section of the city: Lower Manhattan, our city's historic birthplace… the home of Wall Street and of New York's financial services industry… and the third-largest business district in the United States.

The recovery of Lower Manhattan is already well under way. Many major employers have already moved back and have made long-term commitments to staying. More than ninety per cent of the housing in Lower Manhattan is occupied. And billions of dollars worth of new commercial space and housing are planned.

The federal, state, and local governments have forged a genuine partnership to rebuild our essential infrastructure. We are creating a world-class, 21st century transportation center for Lower Manhattan.

The rebuilding of Lower Manhattan also involves creating a memorial at the World Trade Center. It will honor the people from 92 nations who perished in that terrorist attack.

That memorial must speak the language of loss, and of healing… the language of freedom, and of resistance to terror… to every visitor, from every nation.

Later today, I will meet Greek Prime Minister Costas Simtis, and offer my congratulations to him on his government's recent successes against terrorism.

Terrorism is a worldwide menace. As mayor's of the world's cities, all of us face the duty to combat terrorism, to support one another's efforts in this struggle, and to defend the freedom that makes progress toward a better, more prosperous world possible for the citizens of all our cities.

I began my remarks with a reference to Pericles. And it's fitting to close with his words as well. This is how he described the foundation of democracy:

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is a brave heart."

By showing the bravery to defend our freedoms, we will ensure a better world for all our citizens.