Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Crain's 2016 New York City Summit

November 1, 2016

Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S189LVoFfRg

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everyone.

Henry, thank you so much for the introduction. Thank you for the wonderful investments that Delta is making in New York City. We appreciate it very much. I want to do a shout out to Delta. I have been traveling this country quite a bit in the last few weeks. There is – I don't know if any of you read about it – there is an election going on. I've travelled quite a bit. Delta has been exceptional, so I want to credit you and the great folks who work at Delta.

But I want to offer something here that I say – it's a nonpartisan statement – I want to offer something I have said in many gatherings in different states I've travelled to, particularly when I've spoken to churches. I have let people know how few days there are left in the election. This is something that unites all Americans, so I'm going to say it here – there is only one week left to this general election. Can I get a Hallelujah?

[Applause]

So, we get to look past that, and we get to look toward the future of this country, and we get to look in particular toward the future of our city. And I want to thank everyone at Crain's who had the foresight to put together this gathering. This is exactly what we should be talking about in New York City, and it's not being talked about enough.

So I want to thank Crain's – thank you to Jill, and Alair, and Greg, and everyone at Crain's for focusing the City's attention on where we're going and what that pathway to nine million people means for us.

And I want to thank all of you for being here and being a part of that discussion. This is crucial. This is where we have to decide not only our direction but the values that we will apply to this pathway. And we have to engage the larger public in this discussion. People respond very differently to policies that they feel they understand and they're a part of than to things that happen beyond their understanding. So, this is a very healthy and powerful conversation for this city, and thank you to Crain's for starting it in earnest in this manner.

I want to thank members of my administration who are here, who do such important work to prepare this city for its future. I want to thank of course our Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, our Small - you can clap for Polly, absolutely

[Applause]

Every time you drive down a street or a highway that is smoother than it was the week before, it's because Polly's team repaved it. Just think of the good people at DOT who do all that repaving and make our city better.

I want to thank our Small Business Services Commissioner, Gregg Bishop, who's doing extraordinary work training people for our economy.

[Applause]

And someone who works with so many of you, my senior advisor, Gabrielle Fialkoff, who runs all of our public-private partnerships, among other things. Thank you, Gabrielle.

[Applause]

And someone who we work with a lot and does a lot for this city, and I appreciate her partnership – the president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, thank you.

[Applause]

So, I want to do the classic approach of talking about where we are and then where we have to go.

There are always challenges in this city. Let me – I'm going to offer you some good news and some optimism but I will leaven it immediately by saying there are always challenges. There are many, many thing we're addressing.

I always say even though we've made tremendous progress in reducing crime that doesn't make it any better for those who still experience crime. There's always work to do, but we do have to take stock at the same time of the path we've travelled as a city. And, again, this is a non-partisan setting, and I can say very comfortably a lot of the progress we've made has occurred over multiple administrations, be they Democrat, Republican, or Independent. And it's occurred because of some civic consensus, and work that involved both the public sector and the private sector. But we need to take stock of where we are to determine where we're going.

So, just a couple of facts about where we are today – and, honestly, I think these are facts that people should talk about more out of pride in this city and out of a recognition that everyone's efforts together took us someplace extraordinary.

First of all, in terms of our economic reality – today, in this city, we have the highest number of jobs we've ever had in our history – over 4.3 million jobs in New York City, which correlates to the underlying reality that this conference is based on. We have the highest population in the history of this city – 8.55 million people – the highest we've ever had.

We have turned a corner out of the challenges we faced in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and we've gone much farther than I think a lot of us ever would've imagined already. And this growth has been extraordinary. Just in the last few years – I mentioned 4.3 million jobs – in the last two years over 250,000 jobs were created in this city.

And I think we have become used to our success, and that's a very good and healthy thing. But I think you could agree in many other parts of the country if we had a-quarter-million jobs created in a two year span it would be front page news for quite a number of times. Here, I think we've gotten used to that success. We don't dwell on it, but let's realize that quarter-million-plus jobs – first of all, so many people in this room are contributors to that great success, and I thank you. But second it comes from a very dedicated strategy on the part of the city to continue to diversify our economy. I give the Bloomberg administration a lot of credit for that focus. We have continued it, and we've tried to deepen it because there are some sectors in this city that continue to offer us tremendous new opportunity.

When we think about our pride in a more diverse economy, of course I'll state from the beginning, we're proud of all the traditional industries and they're crucial to this city as well, but when we think about the growth we've seen in the tech sector and film and TV, when we think about the growth we've seen in the healthcare sector, when we think about what could be in the life sciences sector – this is a recognition that one, this city has so many of the natural attributes that people are looking for in today's society, in today's economy, but, two, we in government have to keep fostering these industries and keep making the right investments, because there's a lot more growth potential where that came from, and that has been so much of our focus.

We believe that all those industries I've mentioned are far from their natural high point in this city, and there's tremendous opportunity to have not only a constantly growing economy, but a constantly more diversifying economy, and one that creates more high paying jobs proportionately than we've ever had before. And one that can reach all five boroughs – and this has been particularly true in terms of the tech sector, and the film and TV sector. You see a very devoted goal of getting in deep into each borough and you see it playing out on the ground. You see that with advanced manufacturing as well. This is an opportunity to create a much more deeply five-borough economy, and to offer opportunity to many people who haven't had it previously, and, again, to offer the kinds of jobs that families can actually live in even in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

This is all underway. This is all happening before our eyes. And, again, success has many mothers and fathers, and I thank everyone in this room who's been a part of it. It's our job in City government to deepen that success and sustain it. So the overall economic picture in terms of this city – I'm not going to go into an assessment of the national or international economy, I'm just going to say in terms of what we've seen in recent years here, what we see immediately over the horizon – there's a lot of reason to be optimistic.

At the same time, the most sacred responsibility of City government is to set the foundation not only for economic growth, but for a strong cohesive society overall through public safety. And again, think about the success this city has experienced now. It's almost been a quarter-century since CompStat was initiated by Bill Bratton, and think about the sustained success we have had in this city. It's absolutely extraordinary. I'm proud to say in the three years I've been in office, crime has continued to go down, and I give credit to Bill Bratton, and now to our extraordinary Commissioner Jimmy O'Neill, and the men and women of the NYPD and so many of their allies in neighborhoods all over the city – community people who have participated deeply as partners with the NYPD.

If you look at the pure numerical reality, we continue to drive down crime across major categories this year. We're about to do a press conference in a few hours about the crime statistics for October. We see continued success driving down shootings, driving down homicides. And what we see is the beginning of a truly different model of policing – neighborhood policing – and this is the approach that Jimmy O'Neill has been the architect of – that will forge a different kind of partnership and a deeper partnership between police and community because it's based on actually building relationships. It's based on police officers covering a much smaller area geographically and getting to know the community they serve, getting to know, not only the community leaders but everyday people and storeowners and kids on the block and changing that relationship from one that too often was one of tension to one that is about partnership and communication.

There are police officers in New York City today who regularly are giving their community members their cell phone number, their e-mail, so every day New Yorkers can tell them what they're seeing, give them the information they need to stop time before it happens, to get guns off the street.

It is no surprise as neighborhood policing is deepening as a strategy, gun seizures are going up constantly because our men and women in uniform are getting the information they need to be able to get guns off the street. So continuing that progress is prerequisite to having the kind of city we want in the future. That city of 9 million people must be a safe city to succeed. In fact, it has to constantly become safer. And we believe the building blocks are being put in place, and I want to remind you, by January, we will have 2,000 more officers on patrol, and I want to thank the City Council for agreeing to that investment and leading the way on it.

The fact is, for the first time in 15 years we've expanded the NYPD. And those 2,000 new officers will be, of course, part of keeping us safe overall, and particularly part of the fight to prevent acts of terror, but they will also be crucial to implementing a neighborhood policing strategy that bonds police and community in a new way. So that foundation for deepening our gains in public safety is strong and pre-requisite to everything we do in the future.

And then in the area that to me is the gateway not only to a strong economy but to a just society – education – so much more to do to say the least, but some real evident progress. New York City has the highest graduation rate we've ever had – over 70 percent – we have set a goal to get to an 80 percent graduation rate – four-year graduation rate of 80 percent within the next 10 years.

We have the highest – we have constant progress on test scores. We see in our schools some of the foundational changes that we need to make this an education system that can serve not only to uplift all of our children but to create a 21st-century workforce.

And one of the things I'm most adamant about is reaching our young people early. That's why I made a focus of Pre-K For All. And I want to give you a statistic I'm very proud of. When I entered office, there were 20,000 kids in full-day pre-K in New York City – three years ago, 20,000 kids in full-day pre-K. This morning, in New York City, there are 72,000 kids in full-day pre-K – as many children in our pre-K program as there are children in all of the public school classrooms of Boston, Massachusetts.

This is a game changer for the future, because it means an entire generation will get early-childhood education, get that strong start. But we have to go much, much deeper particularly in the vein of getting our children to reading level by third grade. Right now, when we came into office about 30 percent of our kids were on reading level by third grade. We've gotten it up to 41 percent. Our goal is to get it to 100 percent over the next ten years – kids who are reading on third grade level have the opportunity to succeed throughout their educational career.

This is one of the missing links. This is one of the things that across many, many administrations we haven't gotten right in this city and we need to. It required full-day pre-K for all our kids, it will require intensive work and intensive investment. But if we can get our kids reading on grade level by third grade, so much more is possible.

So, that is a very quick snapshot of where we are today. We have real challenges to say the least, but I think we can safely say those are three areas – in terms of job growth and diversification in our economy, in terms of public safety, and in terms of our public schools – three areas where there has been sustained progress. The question for us, of course, will be – can we continue that progress constantly to be the city we need to be?

And I think this gets to the crux of the question before us. It's not just how do you get to nine million people, it's how do you do it right? How do you do it in a sustainable fashion? How do you do it in a just fashion, in an inclusive fashion? What are the values we bring to bear in this process?

What I'd offer is a few thoughts on what we know works and what we have to come to understand better and innovate as we go down this pathway.

Look, the – the fact is the building blocks are strong, the appeal of this city is extraordinary at this point in history, and I think there's been a powerful pendulum swing and a very just pendulum swing, where a city that so many people sadly were fleeing a few decades ago has now become the place that everyone wants to come to.

As a Brooklynite, I am particularly proud having recognized just a few decades ago the many, many biases against Brooklyn to now go not only around this city but around this country, around the world, and when I mention I'm from Brooklyn, the glow that comes into people's eyes and the look of this magical, mystical Oz-like place called Brooklyn.

Now, for Brooklynites in the room, you know that that is something we would not have predicted a few decades ago, but it's true today. And I think when you drill down into it why, it's because – and we see it all over the world – what has become attractive to all kinds of people but I would argue particularly to those who bring talent and creative and entrepreneurship – what's become attractive.

What's become attractive is having a lot of wonderful people in the same place. People want to be in an urban environment. They want access to culture. They want access to talent. They want access to business partners. They want to live some place exciting and engaging. They want authenticity. And I think we can all say the neighborhoods of New York City offer authenticity in all its forms.

And we're proud of that. No one's ever accused New Yorkers of being inauthentic. What you see is what you get. And that is a great calling card in this world today.

We have the attributes because every major economic sector is so well represented because so many key businesses are here. We have the attributes that attract talent, that retain talent, that give opportunity to people who grew up here. All of that is happening simultaneously.

We have extraordinary academic institutions. We have an extraordinary health care sector. We have the things that facilitate positive growth in so many ways. And it's important to recognize that we have to protect that reality. And when I say that, it gets back to the notion of keeping this a city for everyone.

I've often talked about the fact that there is a secret sauce here. There is something about New York that made us so great over many, many generations. And yes, even when we were experiencing trouble, we still were that creative center. We still were that entrepreneurial center.

What is that special ingredient? It is, to me, unquestionably diversity, unquestionably the fact that we have been an open city and a city for everyone, a city of strivers, a city of people who believe they could do something that hadn't been done before, and that correlates to being a city that's open in the sense of affordable, open in the sense of tolerant and inclusive. This is what's worked for us.

And this is why there is so much concern in neighborhoods all over the city about the changes people see around them because they – it's not just human beings inherently have a certain nostalgia to us, a certain appreciation for the things that we know and love, it's that people fear the kind of change that will displace them. They fear the kind of the change that will leave them out. And they fear a gilded city.

And by the way, there are examples around the world that would validate that fear. There are cities famously in Western Europe where the cities themselves increasingly became places for people of means, and working people were forced out to the periphery.

And I don't think that's worked out so well for a lot of our European cousins. I think New York City's magic is that everyone's mixed together – a typical New York City subway car represents more diversity than people in many parts of the world ever experience in their lives. And we think it's normal. We think it's an everyday reality. And that's part of what makes us great and we have to foster and protect that.

That's why an emphasis on addressing income inequality, an emphasis on an inclusive society is not only morally right, in my opinion, it is practically right as well because this formula for this city has worked in such a sustained fashion we need to cherish it. We need to protect it. And that is not by any stretch an endorsement of not growing. I think we have to grow. I think it's inevitable we'll grow. I think we have to grow the right way, however.

I want to reference the editorial this morning in a wonderful publication called Crain's which makes a really important point and one we need to talk about more often. I understand why there are people in this city, again, who bristle at the notion of growth, bristle at development. They look at development not unfairly through a prism of their past experience. They look at development as, in their eyes, an agent of inequality, of separation – an agent of creating a neighborhood beyond their grasp. A lot of people experience that. A lot of people went through that.

And so, it's not unfair that they would say – is that what new development will mean as well? Well, the Crain's editorial points out something that I learned a longtime ago as a City Council member in Brooklyn that it's true there are types of development that could exacerbate inequality and can reduce inclusion. There's also types of development that can increase inclusion. That can open up opportunity. And we have to have a good and clear civic conversation about what that difference is.

I had an experience in Brooklyn many times. I had it around the Atlantic Yards development but I had it around smaller developments as well where neighborhoods folks – again, I understood why they feared development. I understood why they didn't like the notion of potentially more traffic or congestion or parking spaces being taken up. That's normal. That's fair. But the argument I would make – and this goes back over a decade – the argument I would make is, do you believe in an economically diverse city or not? Do you believe in an inclusive city or not.

If you believe in an inclusive city, we have to create affordable housing. And the only way we get affordable housing is through development. We have to create jobs for working people. The only way we get that is through a development.

It's fair to say we need ground rules. We need the kind of development we can believe in. We need it to be transparent and consistent. That's all more than fair. But the notion of locking things down the way they are, as the editorial points out today, the danger in that is it bakes in inequality. It doubles down on inequality. And I think there's an understandable impulse among many people in the city to think if we could just make some of these changes go away that things would be fines for us.

What I remind people all over the city, and I was at a town hall in East New York a few months ago – a place where we've done a very successful rezoning, where a lot of affordable housing is being created, and a lot of community investment in schools parks and other crucially needed assets has occurred. I went to a town hall meeting, hundreds of people in the room and it became a discussion of the meaning of development. And I said to people, look, in a free enterprise economy – and it's perfectly fair to have a critique of a free enterprise economy – but in a free enterprise economy development is coming one way or another. The question is do we put some ground rules on it? Do we create a public good in the process?

And it was a very – it was a fascinating conversation because think about it for a moment, a week night in a public school gymnasium hundreds of people from the East New York community reasoning, having a real conversation about what this means.

And my message to them was – I don't negate or misunderstand the cynicism or the concern. But I said to them – look at neighborhoods around you where development has occurred without a framework or a set of ground rules. If you fear displacement, you can certainly see displacement in that model. If you want to know that development comes with good for the community, then things like the rezonings that we have put together give you that guarantee because you get a guarantee of a certain amount of affordable housing particularly under our new Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning vision. You get a guarantee of other public goods – the schools, the parks, the other things that people need.

We work very hard with developers to make sure there's maximum local hiring for people in communities, especially like East New York, that haven't had as much opportunity. That process of having the discussion out loud, showing people a different vision of how development can work for them, that is necessary for the future of this city.

To get to nine million people the right way, we need to have that open and honest conversation. And I never promise people a rose garden. I never say it's going to be everything we want it to be but I do say you deserve to know some things are going to work and some commitments are going to be kept. And we show them a model of what we can guarantee them in the process.

We had another very good example with the rezoning of the Vanderbilt Corridor in Manhattan – an example where we have important development for this city, an opportunity to attract more business to this city, a major new corporation in TD Bank expanding – not new corporation but expanding its presence here in the city more deeply.

And in the process, over $200 million of investment by the developer in improving Grand Central Station and the subways beneath and the pedestrian experience in the area of Grand Central station. My message to the people of New York City is look at that as an example – yes, height and density were built into that vision because we need height and density if we're going to be able to create the city of tomorrow and to address a lot of our underlying needs. But look at how much the public got back in that equation – over $200 million in infrastructure investment that would not have happened any other way.

That is a powerful model and something people can believe in. So, I want to emphasize that I think we not only need the open dialogue about the pathway to nine million and the values we will bring to it, we need it to be as transparent as possible. We need people to be able to see, in very tangible terms, how that pathway to nine million people can be good for them.

It will come will challenges to say the least, and we have to come to grips with that too because we all are experiencing the congestion in this city, and that is in part because we are victims of our own success. A lot of that congestion is because of so much construction going on. A lot of that congestion is because we have a higher population and more jobs. A lot of that congestion is because we're about to have almost 60 million tourists this year. These are good things but we're going to have to grapple with the congestion in new ways and creative ways.

And we're going to have level people that with the good comes some challenges and we're going to have to be very open about what we can overcome and what we can't in the short term or what the pathway is to addressing those issues.

Now, looking forward, I just want to offer a couple of thoughts. And I have broken this down, and I'm just going to run through them in the interest of time. But – six things that I think define that city of nine million people and the right pathway to it.

The first I've just referenced – equitable development. If development becomes more and more in the public mind, equitable, open, transparent commitments being kept. Let's be blunt, in the past many times communities were told there would be affordable housing or other public goods and then it never happened. The cavalry never came. That created cynicism. That actually deepened an attitude of being opposed to development.

We have to fix that – every one of us. And the City government has to be the guarantor. We have to show people that when we say you're getting to get affordable housing for your community, it actually happens. When we say there's going to be a park, when we say there's going to be a school that it happens and it benefits the people of the community.

We all have to be devoted to local hiring to the maximum extent possible because one of the things that truly makes people believe in the power of development is when they see people they know getting jobs in the process. And we need more examples like Vanderbilt where public infrastructure needs are addressed through that development process in a way that shows that the private sector is at the table giving of themselves as well for the good of the city.

Those are the kinds of examples that will help people feel good about the fact that we're on a pathway to nine million people, and the height and density it will take.

Second, I talked for a moment about what we've being doing on education. We're going to have to deepen that. And again, we're going to have to do it in a very visible manner. We are holding ourselves in this administration to very rigorous goals. I told you we want to take a graduation rate that's now finally gotten over 70 percent. We need to take it to over 80 percent in the next 10 years. I told you that our kids were reading at grade-level when we came to office, below 30 percent of third graders reading on grade level. We're now at 41 percent. We've got to get that to 100 percent – very, very tough goal but one that if we get right has immeasurable impact on the future of the City. Everyone in this room planning the future of your business, your work, needs an ever more educated workforce. So making those continued investments in education in a strategic manner; recognizing that if we can reach kids early enough, turn the tide on what has been an assumption for decades and decades in this City that a certain number of kids, a large number of kids, weren't going to make it. We have to break that assumption.  We need more and more kids to get through to graduation, that a high school degree actually means you're college ready. That is a core part of our vision.

And we need to make a smart investment in CUNY so CUNY can more and more be that breeding ground for the talent, for the economy, of the decades ahead. CUNY was that. Everyone in this room knows the mythology of CUNY was true. It was that breeding ground for a generation of leaders in this City for people who made all sectors of this City great. It can be that more deeply if we strengthen our public school system and make those investments in CUNY. But systematically, building a college-going culture in our public schools – I will give you one example I'm particularly proud of, and we are going to play this out over the next few years, there are high schools in this City, there are wonderful high schools that everyone knows in this City are for kids who are college bound and they have had advanced placement courses for years and years. And there are many high schools in this City that never had a single advance placement course. And that is not only wrong in terms of denying good and smart kids, who are in every single zip code, that chance to be college bound and to deepen their academic capacity early. It communicates something else. It communicates a have and have not message about who goes to college and who doesn't. In the 21st century, that's unacceptable.

Our vision over the next few years is to put advanced placement courses in every single high school in the City and we think that's necessary.

[Applause]

And that's something we want to do, not just – certainly not an act of symbolism. It does communicate something powerful that kids in every background have that opportunity, but it's something we have to do to lift the standard across the board. Our vision is called Equity in Excellence. And both are necessary. Every school needs to be held to a high standard because that's the reality of the world we're in. That's the reality our kids need to be prepared for. So putting those advanced placement courses in place, but building rigorously for the years leading up to it through pre-K through 3rd grade reading, through an emphasis on computer science. Our Computer Science For All vision biggest city, obviously, to be attempting this, we are going to make computer science a part of the curriculum at all levels of our public school system because that's how you prepare kids for 21st century jobs, but it's also how you prepare them for 21st century thinking.

Computer Science Education implicitly teaches problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking. That is the kind of approach we need for this century and we have to deepen that across the entire school system. So, both of these first two points equitable development and Equity in Excellence vision for our schools. They run along the same lines. They're things that people can see and touch and feel. Parents will know if their schools are getting better. Parents will know if their kids are getting an opportunity they haven't gotten before. Kids will feel if they are being called to a higher level of success and if the doors are open for them for a whole range of industries that maybe before they thought were not for them.

We are going to do the things that show our young people right here in their own city they can thrive. In the process, we are going to be creating the kind of workforce that can sustain us as we build towards nine million people.

The third point and I would say this is truly a tale of two cities to coin a phrase. There are some things that we can do in the fields of infrastructure and particularly transportation that we can do on our own and we are doing on our own and we have to do a lot more of and there are some things that can only be done with a federal partner. And I dare say that in a week's time we are going to get a lot of information about the future of this city when we see what happens with this national election. If we end up with a partner who wants to address infrastructure; if we end up with a Congress more willing to invest as our competitor nations all over the world are doing, to invest in infrastructure. That will [inaudible] very well for the biggest city in the country with some of the oldest infrastructure in one of the most thriving economies. We will be the perfect place to benefit from a federal government that truly gets back in the infrastructure business. Here's an area where I have a little bit of hope and again it's a non-partisan setting so I will simply say that the candidate I support has made very clear her focus on infrastructure as one of her first priorities in the first hundred days. But I think there is another perfectly bi-partisan point that should be looked at, which is that last year we saw the emergence of a initial bi-partisan consensus around the highway bill federally. And Mayors across the country, from both parties, were deeply involved so I got to see it firsthand. We saw the beginning of what I might term a modern approach to the federal government beginning to actually put its toe in the water of increasing spending on roads and bridges and mass transit and highways. That might now start to flourish because I think across the board – business community, labor community, farm community, Democrats, Republicans, local officials – people are getting to that boiling point of saying, if we're not making those investments we can't move forward.

We need that federal partner for a whole host of what we have to do, but on the home front there are powerful things we can do. And we have to keep doing more of them. Right now, we've outlined a host of new initiatives that will deepen the transportation options for the people of this city. We obviously have been proud to work with our partners to expand Citi Bike. We've proud to work with our partner to expand Select Bus Service. We've initiated for the first time in decades and decades citywide ferry service. That is starting next year and I think it is going to be an exciting addition to the ways people get around this city. We've initiated the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, the BQX, from Astoria to Sunset Park, light rail – not through the MTA, and we have a great working partnership with the MTA, but there are somethings that we will do ourselves in the interest of speed; to serve our own needs that are different from some of the priorities of the MTA. We're going to have to do a lot more of that. If the ferry service works we want to expand it; if the BQX we want to look for other opportunities for light rail because a city of nine million people will need that many more options.

The fourth point connects which is the way we address climate change. And this city is in very bold place because we have committed to a goal of an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2015. This is one – every, every area I've talked about o far we need everyone in this room to be a part of. We need everyone in this room to be a part of creating an atmosphere of equitable and inclusive development. We need everyone in this room to hire locally and hire kids coming out of our public schools and CUNY. We need everyone in this room to mentor young people and provide internships and summer jobs. We need everyone in this room to be part of fighting climate change. And we've seen a very strong and positive response from the business community. But we're going to need sharp, sharp goals for reducing emissions, particularly in our buildings all over this city. And we're going to do a lot of other things. You're going to see big changes, a lot more use of electric vehicles – the City's car fleet is going to be all electric soon. You're going to see a particular emphasis on expanding the ability of this City to use solar power and wind power, first for City government and then for a lot of our other needs – and hydro. All of these are part of the long-term plan, the long-term vision. But I would say this is what we have to do morally, this is what we have to do to protect the earth, but I would also say this is a competitive point. Cities that devote themselves to more and more use of renewables, cities that are on the cutting edge of addressing climate change will be more appealing cities in terms of their business climate, in terms of their economic growth as well. We intend to be very, very aggressive in this field. And I think New York City is really well positioned to achieve these goals. We want to have the cleanest air of any big city in this country by 2030. We are well on the way to that. This is another example of flipping the script just like over the last quarter-century we went from a city considered to be one of the most dangerous to the safest big city in America. We have a chance to be the place with the cleanest air and the place that has gone the farthest on sustainability. And that will be the most powerful advertisement for this city all over the world.

Fifth, I mentioned safety, it obviously underlies all other achievements, but I also think this is a part of what makes a cohesive and appealing city. It's not just that it is a safe city – it's a cohesive city. It's a unified city. As neighborhood policing deepens I want New York City to have, in fact and in reputation, a message for the world – an example for the world that we got it right on creating that partnership between police and community. If you haven't gotten to know our Commissioner, Jimmy O'Neill, you will be very moved when you do; thirty-three veteran of the force who believes profoundly in the notion of overcoming some of the past that has held us back and creating a deep bond between police and community. I want this city to be the place that people look to as the model. I'll give you one example and I think it is a really powerful one; The NYPD, under Bill Bratton's leadership, initiated the retraining of the entire police force – literally, every dingle officer to focus on de-escalation and conflicts; to focus on a different approach at that moment of truth where officers have to make tough decisions. And that is so important not only for all those involved in that incident, in that moment but for the good of the whole city. And we've seen this all over the country. Those individual incidents loom very large in the feelings of the people of a city but also in the reputation of the city.

De-escalation is now being taught consistently and it is working and now we're going another step. This is something initiated by Bill Bratton and his First Deputy Commissioner Ben Tucker now being deepened under Jimmy O'Neill's leadership. We're going to do implicit bias training. And this is one of the most advanced approaches that help our public servants who happen to carry weapons to understand every human being comes with bias. And those biases have to be weeded out in a very systematic fashion or at least identified for people to do their job as best they can; a very progressive notion, a very sophisticated notion that now will be taught to all of the officers who patrol our streets. And we found a lot of receptivity because our officers are professionals who want to get it right; because more and more of our police force looks like New York City, and more and more our police force lives in New York City. The officers I swore in a few weeks ago, a class of 700, 63 percent of them live in New York City, and 25 percent were women – one of the highest numbers we've ever had for any incoming class. The police force is changing and it is a police force that can be trained and supported to help create that inclusive city. And again, if you think about New York City, both in terms of how we get to nine million people the right way, but also how the world sees us, which will determine a lot of how we get to nine million. Having the reputation as a place that got policing right, not just in terms of driving down crime, but in terms of instilling an atmosphere of respect and unity into the equation will create immeasurable good.

Finally, inclusion broadly, and I think everyone is watching with concern this national elections some of what it has [inaudible] up – and by the way, we watched the Brexit vote, which I think was deeply troubling; but based in a lot of indicators, a lot of trends that had been visible for years and years. We watched some of the elections in Western Europe where xenophobic forces have made real gains. It is a reminder to us all that in the most diverse city in the world; in the city of immigrants; in the city that prizes inclusion this is not only our belief structure it is our calling card to the world and it is a great differentiator for us.

And by the way, I think companies from all over the world, academic institutions, non-profits, and talented people, entrepreneurs, and creative people want to flock to a place that values that inclusion. And as other places are sadly grappling with their own dynamics, trying to make sense of their diverse societies or their societies that are becoming more diverse we already figured out a lot of how to do this. We're already up over the horizon as a city. That is not only a point of pride that something that differentiates us deeply.

To get to nine million the right way we must continue to be a global economic leader. To do that we have to be a place that people look to as unquestionably inclusive and inviting. Something as simple as the municipal ID card we initiated, IDNYC, that was available to anyone regardless of documentation status, now pushing a million people who have taken up of all walks of life --  citizen, non-citizen, people of limited means, people of tremendous means, people who are new to this City, people who have been here for generations. They are all taking it up as a point of pride and because there is great benefits connected, but it is communicating something at the same time, an inclusive city; a city that values everyone and a city that makes sense in a globalized world as a place where no one is shunned to the side and people are not discriminated against because of who they are. Think about how that positions us for the future because sadly a lot of the places that we compete against don't have those attributes, sadly for them.

So, I'll conclude with this, I'm trying to paint a picture – and this is, again, the beginning of a very important conversation we have to have in this city. And it is a conversation I think can do so much good. I often [inaudible] fact that a lot of our civic discourse is to in the moment; we dwell on whatever was the most recent incident in the news, that's human, that' normal, that's the nature of the media. But we need bigger conversations in this city and in this society in general. We need to actually talk more about where we are going and why we are going there. This picture I am painting is perfectly available to us. There is nothing that I've listed here that we can't do. There are plenty of conventional wisdom reasons why they may not happen. There are plenty of traditional, political reasons why they may not happen, but there are actually not a lot of factual reasons why these things can't happen.

Equitable development is available to us if we set the right ground rules and we talk openly to people about what it means and we show them real results on a consistent basis. The improvements in our school system, we've seen them steadily. We've seen them steadily. The mayoral control era started by Michael Bloomberg, and I credit him. We had less than 50 percent of our kids graduating on time. As I said, we're over 70 percent that says something powerful about the ability of this city to move. And we're one of the places that can move and make progress in ways very few other places can because we have so much in the way of talent; we have such strong institutions; we have so many resources. That extraordinary progress on education must continue and deepen. The progress on safety, well documented and deepening every day, but it has to go farther and it has to increasingly be about unity between police and community.

These are the strands that make for a great city, a better city, a city of nine million people that can work together, can live in peace and harmony despite the diversity that is the richest in the world. And I think sparking this city conversation and making it something that everyone is a part of is so crucial and so necessary. I want people to understand this is not happening to them, this is for them, by them, with them, and it can be. It can be. I'd like people to be able to see the development happening in their community through a prism of the good they know is there for them and their family. And I'd like them to have faith that every effort is being expended in public and private sector to make this the greatest and most inclusive city in the world. We have done it before and now we need to do it again on the pathway to nine million people.

Thank you so much.