Op-Ed: Delivering for New Yorkers year after year

When we came into office 20 months ago, we promised we would ‘Get Stuff Done’ for New Yorkers and New York City.  Our most recent “Mayor’s Management Report” (MMR) shows that our administration has been doing just that in ways that improve our quality of life and our city’s economic recovery.

The MMR uses data that allows us to measure our progress and be transparent about areas that need improvement and areas in which we are doing well.  We have made great strides in a variety of fields, and I am proud to share some of our key successes with you.

Our young people are our city’s present and future, and we have focused on helping them build the skills they need to succeed. We have increased participation in the Summer Youth Employment Program by 22 percent, after we increased the number of available seats to 100,000 last year.

We don’t want any of our youth to fall through the cracks, which is why we have continued our investment in our foster youth by increasing the number receiving life coaching through our Fair Futures program. In addition, we have helped provided much needed relief to working parents with an increase in families using our child care vouchers and enrolling their K-8 students in the city’s Summer Rising program — critical to creating a more equitable city.

When it comes to promoting a broad-based and sustainable economic recovery, we are seeing great things. We know tourism and culture are drivers of the economy, and the heartbeat of our city. Today, we are seeing that visitors to the city’s cultural institutions have increased by a full 9 percent — this is the largest increase since 2019, before the pandemic.

We care about our environment, which is why we are working hard to create a greener city. Public transportation is a pillar of our environmental agenda, and we are seeing increased ferry ridership and Citi Bike ridership. We are also in the process of expanding curbside composting citywide and have diverted 200 million pounds of organic waste from landfills for the first time ever. Now, our organic waste no longer goes to waste, nor is it contributing to the production of greenhouse gases that feed the climate crisis. Instead, our organic waste can now be used to nourish our soil and help plants and trees grow.

Housing remains a key priority of our administration, and our investments helped increase the percentage of new affordable housing developments by nearly 50 percent to 24,090. We saw an increase in families experiencing homelessness who moved into affordable units, and a massive 222 percent increase in applicants formerly experiencing homelessness being placed in public housing. We also performed 426 percent more lead abatements on NYCHA homes.

In terms of quality of life, we want our city to look as good as we know it is. We have removed substantial amounts of graffiti, increased our street garbage collection, and performed 179,000 pest control inspections. A cleaner city is how we finally win the war against rats and I’m proud to let New Yorkers know we are moving in the right direction. Additionally, to spare New Yorkers’ ears, we have also issued the highest number of noise summonses since 2017.

And we know how important outdoor space is to both our physical and mental health — now a staggering 84.6 percent of New Yorkers live within walking distance to a park.

Keeping New York City vital and a great place to live means getting the big and little things correct. We came into office with the goal of bringing our city back, and we are proud to tell New Yorkers that we are not coming back — we are back. From street cleaning and summer programs to climate change and Citi Bike, the numbers show our city’s best days still lie ahead.