Is NYC Really the Greatest City in the World?

(electronic music)

Moscow, they have these amazing subway stations

with great arches, and chandeliers, and marble floors,

and they're spotless.

Their subway stations remind us of, like,

the American master bathroom.

Like, with so much marble and really luxurious.

And then their bathrooms remind us of our subway.

I wish we had world class airports in New York City.

When you land at a great airport, you should

then be able to get on, like, a high-speed

train that brings you right to the heart of town.

We're not as good as third world airports,

Let's put it that way.

I wish we could bring the great food halls

of Europe into New York in a much greater way.

When you think of the great food halls in

Florence, or Madrid, or many, many cities,

in London, and there should be one in

every single neighborhood in all of New York.

I would pull Sydney's ferry system into the

city of New York.

We've got this amazing spot, like,

right near the opera House, where you have

highway, you have rail, you've got streetcars,

you've got ferries, you've got parks,

you've got the opera house.

And that intermodal combination is really

what helped Sydney grow.

I would love to see New York have

more of a working waterfront again.

The way they built in places like Hamburg

and Rotterdam where we keep building these

luxury rental towers with, like, a Duane Reade

on the bottom and think it's mixed-use.

You know there are a lot of cities around

the world that are building new forms of

working waterfronts where there's like

office and tech space, mixed in with

residential and affordable housing.

Then that would spur a ferry system,

that would be really great.

And it's just this completely different

way of thinking about the city.