New York

NEW YORK, CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

In 1946, the UN chose the Big Apple as its global capital. Adrian Wooldridge argues that it's still the best choice. Have your say by voting in our poll ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, September/October 2011 

The great urban story of the 20th century was the rise of New York. In 1900 there were several contenders for the title of capital of the 20th century. Fifty years later the debate had been settled. Paris was charming but provincial. Berlin was not even the capital of Germany, let alone the world. London was stodgy. New York was the perfect expression of both American power and the modern spirit, from its gravity-defying skyscrapers to its convention-breaking intellectuals, from its ethnic neighbourhoods to its unparalleled high culture.

The great urban story of the 21st century will be the survival of New York. There will be no shortage of challengers from the emerging world: Shanghai and Beijing, as China becomes the world’s biggest economy, and Mumbai and São Paulo. There will be cities from the old world, notably London, that may decide that their best hope lies in unshackling themselves from their decaying host countries and turning themselves into global cities. These challengers will have plenty of resources on their side: emerging world giants will break records for the tallest building or the fastest train, and London will continue to beguile with its museums and mansions. But they will all fail. Beijing and Shanghai have little soul and even less intellectual life. Mumbai and São Paulo are too much of a muchness. London is New York’s most serious challenger. But great cities cannot grow in exhausted soil: London will become no more than a luxury hotel for the super-rich and a rest home for impoverished locals.

New York’s claim to pre-eminence will rest on more than the weakness of its rivals. New York thrived in the 20th century because it represented the best of modernity: openness to ideas and talent from the whole world; the chance to determine your fate and invent your identity; and, as a consequence of all that, the relentless dynamism that turns challenge into opportunity. Those qualities will stand it in as good a stead in the current century as they did in the last.