Worried that New York City is not spawning enough technology-based start-up companies with the potential to become big employers like Google, city officials are inviting universities around the world to create an engineering campus on city-owned land.
Despite being home to more college students than any other city in the country, New York lacks a top-rated engineering school. Without one, the city has fallen far behind San Francisco, Boston and other metropolitan areas in the competition to attract new technology companies and the jobs they create.
On Thursday morning, Robert K. Steel, the deputy mayor for economic development, announced that the city would seek a “top caliber academic institution” as a partner in building a school for applied science and engineering. The city is willing to consider locating it on one or more of its properties, including the old hospital campuses at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on Roosevelt Island.
Fantastic news. The more creators of value we can educate in the city, the better. We'll see how long this takes to come to fruition, though...