2013 Theses Master's

New York Hearts Tech: Tech in the City Under Bloomberg

Feiger, Lola

From Austin’s Silicon Hills, to Louisiana’s Silicon Bayou, Southern California’s Silicon Beaches to the Midwest’s Silicon Prairie, cities across the country have been actively courting tech. New York City is no exception. Since the financial crisis, the Bloomberg administration has pursued tech as a way to diversify the City’s economy. Over the past four years, the government has introduced a suite of tech-focused economic development initiatives, including competitions, incubators, and a well publicized (and expensive) campaign to overhaul the state of the City’s engineering education. Simultaneously, the growth of the City’s tech industry has been remarkable by any measure – companies, jobs, investment, or community network. Much of the government’s attention has been directed at the purported shortage of local tech talent. Less evaluated has been the government’s impact in directing tech’s growth. This thesis asks thus to what extent the Bloomberg administration’s tech agenda has impacted the tech community and contributed to its resurgence in the City. I derive my answer from both a detailed survey of the tech community, as well as from targeted interviews with winners of government-sponsored competitions, academics and industry leaders. My research finds the tech community considerably more impacted by and reliant for its growth on the City’s existing competitive advantages (its strength and diversity across industries, its skilled labor force, its global economy and its livability) than on the direct and visible support of the
government.