Chapter Four - Political Economy

Agriculture
New York City is not necessarily a place you would expect urban agriculture to thrive - it is one of the most densely populated cities in the United States.  And yet, NYC is a leader in the practice of urban agriculture.  The city's urban agriculture community includes not only farmers and gardeners, but also school principals, sanitation workers, bodega owners, and public housing residents, as well as city officials, support organizations, and foundations.
New York City is host to two hundred, forty-five institutional farms, three commercial farms, three hundred, ninety community gardens, and seven community farms, total.

Community Garden

Institutional Farm

Economic Base

New York City is the core of international finance dealings and the global center of corporate headquarters in finance and services, real estate, media, entertainment and telecommunications, manufacturing, and trade.  Financial service jobs, though, are currently on the decline, as New York City is quickly becoming an international technological hubbub, particularly in what is being termed "Silicon Alley" - Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.

NYC currently leads the country in the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered there, including eight of the world's top ten securities firms, and about two-fifths of the country's fifty leading law firms, as well as two hundred, nineteen banks representing every major global player.  The city's biggest industry is publishing, with more printing plants than anywhere else in the United States and employing approximately thirteen thousand individuals.  

New York City's clothing industry is headquartered in the Garment District near Times Square, where hundreds of factories employ more than one hundred thousand persons.  

NYC Garment District

7th Avenue (Fashion Avenue)

Works Cited -
http://www.urbandesignlab.columbia.edu/?pid=nyc-urban-agriculture
http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-Northeast/New-York-Economy.html