The Winter of N.Y.’s Discontent

The hits keep on coming. Wall Street veterans may dimly remember subways as the way they got to work before they could afford a car service. For the rest of us, they're a crucial means of transportation. Later this month the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is slated to vote on a proposal to raise certain fares.

New York's woes can be seen as a long-overdue comeuppance to a city, prone to hubris and arrogance, that stimulated and benefited greatly from the late credit orgy. But today, more than ever, Gotham deserves the sympathy of the nation. (Three words: New York Knicks.) The benefits of what New York produces—from "Rent" to financing for companies—emanate throughout the country. More broadly, what happens in New York is not likely to stay in New York. For it has become a dense, loud, microcosm of the U.S. economy—a media-saturated machine oiled by cheap money, buoyed by elevated real-estate prices, and staying afloat by selling everything that's not nailed down to visitors from abroad.

© 2007