By Scott Brinton
Back then - as in, before World War II - Long Islanders understood what the Island was: rural America, with weather-worn, split-rail fences demarcating property lines and rough-and-tumble dirt roads running through many communities.
Then, in 1947, along came Abraham Levitt, who, in the maddening dash to build affordable housing for G.I.'s returning from battle in Europe, Africa and Asia, erected Levittown. By 1951, Levitt had produced 17,447 homes in this newly created hamlet and its environs. America's first suburb - a densely populated residential community outside a major city - was born.
Long Island has grown by leaps and bounds ever since, with population numbers booming - even today, as available land for housing becomes increasingly scarcer. The U.S. Census Bureau currently puts the combined population of Nassau and Suffolk counties at roughly 2.8 million. If the two counties were a city, it would rank as the U.S.'s third-most-populous metropolitan area, in a virtual tie with Chicago and behind only New York and Los Angeles.
So the question becomes, what the heck is Long Island? Is it a suburb, a city, a region or a combination of the three?
It could be said that the Island has had an identity crisis of late, particularly with Suffolk County Comptroller Joseph Sawicki recently proposing that the Island secede from New York and become a state. Sawicki noted that Long Island is New York's cash cow, contributing far more to the state budget than it receives in aid and services - a gap that he says amounts to $2.9 billion annually.
The Island's identity - or lack thereof - was a central theme in a day-long conference sponsored by Hofstra University's Center for Suburban Studies March 27, titled "Metronation: A Blueprint for American Prosperity."
The center, headed by Executive Director Lawrence Levy, hosted the symposium with the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank that has researched the future of America's major metropolitan centers for more than a decade. Bruce Katz, vice president and founding director of the institute's Metropolitan Policy Program, was the keynote speaker.
Metronation - or not
Katz's thesis was straightforward: America is a metropolitan nation (83 percent of Americans live in cities or suburbs, which account for 75 percent of the U.S.'s gross domestic product). And cities, or "metros," as Katz called them, must be celebrated and bolstered if the U.S. is to maintain its place as the world's pre-eminent economy.
"Are we prepared for the next two generations of competition with Europe and Asia?" Katz asked. To get ready, he said, the U.S. must pay particular attention to "four things that matter":
1. Innovation: The U.S. must invent and exploit new products.
2. Human capital: America must do a better job of educating people.
3. Infrastructure: The U.S. must maintain its bridges and roads, expand its broadband computer networks and develop high-speed rail lines like those in Europe and Japan.
4. Quality of place: While building up and out, America's metropolitan centers must, to some degree, maintain that which adds value to people's lives - the forests and fields that were, in so many cases, lost to posterity when Long Island suburbanized a half-century ago.
All of this, of course, is easier said than done, especially when, as Harvard Law School Professor Gerald Frug pointed out, metropolitan areas rarely share a common vision for themselves, let alone the nation. That's because government is so often fractured, in the case of Long Island separated into a hodgepodge of county, town and village governments with hundreds of fire, water, garbage and even parking districts managed by commissioners looking out for local interests only. At last count, Frug noted, Long Island had some 900 special districts, including school districts.
"We are not a metronation," Frug said. "There's no metropolitan New York. There isn't even a Long Island, so how can we think about the future of Long Island? We should try to create a metronation."
Lisa Tyson of North Bellmore, executive director of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, said, "Government is so fragmented, they cannot improve people's lives ... Elected officials are always looking for short-term gain." What they fail to see, Tyson said, is the big picture.
Tyson said that government must encourage citizen participation as it develops policy, while also looking for ways to streamline operations. As an example, Tyson said, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the state Department of Transportation should be combined. She said the DOT has an annual budget to build roads, so it builds roads. The MTA has an annual budget to lay new track, so it lays new track. The two agencies, however, do not effectively communicate, so transportation policy across Long Island makes little sense. Bigger and bigger highways are built when the Island desperately needs more rail lines to reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
Tyson also suggested that underground parking be built at Long Island Rail Road stations to increase the number of commuters and help build up the Island's numerous downtowns.
A vision for the future
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano said that his government committed to a simple premise when he first won office in 1998: It would not build new roads. More roads only bring more cars, and more cars only bring greater traffic congestion. Spano, a member of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, said, "Why not put mass transit on the roads?"
The only way to create a regional shared vision, he said, is to bring all of the stakeholders - local governments, schools, even hospitals - together to talk. When he did that in Westchester, Spano said, officials unanimously agreed that one of the best ways to save taxpayer dollars would be through collective bargaining, and that one of the most important services people needed was broadband.
Innovation and trade, Spano said, are increasingly happening via the Internet. "The new transportation is broadband," he said. "If you link everyone with broadband, this is the new infrastructure."
So Westchester County built one of the world's most sophisticated broadband networks, and then it negotiated a reduced-rate agreement with a service provider through collective bargaining by local governments, school districts and hospitals, Spano said.
Now the Westchester County government gives any business that needs to teleconference with another business anywhere in the world access to its system. It is the only way that many small to medium-sized businesses can compete in the new global economy, according to the county executive.
And Westchester has taken its effort to globalize a step further. The county maintains offices with representatives in Milan, Italy, and Beijing, China, Spano explained. When Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo took over IBM in 2004, Westchester officials negotiated with the company to keep IBM's corporate offices in the county, saving jobs and helping to preserve the tax base.
Spano also said that Westchester County schools are encouraged to - and often do - teach Chinese, and the county government helps set up exchange programs between Westchester and Chinese schools.
Katz said that metropolitan communities must be ready to fend for themselves in today's global economy, which he described as "hypercompetitive." They cannot depend on the federal government to help. "The federal government is not just broken," Katz said. "It's broke. Our metro areas face historic challenges. We're at a moment of global and national change."
And in the thick of it all is Long Island, still trying, after all these years, to carve out an identity for itself in the shadow of what Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi aptly called the "mother ship" - New York City.
