New York By the Numbers - 10 Years Later

Ten years ago -- in fact, almost exactly ten years ago, back in September, 2008 -- I blogged about the various "metrics" of life in NYC. They were good! The city was getting wealthier, healthier, and safer. People felt good about the direction of the city, things were looking up -- and this was particularly notable because, at that time, the national economy was crashing and the Great Recession starting. NYC remained, then as now, a source of optimism. 

Now the recession is over and a decade has past. So where is NYC today?

Ten years later, these metrics have only gotten better. 

Over 4 million New Yorkers have jobs and there are half a million more jobs available.

The murder rate was roughly 400-something in 2008 (already an historic low); now it's 200-something, a super-historic low.

There were 3.3 housing units available in 2008 -- now there are 3.5. Not a huge increase but it's going in the right direction.

Life in NYC is good -- and it's longer!

A lot longer. The truly eye-popping, amazing statistic is that the average life expectancy for New Yorkers has increased by nearly a DECADE in the last 25 years. It used to be around 72.4 years -- now it's 81.1 (the available data is from 1990 to 2015). In the last decade alone, life expectancy has increased by 1.5 years. 

That's incredible!

Can you imagine? New Yorkers can expect to live nearly an entire decade longer than they used to. In the last decade we've added more than a year to our lives! 

It's easy, particularly these days, to wallow in bad news. It's easy to see everything -- and everyone -- that makes the world awful. But then you get information like this and you realize that it's truly a great time to be alive, that things are getting better even if it doesn't seem like it. 

In NYC, anything is possible -- even an extra decade of life.