History of New York City (1978–present)

New York City has seen a cycle of modest boom and a bust in the 1980s, a major boom in the 1990s, and mixed prospects since then.
This period has seen severe racial tension, a dramatic spike and fall of crime rates, and a major influx of immigrants growing the city's population past the eight million mark. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 had a lasting impact on the city that continues to reverberate to the present.

Koch and Dinkins (1978–1993)

Compared to the 1970s, the 1980s were a time of restrained optimism in New York. The boom on Wall Street was fueling the speculative real estate market, and unemployment numbers dropped noticeably. Koch successfully balanced the city's budget ahead of schedule, allowing the city to re-enter the bond market and raise cash, effectively ending the city's financial crisis by 1981. However, the city's reputation for crime and disorder was still very much a part of New Yorkers' daily lives. Mayor Ed Koch repeatedly warned that filth, crime, and racial tensions were weakening the city. He put a high priority on rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. One result was that gentrification brought new businesses to decrepit neighborhoods and converted low-end rental housing to co-ops and condos that attracted young upscale professionals and business people. Koch's energetic efforts brought enormous attention from the media, but critics condemned his attacks on his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals" and alleged he was racially divisive.

For years enormous attention followed the criminal trials resulted when a woman known as the Central Park Jogger was badly beaten and raped. The illegal drug trade flourished, causing the murder rate to soar, and dividing the city into areas ruled by different drug lords. It became known as the crack epidemic. The New York City Subway fell victim to a crime epidemic that saw more crimes being committed on the subway each year than in any other subway system around the world.

Homelessness became a serious problem during the 1980s, specifically in the last two of Edward Koch's three terms as mayor (1978–1990). The city outlawed discrimination against gay and lesbian people in such matters as employment and housing in 1986. In 1989, Koch was defeated by David Dinkins in the Democratic Party primary in his bid for a fourth term, and then Dinkins narrowly defeated Republican Rudolph Giuliani in the general election to become the city's first-ever black mayor. Crime began a 15-year decline in 1990 during Dinkins's administration, but a combination of continued racial strife (such as that in the Crown Heights Riot in 1991), and an extremely weak economy (in January 1993 the city's unemployment rate reached 13.4 percent, the highest level of joblessness seen there since the Great Depression) caused Dinkins' popularity to seriously decline (including a threat by residents of Staten Island to secede from the city, where in a 1993 referendum, 65% voted to secede, but implementation was blocked in the State Assembly).

On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb detonated in a basement garage of World Trade Center Tower One. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower ( Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured more than a thousand.

In late 1993, David Dinkins was defeated by Rudolph Giuliani in his bid for reelection.

Giuliani (1994–2001)

The city rebounded in the mid- and late 1990s due to the steady expansion of the national economy and the Wall Street stock market boom that took place concomitantly, as well as the precipitous drop in crime, although stubbornly high unemployment remained a local problem. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, is credited by many for revitalizing Times Square and making the city more "liveable" by cracking down on crime. Changes in the worldwide economy during this time proved to be especially favorable to New York because of its highly developed transportation and communications infrastructure, as well as its massive population base. Over the course of the decade, the city's image transformed from being one of a bygone, decaying metropolis to one of the world's preeminent " global cities."

As for sports, 1994 saw a great chapter in the city's sports history, with the New York Rangers finally winning their first Stanley Cup since 1940 and the New York Knicks making it to the NBA Finals, where they lost in seven games to the Houston Rockets, at the same time.

The Knicks made it to the NBA Finals again in , where they lost in five games to the San Antonio Spurs. The New York Yankees began a dynasty led by manager (and New Yorker) Joe Torre winning the World Series in , , , and .

September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist hijackers linked to the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda piloted two hijacked passenger airliners into each of the twin 110 story World Trade Center towers. The airplanes, designated for transcontinental flights and therefore fully loaded with jet fuel, were hijacked mid-flight and intentionally crashed into the towers in the early morning hours of September 11. The crashes caused massive structural damage during impact, ripping gaping holes into the towers, and ignited raging fires, that caused both weakened towers to collapse in less than two hours. Together with a simultaneous attack on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a failed plane hijacking that resulted in a plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 2,977 victims died in the attacks.

The 9/11 attacks led to a temporary exodus of business from Lower Manhattan to places such as Midtown Manhattan, Jersey City, as well as elsewhere, along with the need to reposition the broadcasting antennas of several television channels. About 430,000 job-months and $2.8 billion in wages were lost in the three months after the attacks. The economic effects were mainly on the economy's export sectors. The city's GDP was estimated to have declined by $27.3 billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The U.S. government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic debris containing more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens, were spread across Lower Manhattan due to the collapse of the Twin Towers. Exposure to the toxins in the debris is alleged to have contributed to fatal or debilitating illnesses among people who were at ground zero. The Bush administration ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue reassuring statements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks, citing national security, but the EPA did not determine that air quality had returned to pre-September 11 levels until June 2002. Many other closings, evacuations, and cancellations followed the attack, either out of fear of further attacks or respect for the tragedy. Cleanup of the World Trade Center site was completed by the end of May 2002.

November 2001 plane crash

On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board and five others on the ground. It was the second-deadliest aviation incident involving an Airbus A300, after Iran Air Flight 655, and the second-deadliest aviation incident to occur on U.S. soil, after American Airlines Flight 191. In terms of single-airplane crash incidents that were ruled accidental and not criminal, as of March 2014, no incident since then has surpassed that death toll, though before 2001 there had been deadlier incidents of this type. Although initially feared to be another act of terrorism, the crash was eventually found to have been caused by pilot error.

Bloomberg (2002–2013)

Billionaire media baron Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, was elected mayor in 2001, and reelected in 2005 and 2009. He used a statistical, results-based approach to city management, appointing city commissioners based on their expertise and granting them wide autonomy in their decision-making. Breaking with 190 years of tradition, he implemented what ''New York Times'' political reporter Adam Nagourney called a "bullpen" open office plan, similar to a Wall Street trading floor, in which dozens of aides and managerial staff are seated together in a large chamber. The design is intended to promote accountability and accessibility.

Over the next ten years, a wave of public- and private-sector building projects reshaped large sections of the city, and a residential construction boom has resulted in permits being issued for over 25,000 new residential units every year. While the 2012 Summer Olympics ultimately went to London, New York was among the finalists and the campaign resulted in a plan to replace Shea Stadium

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