Eliot: Please Help New York

Mr. Spitzer, you now seem destined to be our next Governor; a post that once was one of the most promising political positions in the entire country. However, the New York of the 21st century looks much grimmer than the New York of the 20th Century. Upstate is losing population exponentially, and there seems to be no end in sight. Recently the New York Times put out an article stating that every county in New York except one (excluding the 5 boroughs and the surrounding suburbs) had lost population of 18-25 year olds in the last census update.

Cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Binghamton are going to become non-existent if we do not change the course of these cities immediately. We need to keep young people in New York.

For instance, I go to school in Binghamton. That city has lost half of its population since the 1980s. This is because IBM, which was founded in Binghamton, began to leave the city, as did Lockheed Martin. Mr. Spitzer: if you cannot fix this mass exudes of jobs from New York to the South and West, New York will become a shell of its former self. You have been placed in this situation and have the opportunity to change the history of New York; you can go down in history as the man who saved upstate.

The reason why this situation needs to be addressed immediately is because the City and the surrounding counties are growing and prospering, and if nothing is done soon the gap between upstate and downstate may grow so large that our state may split in two.

I know this seems ludicrous, but what we need now is a Governor and a Legislature that will make a concerted and transparent effort to revitalize upstate in the next ten years. We need to do this now before NYC outgrows the state by so much that there would be only one logical choice for down state voters: to leave their upstate brothers.

It will not be easy to change upstate New York. It is hilly and small compared to its mid western counterparts, which makes it harder to bring manufacturing jobs back to New York. We have some of the highest taxes, and let's face it, upstate doesn’t have the greatest climate. But if we can bring ingenuity and productivity back to upstate, we can make it work.

So, Mr. Spitzer: my heart is in NYC. But please fix upstate first. NYC can last on its own for a little bit longer.

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