Instead of focusing on engineering schools, if NYC wants to attract engineers it should focus on its elementary, middle and high schools. Engineers value education. Engineers usually do not make enough to afford fancy NYC private schools, and most engineers are not going to send their kids to NYC's public schools. So even if NYC succeeds in attracting young engineers, it will lose many of them as they start to raise families and leave looking for better public schools for their kids.
Plan to get good tech school in NYC:<p>Subsidized rent: Many engineers are smart people who know the value of an engineering education and not spending their 20's and 30's in debt. No where else has that crappy of living conditions per dollar spent where there is a good engineering school.<p>Low out of state tuition: My alma mater (Georgia Tech) gets tons and tons of out of state students due to the low cost yet good results. Many of those students then STAY there in Atlanta.<p>Tons of well paying internships/co-op jobs: NYC is addicted to free/low priced interns. I'd say many NYC companies are giant dicks about this policy as well. Make it illegal and harshly punished to offer those in the engineering professions, or setup a huge list of partners pledging to never ever accept unpaid work. In every other part of the country with good engineering schools, you get paid between $12-30 bucks an hour while co-op working (basically an internship you go back to every other semester). This <i>has</i> to happen to keep people in NYC when they get out. Co-op jobs are a great way to basically keep engineers there in town as they almost always get an offer at that position after graduation.<p>Get nerdy sheik cultural events going on in the city: NYC is too overly status conscious in many ways to appeal to geeky folk. And while not all engineers are geeks, many people assume they are. They act like they're some sort of neckbearded smelly dude in the back of class who's good for nothing other than fixing your computer. You gotta change that perception, and the perception of the perception. Put incredibly dorky installation art in instead of experiemental cultural art. Host events related to hacking things up. Make maker faires, etc.
For what it's worth, here are the top engineering (graduate) schools ranked by US News & World Report in 2010:<p><a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/rankings" rel="nofollow">http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...</a><p>It seems clear to me that just because an area has a top engineering school nearby, that doesn't necessarily make it a startup hotbed...
As many of the comments on the NYT point out, NYC <i>has</i> good engineering schools. It makes me think there's more going on here if city officials are looking to create a new one from whole cloth rather than trying to improve what's already there.
<i>...New York lacks a top-rated engineering school.</i><p>How about Columbia University's Fu School of Engineering, the City College of New York, The Cooper Union, or NYU Poly.<p>Geez, go back to banking you eejit.
In the context of what NYC is trying to do, it might be interesting to read PG's thoughts on how to create a Silicon Valley:
<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html</a><p>The two main ingredients he identifies in his essay are rich people and nerds. I guess NYC has plenty of rich people and Wall Street capital. What's lacking is the youthful nerds and the universities that would attract them to come to NYC.<p>An unexplored issue is how geographic constraints will affect the Silicon Valley-ization of NYC. Everyone wants to be in Manhattan but that's an island with limited space. When the other major industries in NYC (like finance) bid up the resources (such as land and labor), can startups become equal or even dominant in NYC?
How about New York City stop worrying about trying to become a tech center every day?<p>Even Boston grads seem to catch the next flight out West even though Boston has a nice concentration of top schools. The bay area has VCs, schools, concentration of talent and.. momentum.
<i>> the city would seek a “top caliber academic institution” as a partner in building a school for applied science and engineering.</i><p>They should definitely partner with RPI. Go Engineers!
Two things I think of when I think NYC:<p>1. Frakin' Expensive
2. Not San Francisco<p>I feel like places like SV and SF can justify high prices because they already have a lot of stuff going on there. If NYC doesn't, how does it make it worth peoples' while by offsetting the financial barrier to entry? I don't immediately see how another engineering school alleviates this, but hey, maybe it will?
If NYC wants to attract the next Google, they should start by repealing the outmoded regulations and firing the bureaucrats (like Kathleen Willey) that ban 23andMe (from the wife of Google) from doing business in the state.