Dear Future NYC mayor,
When you take office on Jan. 1, you will inherit a city that is world-class in culture, finance, and technology but constrained by outdated systems and practices. New York City’s financial systems are crumbling. Its procurement rules lock out innovation. Agencies hoard data in silos. Civil-service regulations make it nearly impossible to recruit the kind of digital talent that drives every other sector.
No matter what priorities were outlined during the campaign — whether it’s housing affordability, public safety, education, or economic opportunity — none can be achieved without fixing the city’s own technological foundation. Every policy goal depends on delivering services effectively, sharing data securely, and making decisions in real time. Until City Hall becomes digital-ready, every other reform rests on sand.
Other governments around the world have already embraced the digital era. In Estonia, citizens can vote, pay taxes, and access health care online. Singapore’s Smart Nation program integrates housing, transport, and health into one seamless platform. Greece now offers most government services through a single portal. Even in the United States, cities like Boston, Denver, and Kansas City are showing how data and AI can modernize public services. Once a pace-setter, New York risks falling behind.
The stakes are not abstract. Outdated systems inflate costs, slow services, and deepen inequality — directly undermining the city’s affordability and quality of life. Antiquated benefit platforms delay food, housing, and health assistance. Every wasted dollar could have funded schools, health programs, or housing.
Every failed interaction with City Hall erodes public trust when confidence in institutions — and in the city’s ability to deliver a stable life — is fragile. This dysfunction doesn’t just slow permits or benefits — it undermines how the city manages its schools, allocates resources, and supports educators preparing students for a digital future.
Technology should be the backbone of fairness and efficiency. And with artificial intelligence transforming industries, a failure to modernize government risks leaving New Yorkers on the wrong side of progress.
Every day, ordinary New Yorkers feel the pain of a government stuck in analog mode. A mother applying for child-care assistance must print forms, travel across boroughs, and wait weeks for confirmation — when she could have completed the process online in minutes. A senior citizen loses housing because the city’s databases can’t talk to each other. A small-business owner waits months for agencies to approve paper permits that could easily be unified digitally.
These are not glitches — they’re structural failures that waste time, income, and patience. They punish those least able to navigate bureaucracy: low-income and elderly New Yorkers. Modernization isn’t about convenience — it’s about equity and affordability that restore faith in government.
If City Hall can’t function digitally, New York’s economy will suffer. The city is one of the nation’s fastest-growing tech hubs, employing thousands, generating billions, and fueling innovation. But this ecosystem thrives only in a city that models digital competence and embraces modernization as economic strategy.
When government lags, it adds friction and costs that undermine affordability and competitiveness. Antiquated permitting systems slow housing development. Procurement rules block innovative, diverse startups from competing for contracts. Residents encountering broken digital services lose trust not only in City Hall but in the city’s promise of economic mobility.
A digitally functional City Hall isn’t just good government — it’s a signal to the world that New York intends to remain a capital of innovation, jobs, and opportunity. Without those foundations, New York cannot retain talent or deliver a livable city.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, New York City’s public education and workforce development systems must adapt their pedagogy and certifications to meet the demands of a world being reshaped in real time. This is no longer a distant goal — it is an immediate necessity.
The challenges and opportunities presented by AI will define how the city educates, trains, and employs its people for decades to come. But if the city’s own government remains digitally outdated, its educational institutions will inevitably fall behind as well. A government that cannot modernize itself cannot credibly prepare its students and workers for the digital age.
What the new mayor can do
Appoint a chief digital officer with authority to align citywide priorities — and ensure no commissioner or deputy mayor can sidestep it. This must be someone with proven experience leading digital transformation in large institutions — someone who understands not just technology, but how to modernize complex organizations from the inside out.
- Create a Digital Transformation Commission.
Bring together private-sector leaders who have modernized large organizations, joined by former government officials, and representatives of the comptroller, public advocate, and City Council speaker to support and advise the chief digital officer in designing and overseeing comprehensive citywide systemic reform.
- Reimagine education and workforce development.
Bring together academics and researchers, employers and trainers, unions, and technologists to design a reimagined public education and workforce development system that meets the challenges and opportunities of the future. This effort must ensure that New York’s schools and training programs prepare residents for an economy being reshaped by AI and digital innovation — linking learning directly to opportunity, equity, and long-term affordability for all New Yorkers.
Launch a citywide digital and AI training program so that every civil servant — from executives to frontline workers — can deliver smarter, data-driven services. Equip agency leaders to evaluate new tools responsibly and use them to improve efficiency, equity, and public trust. Expand digital upskilling for frontline staff in benefits, housing, and permitting so residents feel the improvements where it matters most.
New York must also help residents understand AI’s impact on jobs, privacy, and information. A public AI education initiative should explain how AI works, how to recognize disinformation, and how to adapt — making AI literacy as fundamental as financial literacy so New Yorkers can turn anxiety into agency.
- Partner with the civic-tech and community ecosystem.
Across the five boroughs, nonprofits, startups, and volunteer technologists are already building digital tools for the public good — helping residents access services and engage civically. Partnering with this community can help City Hall test and scale solutions faster than government alone. Create pilot pathways so promising ideas can be tested and scaled without years of delay.
- Dramatically expand the city’s cybersecurity capability.
New York must convene a robust task force drawn from government, academia, and industry to defend the city’s digital infrastructure against the escalating volume and sophistication of cyber threats — many now fueled by artificial intelligence. This effort should extend beyond routine monitoring to coordinated public-private response strategies that protect essential systems as aggressively as we protect physical safety. Protecting digital infrastructure is as vital to public safety as policing streets.
The urgency is real. Looming budget cuts will tighten city finances, and artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how businesses operate, how governments make decisions, and how societies function. Every sector is being rebuilt around data and automation.
That makes it an even greater imperative that New York City government operate at the same level as the world it regulates and serves. If the private sector is leveraging AI to deliver personalized, efficient, and affordable services, then City Hall must do the same — responsibly — to ensure public systems don’t fall decades behind. A city that governs in analog terms while its economy runs on algorithms will fall behind.
The “digital divide” usually describes people’s access to technology, but it could just as easily apply to New York City itself. It’s about whether our institutions can operate in what is sure to be an AI-driven century. When city government delivers efficiently, everyone benefits — residents, businesses, schools, and civic institutions restoring public trust and affordability.
Mr. Mayor, you have the chance to make New York City a global model for digital governance and civic innovation. The resources exist: universities, private-sector talent, and a dynamic tech and philanthropic community. Civic technologists stand ready to help; what’s missing is a coherent plan and your will to act.
This is not about apps or dashboards. It’s about restoring competence, transparency, affordability, and trust in how government serves its people. A unified digital strategy could help New York tackle big challenges while unlocking new opportunities for growth.
But at its core, this is about power. Technology determines who gets access, who gets heard, and who gets left behind. The way New York City builds and governs its digital future will fundamentally shape whether technology serves to shift power from the few to the many — or from the many to the few.
Rasiej is the founder of Civic Hall @ Union Square and the chairman emeritus of the NY Tech Alliance.
