As the world capital of finance, whatever happens here has repercussions around the globe. If Wall Street sneezes, bourses around the world start shivering. For businessmen and entrepreneurs, the attractions of the city are obvious. But others flock to it too. Talent is drawn to it from all parts of the world--fashion designers, dependent on an ambience of wealth, artists who thrive on a plentiful supply of collectors and connoisseurs, actors and playwrights who cannot prosper without a well developed theater. New York pulls them all in because it has so much to offer them and, in turn, gains from their creativity. It becomes more than a merely urban community. It becomes a truly urbane one.

It was the same more than 30 years ago when I came to this city for my first stay. There was the same bustle, the same intensity of life, the same energy that had made it the center of the world of finance and commerce. The museums displayed the works of the world's greatest artists, on Broadway one could see fresh interpretations of Hamlet, publishers produced books that excited the imagination and educated the intellect. And it had one of the world's truly great libraries. Even so, the city was not entirely free of problems. The west side was in rapid and apparently unstoppable decline. Behind the sparkle of Times Square there was something seedy and squalid that gave the area an unsavory reputation. People warned you about dark streets and the constant threat of mugging. It is instructive to remember that because it makes one aware of what this city's vigor and determination have achieved. The apparently impossible has been done and West 42nd Street cleaned up. The West Side is undergoing a renaissance and though it is unlikely that crime will disappear anywhere forever, New Yorkers and their mayor have done a lot to improve this aspect of city life. Along the way there may have been some indiscretions but the courts have dealt with the issues of civic rights that have arisen. And this, indeed, is what democracy is all about. It does not, after all, guarantee that incorrect decisions will not be made but ensures that when that happens there will be institutions which will act to correct executive excess and guide society back along the paths laid down by law.

As is evident, much has been achieved but some problems have proved too intractable even for New York. What is a cause for increasing concern in any country struggling to develop its economy at a rapid pace is inexcusable in one of the richest cities in the world. One wondered 30 years ago if people in stretch limousines could see through their darkened windows that there were people sleeping on flattened cardboard boxes in Fifth Avenue doorways in freezing winter. One continues to wonder why the best in human economic ingenuity has not been able to devise a way out of such intolerable poverty even after all these years. One wonders not only because the city and the country surely has enough to go round for all but also because the generosity of the American people is beyond dispute. This is attested to not only by the soup kitchens and food pantries at which the indigent line up every day but also by the fact that it was Marshall Aid that put Europe back on its feet after the Second World War and has done so much to try and bring a measure of well-being to others around the globe who had achieved freedom from colonial rule.

Thirty years ago, as the festive season approached and we went along the streets, my son's eyes, wide in wonder, glittered in the lights. The lights heralding the holiday shopping season are lit again, as they were then, but they seem to be less lustrous today. September 11 and the anthrax scare are, of course, partly responsible for that. The fact that the United States is now the sole super power has, indeed, altered the context in which New York has its being; but instead of a feeling of greater confidence and strength there seems to be an awareness of vulnerability, of being under siege. Even with Soviet missiles pointed at the United States, New York did not seem so inflicted with anxiety. One has the feeling that neither the impending total defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan nor the arrest of Osama bin Laden will quite change that. New Yorkers are now apprehensive about an enemy that is more difficult to deal with than any they have known in the past because it is more amorphous, less easy to identify, who can act without regard to the usual norms and is, therefore, practically impossible to guard against totally.

In moments of great tension people seek relief. That is what festivities are for. However there is no escaping the economic downturn, now officially recognized as recession. Lost jobs, increasing unemployment, lowered expectations, are all enforcing a frugality unusual during the recent years of plenty. Less spending means slower business in a city whose economy has been badly damaged by the attack on the World Trade Center and its effects are traveling in ever widening ripples to other parts of the United States and the shores of distant lands. Even New York, it appears, needs to have its morale boosted. The world, it seems, must do what it can to reassure this great city, not only for the sake of New York itself but even more so because so much in the rest of the world depends on its self confidence.

The world has, indeed, tried to demonstrate that it continues to repose its trust in this mega polis. The leaders of the world did not shy away from the UN General Assembly session despite the possibility of a follow-up terrorist attack. They gathered in defiance of the criminals to condemn in no uncertain terms the outrage perpetrated on New York. The General Assembly of the UN is an annual event and world leaders come to attend it every year but what could be a greater vote of confidence in New York and its future than the decision to hold another event of enormous world significance here.

The World Economic Forum, which has regularly brought together statesmen, entrepreneurs and economic managers in Davos, Switzerland, will hold its next meeting in New York next January. The interaction between the different players in the economic arena, people who have different roles to play and different constituencies to answer to, is of great importance to the world's economic health. To be able to view the economic situation from different vantage points and to discuss the possible actions that can be taken in different spheres is to be able to coordinate action and ensure a healthy growth of world economy. Too often economists and economic managers sound as if they regarded profits, growth and wealth as ultimate goals, as ends in themselves. The problem with such a view is that the human being is lost sight of; it is forgotten that the human being is not only the subject but also the object of the economy and it is for the welfare of the people that economic growth and increased wealth is sought.

In sheltered Davos, where affluent skiers gather in winter, it may have been easy to lose sight of the problems faced by the ordinary, vulnerable individual. Here in New York, the participants of the forum may catch a glimpse of the homeless and the hungry as they drive past on their way to or from their meeting places and spare a thought for devising policies and methods that will give to them a life of dignity, not one dependent on charity.