Twentieth century New York enjoyed a reputation as a prototype for urban life, in all of its cultural and industrial manifestations. However, in the current global environment New York's status as the global "model city" is being challenged against a new set of localized conditions. These include changes in land value, use and zoning, shifts in various levels of policy, stewardship, and ownership (public, private or public/private) to the reconfiguration and implementation of complex and interrelated natural and man-made systems. In fact, the flux and rapid change in both global and local conditions and dynamics are being observed and are provoking the design fields to engage the engineering and science fields to embark on a common search to understand and respond to the relations between macro trends and micro behaviors that have large predictable and unpredictable consequences.
