By Marco Shalma

Walk around New York today and you’ll notice something that should scare anyone who actually cares about this city: there are fewer people making things and more people managing the people who make things. Layers of oversight. Layers of approvals. Layers of roles that don’t touch the work but shape the work anyway. New York used to be a place where makers ran the show. Now it’s a city where the meeting about the meeting gets more attention than the product, the dish, the idea, or the hustle that actually moves the needle.

This isn’t nostalgia. It’s trajectory.

Look at any sector — food, retail, nightlife, construction, manufacturing, tech. The number of creators isn’t shrinking because talent disappeared. It’s shrinking because the city kept building systems that reward administration over innovation. You need a permit. Then another. Then a compliance check. Then a fee. Then a review. Then an inspection to confirm the first inspection. You can spend six months trying to launch something that takes six days in cities that aren’t tripping over their own bureaucracy.

And here’s the punchline: the people stuck in this mess aren’t against rules. Makers love structure. You need structure to build. What we have now is something else — a city that built an economy on saying “no” faster than it can process a “yes.” And when you exhaust the builders, the managers have nothing left to manage.

But there are exceptions.

When the city steps aside and actually partners instead of polices, you see what New Yorkers are capable of. Look at immigrant-owned kitchens running on margins held together by faith and stainless steel. Look at small manufacturers in Brooklyn making globally competitive products inside old warehouse floors. Look at street vendors turning sidewalks into micro-economies. None of these people are asking for a shortcut. They’re asking for air.

The solution isn’t complicated.

If the city wants to stay a capital of creation, it has to become a place where doing the work isn’t treated like a suspicious activity. Make permitting predictable. Make compliance readable. Make agency communication functional instead of labyrinthine. Reward risk-takers the same way we reward administrators. If you want more makers, stop building a system that punishes them for trying.

New York wasn’t built by managers.

Managers came later, after the work was done.

If this city forgets that, everything collapses — not with an explosion, but with a quiet, boring, administrative shrug.

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