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Julian Wolpert, geographer and specialist on urban affairs

Julian Wolpert found that the nonprofit sector is a major force in New York City's economy.

New York City’s nonprofit sector did not carry the luster the city’s financial and technological industries radiated in the 1990s, when Wall Street and Silicon Alley ruled Gotham.

But longtime Princeton professor Julian Wolpert discovered that during the last decade the nonprofit sector was a major cog in New York City’s economic engine with employment levels growing at 25 percent, compared to 4 percent for the city as a whole. That growth made the sector, which includes hospitals, universities, cultural institutions, and social service organizations, the fastest growing source of jobs in the city, according to a new study by Wolpert and others.

"We were very surprised. The study was motivated by the notion that the nonprofit sector is not widely known and not widely appreciated. The findings go well beyond what we expected," says Wolpert, who arrived at Princeton in 1973 and now serves as the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Geography, Public Affairs, and Urban Planning at the Woodrow Wilson School. He also chairs the urban and regional planning program.

Wolpert's two-year study also revealed that nonprofit organizations accounted for one in seven city jobs, or 14 percent of the labor force, and pumped more than $43 billion into New York City’s economy in 2000.

For nearly 20 years Wolpert has focused his research on the nonprofit sector and philanthropy and has written on such topics as location theory, the provision and delivery of public and nonprofit services, urban development, and environmental policy. In 2000, the Non Profit Times, a business publication for nonprofit management, named Wolpert to its Power and Influence Top 50 list, citing that "his research remains timely and accessible, which most often is not the case in this sector. Other researchers look to his work as a springboard to what they are examining."

Wolpert hopes the New York City research will serve as a springboard to action for the mayor’s office and economic development officials, who he believes need to show more appreciation for nonprofits and help organizations deal with real estate costs in the city.

The professor taught a course entitled The American City last spring at the Woodrow Wilson School and is set to teach an undergraduate course on geography and public affairs and a graduate level class on planning theory and process.

By Argelio Dumenigo

Write to Argelio at dumenigo@princeton.edu