HOW TO SAVE NEW YORK

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with its drug-withdrawal and methadone-maintenance programs (estimated savings: $18 million a year); the city department of corrections, which also duplicates state penal facilities (savings: $92 million); the municipal broadcasting system, which provides quality material but must be considered a luxury at the present time (savings: $2.4 million); vocational counseling and job placement, which is ineffective and overlaps state services (total savings: $57 million); the board of examiners, which certifies teachers already certified by the state department of education (savings: $3 million).

END RENT CONTROL

New York's housing has deteriorated alarmingly. More than 30,000 apartments are being abandoned each year. One major reason is the city's archaic rent-control law, which has been on the books since World War II. Because landlords in many instances cannot raise rents enough to cover costs, they simply walk away from unprofitable buildings, leaving them in the hands of the city, which can scarcely afford to rehabilitate them or even maintain them. With fuel costs high and climbing, abandonments are bound to accelerate. Real estate tax delinquencies are also ominously rising; they reached $220 million in fiscal 1975.

Rent control must be phased out.

That process could be combined with a modest building program to encourage home ownership in the city. Though more than a thousand acres of largely abandoned areas in The Bronx and Brooklyn are next to slums, they are potentially desirable because they are conveniently located. The city could clear them and erect row houses to be sold to middle-class buyers. Says I.D. Robbins, a builder and former president of the City Club, a civic watchdog group: "There is a tremendous capital investment left over from the time these neighborhoods thrived. All that is missing is people."

ENCOURAGE BUSINESS

No matter what cuts are made, the city's future depends largely on its business climate, which has turned decidedly cloudy because private employers are moving out. Since 1969, when there were 3,798,000 jobs in the city, 456,000 have been lost. In part, this reflects a national trend of manufacturers escaping the high-cost, crime-ridden inner cities. Even so, New York has done next to nothing to stem the exodus. Says Savas: "City officials look upon business as a convenient cow to be milked." Until recently, the city offered few of the tax breaks or sundry inducements that other places use to attract and keep industry. "New York City has had a totally planless economic development," says Herbert Bienstock, a U.S. Labor Department employment expert.

As the fiscal crisis has deepened, the city has belatedly dangled a small carrot to attract business. The Economic Development Administration has started issuing bonds and using the proceeds to cover construction costs for certain industries that want to move to the city or expand their operations. There are also signs that the city's economy may be bottoming out. A recent report by the New School for Social Research suggests that New York has once again become cost-competitive with the rest of the country; because of overbuilding, office space, for example, has become less expensive.

Five years ago, space in midtown buildings was renting for $9 to $14 per sq. ft.; today the cost is down to