New York is America's most populous city, New York, the “Big Apple”, is one of the world's leading commercial, financial, and cultural centres. New York is subdivided into five boroughs; in descending order of area, the boroughs are Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, and Manhattan. Almost all of the Bronx is situated on the mainland, but the other boroughs are situated on, or comprise, islands. In all, New York comprises some 50 islands. In postal …showed first 75 words of 1999 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1999 total…mid-1970s, when special financial entities (such as the Municipal Assistance Corporation) were created to keep the city from defaulting on its loans. The financial picture improved in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in part because outlays for city services were closely regulated. New York's financial affairs continued to improve in the 1990s under the Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani, elected in 1993, who also introduced wide-ranging measures to reduce the city's once notorious crime rate.