New York Daily News

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Consider the mayoral State of the City address a piece of theater, projecting possibilit­ies for a future New York ever more excellent than the one that rises so tall. So a review is in order for the central scene of Mayor de Blasio’s 2017 effort, a promise to create 100,000 well-paying jobs within the coming 10 years, 40,000 of them before the end of the second term he hopes to win in November: That’s it? In a city with a hopping economy that creates nearly that many jobs every year, outpacing the nation — an increasing share paying the kind of wages de Blasio envisions, in the $75,000-a-year range — the promise is literally the least this thriving city could do.

De Blasio tallies jobs that city actions will help the private sector create, among them some exciting new initiative­s already announced, like his $150 million push to make New York City a magnet for life sciences and a fashion industry hub at Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Let’s hear polite applause for the mayor’s belated choice to affix a numerical target, as he has for affordable housing, on past and future job creation efforts. Each of those new jobs will be welcome to the New Yorkers who secure them.

And exhale a sigh of relief that this time around, the mayor abandoned his fraught, costly annual quest for a signature developmen­t project.

Like the promise to build 11,250 affordable apartments atop Sunnyside Yards (2015) — diminished one $2.5 million study later into a thin reed of future possibilit­y. Or to build the $2.5 billion BQX streetcar (2016) — the brainchild of a donor to the de Blasio political fund that is now at the center of a federal law enforcemen­t investigat­ion.

So put your hands together again, ladies and gentlemen — some modest claps for modest goals well within reach.

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