On New York Being A City Of Neighborhoods: I come from a place called Astoria. I was born in an apartment house two blocks from my two-family home where I live now, but it's a neighborhood. And so if you ask somebody from Queens County where do you live? -- they'll say: Astoria, Woodhaven, Forest Hills, they'll give you a little community. It's a community of neighborhoods. If I went away for a weekend one neighbor would watch the apartment. It's got all the benefits of a small town wherever you come from because it's a city of neighborhoods. But if you go to Iowa and somebody asked me where I came from, I'd say, "New York City." It's like New York City means something. It's both places. On Commuting: You have four million people a day, taken by the largest subway system in the world bringing people into Manhattan, but then they go back home at night to Queens, or the Bronx, or Brooklyn, or Staten Island, wherever they come from, and that's where they live, and they live in much different surroundings than from where they work. So, unless you are a resident of New York City, you don't know that. On City Life: I took the wrong turn off an exit only 20 miles away from New York City and I saw the most beautiful homes that I've ever seen. It was incredible, it was like a dream. In the meanwhile, I forgot where I was. So I wanted to try and get directions to get back to the parkway that I just got off. There wasn't a human being, there wasn't a store, there wasn't a candy store, there wasn't a grocery store, there wasn't a gas station, there wasn't anything except beautiful homes! Finally I saw a car parked in the driveway about a hundred yards up with a chauffeur in it, and I finally got directions to go back. That's not the way I want to live, and I don't think that's the way most people want to live. You don't want to live alone, in your own home, where you never see anyone. You want to be able to get a container of milk, if you need it, within walking distance, or a newspaper, or anything. Or talk to a neighbor, and that you have in New York City, anyplace where you live.		Photo: Daniel Luhmann Vallone is Speaker and Majority Leader of the New York City Council, a position he has held since he was first elected in 1986. In 1998, Vallone mounted a campaign for Governor of New York State, and although he lost to incumbent George Pataki, he won more than 65 percent of the vote in New York City. Before being elected to the Council in 1974, Vallone was a Special Assistant to the New York State Attorney General. Prior to that, he worked as a schoolteacher with the New York City Youth Board, and is a lifelong resident of Astoria, Queens, the district that he represents.