Bloomberg inherited a city with rising property values and thriving brokerage firms that benefited from what is still an ongoing bull market.

The mayor clearly made the best of a rising tide by balancing the city’s budget on time (for the first time in years) and launching into a sustainable city campaign.

It should also be said that the mayor deserves a limited amount of credit. A lot of the heavy lifting involved with resurrecting the city from the depths of the Dinkins years was performed by Rudy Giuliani, the outgoing mayor and presidential hopeful with the odds of a snowball in Arizona.

Giuliani bears the brunt of the public backlash for Stalin-like steps toward metaphorically making the trains run on time. He initiated a crackdown on the homeless — having them herded into shelters and out of sight — by ordering police to hand out nuisance tickets. He also took on Times Square and cleaned up decaying neighborhoods throughout the city.

Some of the current Mayor’s initiatives are still works in progress that may still help or hurt his legacy.

Ongoing efforts to reform the public schools are still a subject of debate. The mayor claims high school graduation rates are increasing, but critics say he plays fast and loose with statistics that really mask overall dropout rates rising year after year.

In hindsight, I think Bloomberg will get high marks for good stewardship and presiding over what has been the most livable incarnation of New York in the city’s history. Few people bother to read nettlesome details of history. The roaring times of the post-Sept. 11 rebound will be remembered as a picnic in the sustainable city that New York is readily becoming. It’s really the economy.