The year would not be complete if we did not tip our hat to one of the most extraordinary editors in this, or any, town, Myron Magnet. At the end of the year he is stepping down from the editorship of City Journal, which over the past 12 years he has built into a magazine of outsized influence in the political and cultural affairs not only of New York but of all cities. It would not be too much to say that under Mr. Magnet’s editorship City Journal has become the most influential urban magazine in the country and the most beautifully crafted. Published by the Manhattan Institute, it has made its mark by setting out to be more than an organ of the think tank that owns it. It has cast a wide net in conducting the policy debate on urban issues, winning a national audience among mayors and policy makers across the country, and articulating an aesthetic vision that has given new hope to those inspired by classical design in cities, in architecture, and in art.

One event that brought all this home to us was a Manhattan Institute banquet last year, where Mayor Giuliani was the speaker. He brought as a prop for the evening some copies of City Journal. They were his back copies of City Journal, and he had held onto them. The mayor flipped through and, article by article, mentioned ideas that had made it from the pages of the journal into the policies of his administration — from broken-windows policing to welfare reform and ending social promotion. It wouldn’t be overstating it, one of the city’s most effective mayors said, to say that he had plagiarized his policies from the pages of City Journal. Reporting the matter out later with aides to the mayor, we learned that the policy staff at City Hall actually waited around for the next issue of the City Journal to arrive before picking out ideas to adopt.

If that were all that Mr. Magnet had accomplished at the helm of City Journal it would have been enough. But it turns out that some years ago the editor forged a relationship with the governor of Texas, George W. Bush, and his aide Karl Rove, and thus the ideas of City Journal came to infuse not only the policies of America’s largest and greatest city but also the domestic policy of the Bush administration and its “compassionate conservatism.” No doubt the attacks of September 11, 2001, made the administration’s priorities more focused on foreign than domestic policy. But if one had to pick two politicians to influence during the term of an editorship in the past half-generation, one would be challenged to match the ones Mr. Magnet so famously influenced in Messrs. Giuliani and Bush.

Mr. Magnet’s greatest skill, though, was in establishing and cultivating a team of writers and making them into stars in their own rights. We think of Kay Hymowitz on the family, Heather Mac Donald on policing and on welfare, Steven Malanga on New York’s City Council and the city’s political culture, Sol Stern on schools, Howard Husock on housing, and Theodore Dalrymple on the underclass. The depth of City Journal’s coverage became clear to us when, in researching topics for a series of policy-setting editorials in the Sun’s first year, we found almost invariably that the most thorough, fact-filled, and clear-eyed treatment of almost any urban issue was in City Journal, even when our take was different from City Journal’s, as, on occasion, it has been.

This kind of achievement no doubt owes much to Mr. Magnet’s capacious personality and his willingness to go against convention. This starts with his mutton chops and his impeccably cut suits and is reflected in his taste in the paintings of city motifs that have become the trademark of the magazine’s cover. His relish for art and architecture is matched by his attachment to fine prose. Mr. Magnet has devoted most of his energies to perfecting the work of others and making them famous. He will be succeeded by the deputy he groomed, Brian Anderson. We’re told Mr. Magnet’s plan will be to write under his own byline, including in City Journal. We look forward to reading him. He has set an example of the influence that can be had with a small-circulation publication (or not so small; it now has 950,000 individual readers on the Internet). He has helped make our city safer, more prosperous, and more pleasant.