Mayor Bloomberg says that if he were president, he would give out homeland security money based on need, not as it’s currently doled out — like peanut butter, with everyone getting some.

Speaking about the challenges to America’s homeland security on a panel led by a former defense secretary and senator of Maine, William Cohen, and a former senator of Georgia, Samuel Nunn, at New York University yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said that both major political parties are afraid to tell the public that if increased security is desired it is going to cost more money.

Mr. Bloomberg praised the city’s police department for its anti-terror work, its diversity, and the breadth of native languages spoken by its officers, noting that in the national security agencies “a foreign language speaker looks like me and went to school to learn the language.”

He said the real advantage that New York City has when it comes to preventing homegrown terrorism is its diversity and mix of people living so closely together, which he said breeds a familiarity among people who might otherwise feel isolated or divided.

“You have all different ethnicities and religions all on the same block. Now they might not like each other, they might not socialize together at dinner parties, but they do buy their coffee at the same Starbucks, they do get on the subway at the same station, and they do get the cab at the same corner and the newspaper at the same kiosk,” he said.

He added that he would be shocked if Muslim residents in the city “didn’t feel anything other than they’re middle class and they have the same aspirations” as any other group in the city. “You go elsewhere, and that’s not true,” he said.