Should the New York City Marathon take this year off?

The race, the world’s largest with a field of nearly 50,000 runners, is scheduled for Sunday morning — barely six days after Hurricane Sandy left parts of the city in ruins and crippled its transportation system.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and marathon organizers have said the race will go on as scheduled, as it has every year since 1970, as a symbol of the city’s ability to rally after hard times.

“It’s a great event for New York, and I think for those who were lost, you know, you’ve got to believe they would want us to have an economy and have a city go on for those that they left behind,” Bloomberg said.

But that plan has been met with a backlash from area residents and even many runners registered for the marathon who believe it is in poor taste to hold a road race through the five boroughs as hundreds of thousands of people in nearby areas continue to suffer the damage wrought by the storm.