Blue City Decline: How to Save New York and Other Cities
New York City residents have thrown in the towel. Gotham's quality of life is plunging, but only 11% of registered voters turned out in last Tuesday's local election. Nearly all incumbent members of the New York City Council skated to reelection.
New Yorkers are voting with their feet, abandoning the city instead of going to the polls to demand new leadership. Amazingly, more New Yorkers have fled the city since 2020 than turned out on Election Day.
It doesn't have to be this way. The Big Apple could be a safe, thriving place to live. But our politicians have no vision of a better future, no priorities.
Last year, Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan, "Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York City's Economic Recovery," which includes 70 initiatives. Seventy priorities mean no priorities at all. It proposes a "hub for digital game development" and a "one-of-a-kind cultural district on Governors Island." These are hardly essentials when the city is headed off a fiscal cliff.
Later last year, Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul rolled out another "Roadmap for Future" of the city. Forty more initiatives. Blah, blah, blah.
Here's a four-point agenda to turn New York around:
No. 1: Deter freeloading migrants from coming to New York. Adams has warned that the huge and continuing influx of migrants seeking shelter and services will "destroy" the city. City services for New Yorkers are being cut, including even fire protection and sanitation, to meet the expense.
That's unacceptable. The city's "right-to-shelter" legal obligation is a magnet. New York is the only city legally compelled to house all comers. That obligation originated more than 40 years ago, in a 1981 agreement between the city and homelessness advocates. All elected officials should back Adams in a legal fight to get it overturned. The city will continue to take care of its own, but not an unlimited number of newcomers.
In the meantime, future migrants should be housed in tents or barracks, not upscale hotel rooms many tourists can't afford.
No. 2: Stop the city from descending into lawlessness. Shoplifting and subway crime are the major problems, not murders and rapes.
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