New York has become the poster child for wealth inequality
and racial segregation.
The Bloomberg years and the financial crisis worked wonders
for the 1%, but the rest of the city’s citizens suffered. The middle class has
been hollowed out and the city is increasingly the domain of the very rich and
the rest.
Now, we have a new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the prospects
are not very much better.
Joel Kotkin uses statistics to paint the picture.
Gotham
has become the American capital of a national and even international trend
toward greater income inequality and declining social mobility….
Manhattan
is now the most unequal county in America (it was 17th in 1980), with a Gini
coefficient — which measures the disparity between the richest and poorest
residents — higher than that of Apartheid-era South Africa.
Something liberal New Yorkers—that includes just about
everyone—should not be proud of.
New Yorkers are great believers in racial integration. And
yet, the city remains racially segregated, especially when it comes to the
school system.
Kotkin explains:
And as
the city becomes more economically unequal, it’s also become more racially
segregated. Demographer Daniel Herz’ census analysis shows New York is now
America’s second most racially divided city, behind only
Milwaukee.African-American incomes in New York are barely half those of whites,
as compared to nearly 70% in Phoenix and Houston.
And New
York City now has the nation’s single most segregated public school system,
according to a devastating report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.
Will the de Blasio program, designed to solve these
problems, be more effective than twelve years of Michael Bloomberg?
Kotkin does not think so:
But de
Blasio’s press to bring in more tax revenue to pay for ambitious new programs,
more generous social services and new contracts for city workers have the
perverse effect of doubling down on Bloomberg’s bet on the wealthy.
His
ambitious ramping up of green-energy policy could be the straw that breaks the
back of what remains of the logistics and manufacturing industries in New York,
something that has already occurred in California.
And his
kowtowing to the teachers union and attempted assaults on charter schools
threaten to further undermine the effectiveness of public education, something
vital to middle and working class residents.
Surely, New Yorkers hold all the right beliefs. They vote
for politicians who hold the same liberal and progressive beliefs.
Unfortunately, when their policies are put into practice
their dreams of a multicultural utopia are seen to have produced a racially segregated, grossly
unequal dystopia.
You would think that true pragmatists would look at the
results and conclude that perhaps the policies are defective.
Tragically, New Yorkers are more likely to double down on
failure than to change course.
2 comments:
The difference between feeling good about one's self and actually doing good for others. Making people more dependent does not create people who have the ability to grow and succeed.
Every one of us has the desire to feel like we can meet the challenges of life on our own abilities, capabilities and capacities. Having others give what they believe is warranted only makes people less capable. It only makes children out of them who always has the state deciding how they should act.
That is why I cringe every time I see a New York tag where I live. Just how many mistakes can one place make and still believe it has the answers to any question. It does worry me that they bring the same ides with them that they are running away from.
Results? Shirley, you Jest! Intentions are valued 100:1 (or likely 1000:1) over results. Remember, "His heart's in the right place." Too bad it's upside down and backwards.
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