The Current State of New York City

As New York City replaces the calamitous mayor, Bill de Blasio, the Wall Street Journal measures the current state of the city.

At a time when the lockdowns are ending and people seem more optimistic, the city is suffering a crime wave and rampant homelessness. So, consider the Journal editorial as an effort, not so much to rain on today’s parade, but to take a cold, hard look at what de Blasio hath wrought. Surely, Comrade Bill is about to go down as one of New York’s worst mayors, not only completely incompetent, but an idiot leftist, to boot.

The Journal editorializes:

Regulations have crushed small businesses. Bias against charter schools and substituting race for merit in admissions have reversed educational gains. A court ordered the city’s public housing authority put under control of a federal monitor. Wage and pension payoffs for public unions have left the city facing a fiscal crisis despite huge Covid cash infusions from Congress.

Above all, crime and disorder have returned amid progressive assaults on police and the anti-crime strategies that worked. Bail reform let repeat offenders free. The mentally ill homeless attack subway riders and pedestrians. The mayor had his police chief disband the anti-crime unit that searched for illegal guns, and shootings have soared. For New Yorkers of a certain age, the slide back to the 1970s is all too clear.

On top of it, the city’s tax base is being eroded by an exodus of high income New Yorkers. The fault for that lies in Albany, where moronic legislators have chosen to increase taxes on the wealthy, thus telling them that they are no longer welcome in the city:

Whoever wins faces a difficult task to rescue the city from the left, including the Legislature in Albany whose tax increases are driving New Yorkers out of the state. But restoring public order is the first duty of the next mayor…. 

Will New York City recover from this madness? It is certainly not a given.