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Walked from Fordham near Lincoln Center across 10th Avenue along 60th Street towards Columbus Circle around 11PM last week. Could not get over the number of homeless camped out along 60th Street. Right across from the Mandarin Oriental hotel looked like the Bowery of old.
Walked from Fordham near Lincoln Center across 10th Avenue along 60th Street towards Columbus Circle around 11PM last week. Could not get over the number of homeless camped out along 60th Street. Right across from the Mandarin Oriental hotel looked like the Bowery of old.
Homelessness is good for NY, it keeps it diverse. It cant be all billionaires in Manhattan and Yuppies in the four boroughs. That wouldnt be fair Bugsy.
This is the bizarrely odd thing from people. While Bloomberg's fortune grew by something like $ 22 billion - not grew to, but grew larger by that amount - in less than ten years, in the same period the homeless population grew by 60% or something, indicating that not everyone was doing as well.
Both indicate fundamental problems, and ones that are not really mitigated by "bike lanes" or whatever else.
I am not such a big de Blasio fan but I am definitely smart enough to realize that blaming him for this inheritance could be a rather short-sighted, to say the very least.
Bloomberg understands an important concept that De Blasio doesn't.
"New York seems particularly challenged right now because [De Blasio] is trying to use the tools of local government to fight inequality, which is a global phenomenon. When cities try to tax businesses and the rich, those taxpayers just move across the river to a lower-cost locale. Moreover, there is nothing fair about asking those people who choose to live in cities to disproportionately bear the burden of caring for the poor." Edward Glaeser
Those who defend de blasio: just please say what good he has done for NYC. Bloomberg and Giulianni made positive differences in NYC during their terms.
In other words, other than defending de blasio by blaming his predecessors for the bad things happening under his administration, what else can you say about de Blasio? So he somehow "inherited" the bad things.... what has he done to make it better?
Each time the homeless problem is brought up here some people blame it on de Blasio's predecessor. Now realize he has been mayor for almost 2 entire years now. If he is anything good in dealing with the homeless situation, the situation should not be worsening more and more now. If someone else succeeds him as the mayor and solves the problem, I imagine the same people will credit it to the then former mayor de Blasio.
How where either Bloomberg or de Blasio supposed to deal with the homeless problem. Lots of homeless people come to NYC from other states. On top of that the federal government cut funding to Section 8 and to NYCHA. No NYC mayor is going to be able to deal with the homeless situation entirely. There would need to be a national agreement on social services and mental health services agreeing to fund these people in their home counties so they don't flood big cities.
Suburban and rural districts have fewer soup kitchens, shelters, and other supportive services. So homeless find ways of coming to the nearest big city.
Other stuff someone blamed de Blasio for that is neither de Blasio NOR Bloomberg's fault.
The decline of many small businesses. Americans in general prefer to shop at name brand stores or otherwise buy brands. Many order things online from places like Amazon. When they don't order stuff online, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Duane Reade/Walgreens/Rite Aid (they are all the same company), CVS, Starbucks, Fairway, Bestbuy, etc. are all popular places. Of course commercial landlords like to get the best deal they can get renting out (they are businessmen) so they would rather rent out to a bank branch than rent out to a bar.
What has Bloomberg or Giuliani done during their terms, that positively effected your living here?
Question for anybody on the thread.
Giuliani was one of the best Mayor NYC has ever had. Giuliani changed the culture of NYC which was desperately needed by being tough on crime which helped lock up a lot of street thugs and mobsters. Through broken windows policies, which by the way I fully support, Giuliani attacked smaller quality of life crimes such as graffiti, sqweegy men, etc which helped the overall perception of NYC. He rezoned time square and gave the boot to all the porn shops, peep shows and got rid of the prostitutes and pimps in the area. Theres a ton of positive stuff Giuliani did for NYC, more than this idiot De Blasio can ever do.
Had they done the poll in December 2013, the last month of the Bloomberg mayoralty, I'm sure they'd have gotten the same or WORSE results. Comparing differences between 1997 and 2015 is a foolish waste of effort. 1997 (the last poll) was nearing the end of a terrific economic expansion. 2015 is clawing out of the deepest hole we have ever seen, the depression of the 1930's included.
Many of the programs Guiliani took credit for during his mayoral tenure were in fact the work of Dinkins, who is consistently rated the worst mayor of all time by many posters on this board. It doesn't surprise me. NYC politics is a microcosm of the U.S. as a whole — and most local political systems are predicated on the preferences of the country in which they are established. Generally, whoever is loudest about taking credit for positive results is remembered for them, facts be damned.
Clinton used many of the same tactics, but in reverse. His time in office left us with a complete breakdown of the banking system that eventually gave way to the 2008 crisis, the modern for-profit prison pipeline and its attendant "3 strikes, you're out" rules, and a "reform" of welfare that threw even more people into irreversible poverty to the point that half of our nation is currently in such a state. But he had a slick act, he "felt your pain," and has continued to lead people to believe that he was singlehandedly responsible for the dropping crime and rising prosperity of the mid- to late-1990s.
Guiliani won the 1993 mayoral election using similar tactics, and is fondly remembered to this day for policies that were actually the work of his much-maligned predecessor. I, too, though Guiliani was the miracle worker he was always made out to be, but my NYC-born and raised wife set me straight rather quickly. She, too, is a minority in her POV, and I very much doubt this will change. In the same manner, a certain number of people will continue to blame low-income, severely indebted 20-somethings for the work of a 3-term mayor who they voted for thrice, and who gave away their city to the billionaire class. It hurts less to blame people like you, and so people do. I doubt that will change either, unless the pain gets too bad.
Many of the programs Guiliani took credit for during his mayoral tenure were in fact the work of Dinkins, who is consistently rated the worst mayor of all time by many posters on this board. It doesn't surprise me. NYC politics is a microcosm of the U.S. as a whole — and most local political systems are predicated on the preferences of the country in which they are established. Generally, whoever is loudest about taking credit for positive results is remembered for them, facts be damned.
Clinton used many of the same tactics, but in reverse. His time in office left us with a complete breakdown of the banking system that eventually gave way to the 2008 crisis, the modern for-profit prison pipeline and its attendant "3 strikes, you're out" rules, and a "reform" of welfare that threw even more people into irreversible poverty to the point that half of our nation is currently in such a state. But he had a slick act, he "felt your pain," and has continued to lead people to believe that he was singlehandedly responsible for the dropping crime and rising prosperity of the mid- to late-1990s.
Guiliani won the 1993 mayoral election using similar tactics, and is fondly remembered to this day for policies that were actually the work of his much-maligned predecessor. I, too, though Guiliani was the miracle worker he was always made out to be, but my NYC-born and raised wife set me straight rather quickly. She, too, is a minority in her POV, and I very much doubt this will change. In the same manner, a certain number of people will continue to blame low-income, severely indebted 20-somethings for the work of a 3-term mayor who they voted for thrice, and who gave away their city to the billionaire class. It hurts less to blame people like you, and so people do. I doubt that will change either, unless the pain gets too bad.
The very article you post isn't a ringing endorsement either. I don't bash Dinkins, he was mayor at a very bad time economically and socially (crack epidemic), and certainly tried his best and got some things right.
But this idea that somehow Guliani and Bloomberg did absolutley nothing is just partisanship at it's worst. If we're going to be honest, let look at the fact that while other cities are slowly backsliding on the progress they've made on crime and fiscal matters while NYC has been chugging along quite nicely. If there was 20 years of do-nothingness at City Hall pre-Deblasio this would not be the case.
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