Cities Struggle

For John, BLUF:  This year, an off year for elections, sees some interesting sociology playing out, and perhaps not going the way the Bien-pensant expected.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Emerging Metropolitan Majority?

Here is the sub-headline:

A multiethnic, moderate coalition of New Yorkers wants order and opportunity.

From City Journal, by Writer Michael Hendrix, 28 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus four:

Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, vowed recently that he would “create an environment for growth”—starting with public safety.  “The prerequisite to prosperity is safety,” Adams declared.  This week, he rolled out a plan to convert hotels to housing in order to tackle the city’s cost-of-living and homelessness crises.

With these moves, Adams follows the preferences of those he seeks to represent.  New Yorkers are deeply concerned about the cost of living and crime, according to a new survey of America’s 20 fastest-growing metros conducted by the Manhattan Institute and Echelon Insights.  Roughly three in four New Yorkers say that they are concerned about the cost of housing, high taxes, and public safety and crime rates.  Homelessness was not far behind, with 71 percent expressing concern.  These proportions exceed those for concern about Covid-19, jobs, schooling, or traffic—though New Yorkers are worried about those, too—and far surpassed the level of concern in other cities, especially those in the Sun Belt.

New Yorkers were more concerned about taxes than were residents of any other city. This past year, New York City earned the distinction of having the highest state and local top income-tax rates in the country. Jobs are also a larger concern in New York than they are in the rest of the country.  The city’s labor market has fallen harder and recovered slower than nearly anywhere else in America.  If New York City’s recovery had kept pace with the country’s, New York would have 375,000 more jobs than it has today.  Unsurprisingly, nearly half of city adults say good jobs are hard to find, and two-thirds cite future job prospects as a key factor in deciding whether they want to stay put.

Housing costs remain a major concern in Gotham.  Large majorities of New Yorkers support making it easier to build more homes to keep up with demand, including with faster permitting, more transit-oriented development, and more backyard apartments.  Notably, not everyone views more housing as a driver of more affordable housing;  if asked to choose, more people support an approach that subsidizes new housing rather than removes barriers to building it, though many expressed uncertainty.

More than half of New Yorkers are concerned about the quality of their local schools and school curricula—again, a bigger share than in any other city we surveyed.  Sixty-two percent support encouraging more charter schools, with even more (72 percent) favoring greater choice in schooling.  A majority (58 percent) also supports removing lessons based on critical race theory from public school curricula, a hot-button topic that has sparked tensions between school administrators and parents.

There are links at the original web site.

On 2 November New York City will hold an election for City Mayor.  .

My Wound Clinic Doctor is originally from New York and he sees New York City as going through cycles of Progressiveism and cycles of law and order.  We must be due for a cycle of law and order.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff