I agree. I am an 83 year old woman who lived in my for 50 years and still live there for several months each year.. I have always felt safe, and continue to love the City. Thank you for a truthful, upbeat and happy article.
The Trump/GOP decades-old effort to paint NYC--and every other Dem-run city in the country--as crime-ridden hell-holes, is pure bait-and-switch designed to keep their rural, Red-state base convinced that local & state GOP rule is safer, and superior in every way.
When statistics show just the opposite. That even when you take Blue-run cities in Red states out of the equation, those same Red states have a 20% higher crime rate across the board. The GOP resorts to lying--about literally everything--through their chosen spokesnetwork, FOX News, because almost all of their policies are designed to only benefit the top 1%. And penalize everyone else. Thus, the GOP resorts to their ridiculous Culture Wars, and endless fabulizing, to get their Base to vote against their own economic self-interest.
I had a girlfriend that turned out to be a trumper, one day she was telling me how awful California was and I told her I lived there up until a couple of years ago, and that's going to come as a shock to my friends that still live there, because if that was true they would have mentioned it.
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
Actually, the protestors began before Bibi even responded. They draw on disgusting tropes of Jews and blood libel. Basic antisemitism dressed up for today as modern "intersectionality" that has no basis in historical fact. Anti-zionist=anti-Jewish=antisemitism and in this case does not = social justice.
Rubbish, but nice try. Feel better now that you got that hateful screed off your chest and out into the public? I guess 61,000 innocent Palestinian deaths is not enough for you? Gee, that has all the earmarks of another country in the 1930s. Wonder who......
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
I wonder, what's the tuition now for sending a kid to Trump University - Morningside Campus? Any number of community colleges offer curriculums that are unimpeachable, in comparison to it at this point.
So what about each student being able to pursue their own path safely without people disrupting buildings and classes and yelling at passers-by. What about designated protest spaces with people giving speeches peacefully and not breaking into buildings, occupying buildings, bringing in unknown people from off-campus to camp in university buildings, not blocking the paths where students walk, not yelling at students who are just walking to class. It's the anti-Israel people who are harassing Jewish passers-by. Jewish students didn't yell at students trying to attend Hillary Clinton's course. Sure let everyone have one's own opinion peacefully.
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
“…the biggest reason Trump hates congestion pricing is probably because it embodies the idea that sometimes people should be asked to change their behavior for the common good.”
A remarkable thing about the right wing, MAGA, phony libertarian pathology is that they seem to fully understand the concept of “the tragedy of the commons” and actually desire that tragedy.
My late wife was a Fulbright alumnus - as a girl from a rather poor family in a rural German area, she really had wanted to go to a big city, but the Fulbright only covered some basic cost. So the big and expensive cities were for the wealthy rather than the gifted, and she went to the University of South Carolina instead. She got a degree and found friends for life, so it did work out in the end, but she still wanted to see New York and we had put it on our list of places to go to someday (me, I was not so much interested in New York, but I always wanted to visit Lincoln Memorial which, looking from Germany, is not so far away). After she fell ill and died, I still wanted to go, in her honour I guess. Paul Krugman talking about New York always makes it sound like it is really worth it (most city dwellers I know tend to talk shit about their cities, so if someone takes pride the place really must be something). But now, I will not go; given the amount of free speech on my cell phone I doubt if I would even be allowed to enter. I will put it on the bucket list (you know, the list of things I want to do when your current president kicked the bucket. It will go somewhere after the champagne). It will be a different world then, but I hope that if and when this is over your city will still be great, and I am looking forward to a visit then.
Please come! You don’t have to delay your visit. And check out the outer boroughs as well. It’s multi ethnic with a global heartbeat. The only time I’ve ever felt discriminated against for being an outsider was when I moved to Missouri and was a little slow in replacing my New York State license plates.
“The truth is that New York, which really was a dangerous place a few decades ago, is now incredibly safe. The city’s weekly crime report provides some historical comparisons:”
It’s funny you should mention NYC. I was just up there this weekend, and came home yesterday to Miami (former NY’er). I took the Subway during the morning rush hour, and found it to be clean, and safe. I was shocked, considering all of the negative press the city is receiving.
Additionally, I also took cabs. The Congestion pricing is working. It adds about $1.50 per fare, but when you consider that you can get to places without experiencing thirty minutes of traffic; it’s worth it.
The only aspect the city needs to adjust, are the trucks that park in the streets, holding up traffic; it’s still a problem, but manageable.
I was staying on the Upper Westside, and again, no gangs, the streets were clean, and it was mostly quiet. Even Times Square, Chelsea, and Washington Square Park; three areas considered crime waves by the NY Post and MAGA, were relatively safe and clean. I didn’t see big homeless encampments, or gangs roaming the neighborhoods.
So whatever is going on, NY certainly is moving in the right direction. Although, thanks to Trump’s tariffs, the hospitality industry is going to be clobbered this tourist season. IMHO!…:)
They've been scrubbing the cars down at every terminal stop for a couple of decades now, but I still find that rush hour is a nightmare because I don't enjoy being packed like sardines.
Personally, I find Times Square even creepier than before "Disneyfication", so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Washington Square has definitely improved immensely.
You know where the true hellscapes are, of course. Heartland red states, with endless trailer parks, enormous unemployment, unlimited guns, infinite fentanyl, domestic violence, obesity, alcoholism, suicide, and other health issues. Yet the maga fucks peddle this as the real America and its populace as more American than the rest. You know what: GFY
I feel like in the 2010s, some sort of awareness of that was *finally* starting to peek through. It had become pretty much impossible to deny it; how dysfunctional does a culture have to be to turn someone like Donald Trump into its savior, after all. And then there was the opioid scandal, and there was the increasing complaining from the country about how their middle class had collapsed pretty much everywhere. And then Vance rose to fame on the back of a questionable autobiography that largely pathologized white rural culture in the same way that's been done for decades to the inner cities.
But thank God, urban homelessness reared its head again, and right-wing and centrist media culture grabbed it with both hands and blew it into its favorite "our cities are literally Gotham" narrative, so now the country's rolled over and gone back to its usual dream where all cities are postapocalyptic landscapes and only among the Wholesome Small Town Folksy People can true authentic America be found.
“But thank God, urban homelessness reared its head again”
Homelessness and all the other social problems you listed do occur in rural areas, but reporters usually live in cities. For decades they have either had inadequate expense accounts to report from rural areas or they are too lazy. Having attended multiple press conferences and observed reporters in action, the latter seems more likely. They display a lot of group think and very little originality when asking questions.
It's not that they never go to rural or ruralish areas, but they only do it in specific contexts to promote a particular script.
"New York Times or Washington Post reporter travels to a nice family diner in Ohio or Indiana to interview a local businessman whose grievances will reveal that he's upset because he feels abandoned by the cultural elites in Washington" is such a common trope it's become a running joke among online liberals. Fifty-fifty chances, it'll eventually come out that the miscellaneous local being interviewed was in fact the chairman of the local Republican Party and that he's given variations of the same interview to the same reporter eight or nine times already over the years.
Well, one of his most famous moments was when he talked about how relatable Obama would seem interacting with people at the salad bar of a popular restaurant that... doesn't in fact have a salad bar. So yeah, I think it's safe to say David Brooks doesn't actually bother to visit the places he's writing about.
Thank you! To me it is obvious he simply caricatures people to be who he imagines them to be. I read one column of his (which was enough to clue me in that he was a fraud) about him taking a friend to a nice NY deli. Supposedly she was so overwhelmed with the exotic meat choices (like capicola) until he took pity on her, and was magnanimous enough to take her to some fast-food place, which she understood. He should have explained what they were (different types of ham), and asked what she liked. If it were a real interaction. But this way he got to superior in his telling, which seems to be his point always.
It's part of a decades-old bait-and-switch pushed daily in RW media. That portrays Blue-run cities and states as hellholes, and Red-run areas as squeaky clean, finger licken' good. All to keep GOP voters thanking their lucky stars they're not stuck in Blue shitholes, so they'll keep pulling the "R" lever.
The data shows the opposite, by nearly every metric: especially crime. Which is considerably higher in Red-run states and counties. If it wasn't for all of the Federal tax wealth flowing out of California & New York to subsidize almost every Red state budget, Red America would be dirt floor poor. Economically indistinguishable from Bangladesh.
Which is FOX News's best kept secret: con poorly governed Red staters into thinking they're much better off than city dwellers, to keep loyal GOP voters.
In Swedens capital Stockholm they have had congestion tax since 2007. It started with six months test period, followed by a referendum. Before the test period it was a massive resistance against, after there was a thin majority that voted for. Today they still have and it's completely uncontroversial.
And we have had congestion charging in central London since 2003 and it works just fine. Central London is thriving. But what's over 20 years of evidence got to do with anything...
>>As I wrote 6 weeks ago, the biggest reason Trump hates congestion pricing is probably because it embodies the idea that sometimes people should be asked to change their behavior for the common good.<<
I think also a big part of Trump's desire to kill congestion pricing flows from a general hatred of policy expertise: he and his cronies are surely aware that the well-informed experts who come up with clever ideas like C.P. almost never share their ideological worldview. No, not every wonk is a fire-breathing lefty. But most wonks are "progressive" at least in the sense of being well-educated cosmopolitan liberals or moderates who support, well, progress.
And Trump and his ilk hate people like that.
Also, MAGA leadership doesn't want to see improvements in places run by Democrats and certainly doesn't want blue local governments to work well. They last thing they want to see in place is a real time rebuke of their nihilistic worldview that says everything about big blue metros is horrible.
I had to leave NYC for my husband's career and spent over twenty years pining to return. I am now divorced, and decided NYC is the only place I want to live. As a senior, I don't need to drive. I get plenty of exercise just by walking. I can see top medical specialists just by hopping on a crosstown bus. I go to the museum around once a week, go out to concerts and shows around twice or three times a month, and ride the subway everywhere. I never feel threatened or intimidated. Thanks for sticking up for those of us who live here! I'm tired of the MTG's of this world trashing this city.
The MAGA obsession with cities as hellholes manifests as policies that WILL make them hellholes. Their compulsion to see someone punished for their (mostly) imaginary grievances feeds on itself.
Wonderful piece, and backed by evidence. the only thing is that as someone living abroad, I will not visit the US in the coming years. The risk - even with a European passport and dozens of entries in the past - is too great. The US has become unreliable. It would be a good idea for you to write about the impact a decline in tourism might have on the US economy. Till this madness is over AND we can get guarantees, I am not coming back, ever.
In fact, it's not improbable that this very comment of mine would have the US authorities flag me as having made an anti-Trump comment, and just like the French CNRS scientist, I might be turned away at the airport. So there... No protections for a visitor? No visit.
Me either, and my daughter lives in Brooklyn (we are Australian; her partner is from NY outside the city). We fly them to join us elsewhere - this year it’s Sicily. The U.S. is scary.
I both agree and disagree with Dr. K. I live in Washington Heights and reverse commute to the burbs. I find the subway much more efficient and pleasant than fighting Jersey drivers across the GWB. My school-age kids walk themselves to and from their after-school activities with no fear of crime, not only because our neighborhood is safe, but because we know our neighbors and we all look out for each other. I have ridden the subway for a quarter century, and never witnessed a violent crime.
But that doesn't tell the whole story. No violent crime on the subway, sure. But a person dressed in rags and cursing to themselves and stinking to high heaven? Almost every time. And most of them are harmless and will leave you alone if you leave them alone, but I understand why it makes people uneasy, or resentful of having to cede so much space in a dense city. Visible homelessness does NOT correlate with crime, thank you, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in its own right. I view it as a societal failure, whose long-term solution is a stronger safety net and (especially) more housing (thank you, Dr. K, for shouting that out).
The city may be safer than ever, but it's also dirtier and less affordable than ever, with all the downhill problems that creates. It's certainly not the urban hellscape of MAGA fever dreams, but we make it harder to convince people of that when we deny the evidence of real problems in front of our eyes.
So true. Currently, the only "solution" on offer is to shovel the homeless into the human warehouses that we call "shelters". One of the big reasons a lot of street homeless dismiss that "solution" is fear - there is a lot of violence in these shelters, which we find too easy to ignore - out of sight, out of mind.
Before you say "dirtier than ever," jump on a streaming channel and watch the opening/closing of A Family Affair. It's a feel good TV show from the late 60s/early 70s about a rich bachelor who adopts his 2 nieces and nephew. They all live happily with their butler, Mr French. It's a classic.
But when you see the wide angle scenes in NYC, THE AIR IS BROWN. The rivers are brown. It looked, every day, like it looked during the recent Canadian forrest fires. In the late 60s, NYC was notoriously polluted.
In many ways, most American cities, even NYC and LA, are cleaner than ever.
The disorder has been a longstanding issue without an apparent solution. I lived on the Upper West Side along the 1 train for 6 years. There was a clearly quite mentally ill man who you'd occasionally encounter who had a very... aggressive smell. He wouldn't just clear out subway cars at rush hour-- when he went into Morton Williams, the whole store would smell. He was harmless, but very clearly needed help. I don't know what you do about that-- building more residential high rises on the Upper West Side would help lower rents somewhat, but society also needs to figure out how to get the mentally ill people who need substantial help resources.
Thank you. I live in Wilmington NC and when I tell my Fox News neighbors that I go to nyc for work a lot they are terrified. When I tell them that Wilmington has 12% higher crime rates they are shocked. They don’t believe it. Can’t be. Have had a gun pulled on me in Wilmington. Super safe in nyc.
Thank you for this piece. As a lifelong New Yorker (75 years), I am amazed when I people think that I live in a hell hole. Yes the 80s were a nerve-wracking time, but New York comes back and fixes itself over and over again. From the bankruptcy of the 1970s through COVID, people have written NYC's obituary. Once again we are ALIVE!
On Tuesday evening, I went to the Metropolitan Opera. By myself. I’m a woman well over 60! Around 11 pm, I got on the subway to go home to Brooklyn. The subway was really crowded with regular New Yorkers, like me, as well tourists. I had a wonderful conversation with some people from Italy and gave them directions to their destination. I was home in under 30 minutes. This is NYC at its finest and it was an evening which reminds me why I lobe NYC.
I agree. I am an 83 year old woman who lived in my for 50 years and still live there for several months each year.. I have always felt safe, and continue to love the City. Thank you for a truthful, upbeat and happy article.
The Trump/GOP decades-old effort to paint NYC--and every other Dem-run city in the country--as crime-ridden hell-holes, is pure bait-and-switch designed to keep their rural, Red-state base convinced that local & state GOP rule is safer, and superior in every way.
When statistics show just the opposite. That even when you take Blue-run cities in Red states out of the equation, those same Red states have a 20% higher crime rate across the board. The GOP resorts to lying--about literally everything--through their chosen spokesnetwork, FOX News, because almost all of their policies are designed to only benefit the top 1%. And penalize everyone else. Thus, the GOP resorts to their ridiculous Culture Wars, and endless fabulizing, to get their Base to vote against their own economic self-interest.
I had a girlfriend that turned out to be a trumper, one day she was telling me how awful California was and I told her I lived there up until a couple of years ago, and that's going to come as a shock to my friends that still live there, because if that was true they would have mentioned it.
Love our city. And nice meeting you!
NYC is pretty safe, unless you're a protester at the Morningside Campus of Trump University.
Didn't Chump University go belly up?
And the family of felons had to pay a $25 million fine.
It needs to go back to its old name: King's College.
Or a JEwish student trying to get to class, harassed for your religion.
Not for your religion. Scapegoated for the sins of Bibi. Who's hung the Diaspora out to dry.
Agree, Nubby. Bibi is as cynical and harmful as Trump.
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
That's sort of what scapegoated means.
Actually, the protestors began before Bibi even responded. They draw on disgusting tropes of Jews and blood libel. Basic antisemitism dressed up for today as modern "intersectionality" that has no basis in historical fact. Anti-zionist=anti-Jewish=antisemitism and in this case does not = social justice.
Rubbish, but nice try. Feel better now that you got that hateful screed off your chest and out into the public? I guess 61,000 innocent Palestinian deaths is not enough for you? Gee, that has all the earmarks of another country in the 1930s. Wonder who......
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
Quite a lot of Jews have been taking part in the protests.
Why Columbia dropped their drawers is beyond me, given their massive endowment. They simply don't need Nazi dollars.
A distinction without a difference.
I wonder, what's the tuition now for sending a kid to Trump University - Morningside Campus? Any number of community colleges offer curriculums that are unimpeachable, in comparison to it at this point.
Oh well, great real estate...
I wonder if Columbia University will lose tuition in number of students attendance now that they cave in to a the demands of a Dictator wannabe?
Already documented by college recruiters that there's a massive refusal to go to Columbia after its disgraceful abandonment of acacdmic principles
"Unimpeachable" is an interesting choice of wording. Coincidence?
Unless you're a Jewish student or professor on campus.
Jewish students and professors were heavily represented among the protestors.
Of course, fascist Bibi supporters pretend that they represent "Jewish students" but that's bullshit
So what about each student being able to pursue their own path safely without people disrupting buildings and classes and yelling at passers-by. What about designated protest spaces with people giving speeches peacefully and not breaking into buildings, occupying buildings, bringing in unknown people from off-campus to camp in university buildings, not blocking the paths where students walk, not yelling at students who are just walking to class. It's the anti-Israel people who are harassing Jewish passers-by. Jewish students didn't yell at students trying to attend Hillary Clinton's course. Sure let everyone have one's own opinion peacefully.
Guess what? Jewish students at a college don't have any role or involvement in Netanyahu's decisions, just as Muslim students don't have a role in Hamas' decisions and Chinese students don't have a role in the Chinese government's decisions and Indian students don't have a role in Modi's decisions.
“…the biggest reason Trump hates congestion pricing is probably because it embodies the idea that sometimes people should be asked to change their behavior for the common good.”
-Paul Krugman
A remarkable thing about the right wing, MAGA, phony libertarian pathology is that they seem to fully understand the concept of “the tragedy of the commons” and actually desire that tragedy.
Remember, he ended his trashing of congestion pricing. With “long live the king”
Things like peak load pricing for a public utility
- ie gas and electricity- save on large capital projects to increase capacity if the quantity demanded can be spread out . It works -
Probably too complicated for t-Rump to understand.
My late wife was a Fulbright alumnus - as a girl from a rather poor family in a rural German area, she really had wanted to go to a big city, but the Fulbright only covered some basic cost. So the big and expensive cities were for the wealthy rather than the gifted, and she went to the University of South Carolina instead. She got a degree and found friends for life, so it did work out in the end, but she still wanted to see New York and we had put it on our list of places to go to someday (me, I was not so much interested in New York, but I always wanted to visit Lincoln Memorial which, looking from Germany, is not so far away). After she fell ill and died, I still wanted to go, in her honour I guess. Paul Krugman talking about New York always makes it sound like it is really worth it (most city dwellers I know tend to talk shit about their cities, so if someone takes pride the place really must be something). But now, I will not go; given the amount of free speech on my cell phone I doubt if I would even be allowed to enter. I will put it on the bucket list (you know, the list of things I want to do when your current president kicked the bucket. It will go somewhere after the champagne). It will be a different world then, but I hope that if and when this is over your city will still be great, and I am looking forward to a visit then.
I am sorry for your loss, and that she never got to visit. I hope when this is all over you will.
Eike, I knew right off I liked you. Thank you for your kind words you do your wife great honor and I'm pretty sure I would have liked her too.
I'm a country person and live in a very rural area. But I loved going to NYC to visit my daughter. I always feel safe there.
I have visited NYC and want to go back again. I love my first visit and did not feel unsafe. I also love Washington, DC and Boston.
I live in rural North Dakota in a town of 2000 people. We have murder and mayhem happen here as well.
Please come! You don’t have to delay your visit. And check out the outer boroughs as well. It’s multi ethnic with a global heartbeat. The only time I’ve ever felt discriminated against for being an outsider was when I moved to Missouri and was a little slow in replacing my New York State license plates.
I'm so sorry you lost your wife. Yes please wait until trump is not in the white house.
“The truth is that New York, which really was a dangerous place a few decades ago, is now incredibly safe. The city’s weekly crime report provides some historical comparisons:”
It’s funny you should mention NYC. I was just up there this weekend, and came home yesterday to Miami (former NY’er). I took the Subway during the morning rush hour, and found it to be clean, and safe. I was shocked, considering all of the negative press the city is receiving.
Additionally, I also took cabs. The Congestion pricing is working. It adds about $1.50 per fare, but when you consider that you can get to places without experiencing thirty minutes of traffic; it’s worth it.
The only aspect the city needs to adjust, are the trucks that park in the streets, holding up traffic; it’s still a problem, but manageable.
I was staying on the Upper Westside, and again, no gangs, the streets were clean, and it was mostly quiet. Even Times Square, Chelsea, and Washington Square Park; three areas considered crime waves by the NY Post and MAGA, were relatively safe and clean. I didn’t see big homeless encampments, or gangs roaming the neighborhoods.
So whatever is going on, NY certainly is moving in the right direction. Although, thanks to Trump’s tariffs, the hospitality industry is going to be clobbered this tourist season. IMHO!…:)
They've been scrubbing the cars down at every terminal stop for a couple of decades now, but I still find that rush hour is a nightmare because I don't enjoy being packed like sardines.
Personally, I find Times Square even creepier than before "Disneyfication", so I try to avoid it as much as possible. Washington Square has definitely improved immensely.
Down here on the LES we call it "Square Times."
😂
You know where the true hellscapes are, of course. Heartland red states, with endless trailer parks, enormous unemployment, unlimited guns, infinite fentanyl, domestic violence, obesity, alcoholism, suicide, and other health issues. Yet the maga fucks peddle this as the real America and its populace as more American than the rest. You know what: GFY
I feel like in the 2010s, some sort of awareness of that was *finally* starting to peek through. It had become pretty much impossible to deny it; how dysfunctional does a culture have to be to turn someone like Donald Trump into its savior, after all. And then there was the opioid scandal, and there was the increasing complaining from the country about how their middle class had collapsed pretty much everywhere. And then Vance rose to fame on the back of a questionable autobiography that largely pathologized white rural culture in the same way that's been done for decades to the inner cities.
But thank God, urban homelessness reared its head again, and right-wing and centrist media culture grabbed it with both hands and blew it into its favorite "our cities are literally Gotham" narrative, so now the country's rolled over and gone back to its usual dream where all cities are postapocalyptic landscapes and only among the Wholesome Small Town Folksy People can true authentic America be found.
“But thank God, urban homelessness reared its head again”
Homelessness and all the other social problems you listed do occur in rural areas, but reporters usually live in cities. For decades they have either had inadequate expense accounts to report from rural areas or they are too lazy. Having attended multiple press conferences and observed reporters in action, the latter seems more likely. They display a lot of group think and very little originality when asking questions.
It's not that they never go to rural or ruralish areas, but they only do it in specific contexts to promote a particular script.
"New York Times or Washington Post reporter travels to a nice family diner in Ohio or Indiana to interview a local businessman whose grievances will reveal that he's upset because he feels abandoned by the cultural elites in Washington" is such a common trope it's become a running joke among online liberals. Fifty-fifty chances, it'll eventually come out that the miscellaneous local being interviewed was in fact the chairman of the local Republican Party and that he's given variations of the same interview to the same reporter eight or nine times already over the years.
Ah yes, the endless Cletus safaris. I think David Brooks just stays home and writes them from what he thinks they are like.
Well, one of his most famous moments was when he talked about how relatable Obama would seem interacting with people at the salad bar of a popular restaurant that... doesn't in fact have a salad bar. So yeah, I think it's safe to say David Brooks doesn't actually bother to visit the places he's writing about.
(See also, Tom Friedman and his taxi drivers).
Thank you! To me it is obvious he simply caricatures people to be who he imagines them to be. I read one column of his (which was enough to clue me in that he was a fraud) about him taking a friend to a nice NY deli. Supposedly she was so overwhelmed with the exotic meat choices (like capicola) until he took pity on her, and was magnanimous enough to take her to some fast-food place, which she understood. He should have explained what they were (different types of ham), and asked what she liked. If it were a real interaction. But this way he got to superior in his telling, which seems to be his point always.
It's part of a decades-old bait-and-switch pushed daily in RW media. That portrays Blue-run cities and states as hellholes, and Red-run areas as squeaky clean, finger licken' good. All to keep GOP voters thanking their lucky stars they're not stuck in Blue shitholes, so they'll keep pulling the "R" lever.
The data shows the opposite, by nearly every metric: especially crime. Which is considerably higher in Red-run states and counties. If it wasn't for all of the Federal tax wealth flowing out of California & New York to subsidize almost every Red state budget, Red America would be dirt floor poor. Economically indistinguishable from Bangladesh.
Which is FOX News's best kept secret: con poorly governed Red staters into thinking they're much better off than city dwellers, to keep loyal GOP voters.
Just one more item to add to your list: couch f'ing.
100%
In Swedens capital Stockholm they have had congestion tax since 2007. It started with six months test period, followed by a referendum. Before the test period it was a massive resistance against, after there was a thin majority that voted for. Today they still have and it's completely uncontroversial.
And we have had congestion charging in central London since 2003 and it works just fine. Central London is thriving. But what's over 20 years of evidence got to do with anything...
London has excellent mass transit. When I have visited I just add to my Oyster card and go on my way
>>As I wrote 6 weeks ago, the biggest reason Trump hates congestion pricing is probably because it embodies the idea that sometimes people should be asked to change their behavior for the common good.<<
I think also a big part of Trump's desire to kill congestion pricing flows from a general hatred of policy expertise: he and his cronies are surely aware that the well-informed experts who come up with clever ideas like C.P. almost never share their ideological worldview. No, not every wonk is a fire-breathing lefty. But most wonks are "progressive" at least in the sense of being well-educated cosmopolitan liberals or moderates who support, well, progress.
And Trump and his ilk hate people like that.
Also, MAGA leadership doesn't want to see improvements in places run by Democrats and certainly doesn't want blue local governments to work well. They last thing they want to see in place is a real time rebuke of their nihilistic worldview that says everything about big blue metros is horrible.
I had to leave NYC for my husband's career and spent over twenty years pining to return. I am now divorced, and decided NYC is the only place I want to live. As a senior, I don't need to drive. I get plenty of exercise just by walking. I can see top medical specialists just by hopping on a crosstown bus. I go to the museum around once a week, go out to concerts and shows around twice or three times a month, and ride the subway everywhere. I never feel threatened or intimidated. Thanks for sticking up for those of us who live here! I'm tired of the MTG's of this world trashing this city.
The MAGA obsession with cities as hellholes manifests as policies that WILL make them hellholes. Their compulsion to see someone punished for their (mostly) imaginary grievances feeds on itself.
Wonderful piece, and backed by evidence. the only thing is that as someone living abroad, I will not visit the US in the coming years. The risk - even with a European passport and dozens of entries in the past - is too great. The US has become unreliable. It would be a good idea for you to write about the impact a decline in tourism might have on the US economy. Till this madness is over AND we can get guarantees, I am not coming back, ever.
In fact, it's not improbable that this very comment of mine would have the US authorities flag me as having made an anti-Trump comment, and just like the French CNRS scientist, I might be turned away at the airport. So there... No protections for a visitor? No visit.
Me either, and my daughter lives in Brooklyn (we are Australian; her partner is from NY outside the city). We fly them to join us elsewhere - this year it’s Sicily. The U.S. is scary.
Thanks for the sanity, Paul 👍🏻
I both agree and disagree with Dr. K. I live in Washington Heights and reverse commute to the burbs. I find the subway much more efficient and pleasant than fighting Jersey drivers across the GWB. My school-age kids walk themselves to and from their after-school activities with no fear of crime, not only because our neighborhood is safe, but because we know our neighbors and we all look out for each other. I have ridden the subway for a quarter century, and never witnessed a violent crime.
But that doesn't tell the whole story. No violent crime on the subway, sure. But a person dressed in rags and cursing to themselves and stinking to high heaven? Almost every time. And most of them are harmless and will leave you alone if you leave them alone, but I understand why it makes people uneasy, or resentful of having to cede so much space in a dense city. Visible homelessness does NOT correlate with crime, thank you, but that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in its own right. I view it as a societal failure, whose long-term solution is a stronger safety net and (especially) more housing (thank you, Dr. K, for shouting that out).
The city may be safer than ever, but it's also dirtier and less affordable than ever, with all the downhill problems that creates. It's certainly not the urban hellscape of MAGA fever dreams, but we make it harder to convince people of that when we deny the evidence of real problems in front of our eyes.
So true. Currently, the only "solution" on offer is to shovel the homeless into the human warehouses that we call "shelters". One of the big reasons a lot of street homeless dismiss that "solution" is fear - there is a lot of violence in these shelters, which we find too easy to ignore - out of sight, out of mind.
Before you say "dirtier than ever," jump on a streaming channel and watch the opening/closing of A Family Affair. It's a feel good TV show from the late 60s/early 70s about a rich bachelor who adopts his 2 nieces and nephew. They all live happily with their butler, Mr French. It's a classic.
But when you see the wide angle scenes in NYC, THE AIR IS BROWN. The rivers are brown. It looked, every day, like it looked during the recent Canadian forrest fires. In the late 60s, NYC was notoriously polluted.
In many ways, most American cities, even NYC and LA, are cleaner than ever.
The disorder has been a longstanding issue without an apparent solution. I lived on the Upper West Side along the 1 train for 6 years. There was a clearly quite mentally ill man who you'd occasionally encounter who had a very... aggressive smell. He wouldn't just clear out subway cars at rush hour-- when he went into Morton Williams, the whole store would smell. He was harmless, but very clearly needed help. I don't know what you do about that-- building more residential high rises on the Upper West Side would help lower rents somewhat, but society also needs to figure out how to get the mentally ill people who need substantial help resources.
Thank you. I live in Wilmington NC and when I tell my Fox News neighbors that I go to nyc for work a lot they are terrified. When I tell them that Wilmington has 12% higher crime rates they are shocked. They don’t believe it. Can’t be. Have had a gun pulled on me in Wilmington. Super safe in nyc.
Thank you for this piece. As a lifelong New Yorker (75 years), I am amazed when I people think that I live in a hell hole. Yes the 80s were a nerve-wracking time, but New York comes back and fixes itself over and over again. From the bankruptcy of the 1970s through COVID, people have written NYC's obituary. Once again we are ALIVE!
On Tuesday evening, I went to the Metropolitan Opera. By myself. I’m a woman well over 60! Around 11 pm, I got on the subway to go home to Brooklyn. The subway was really crowded with regular New Yorkers, like me, as well tourists. I had a wonderful conversation with some people from Italy and gave them directions to their destination. I was home in under 30 minutes. This is NYC at its finest and it was an evening which reminds me why I lobe NYC.
Huh?
You might want to expand on your comments. Brevity is great, but you’re not getting your point across.