New York, New York: The city that never sleeps is becoming a living nightmare
There’s potentially promising news if you are planning on taking a trip to New York. As it currently stands, under Covid-19 restrictions, Britons are not able to enter the United States directly from the U.K. But to circumvent the chaos caused by the coronavirus, a transatlantic “air-bridge” is being discussed by US and UK officials.
One person that will be beckoning the planes onto the runway at LaGuardia airport will be Andrew Cuomo. The Governor of New York is desperate to see you. So desperate, in fact, that he may even buy you a drink, or offer to cook you a meal. You see, the Big Apple is starting to rot.
New York has long been dominated by the Democratic Party. Under Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city is being held hostage by progressive ideologues. The city has turned into a scene out of John Carpenter’s dystopian masterpiece Escape from New York – which is ironic, because that’s exactly what its residents are doing in the city that never sleeps.
Between March and May of this year, 420,000 – roughly 5% of New York City’s population – left the city. Many of New York’s richest residents have packed up and gone. Seeing as the wealthiest one per cent pay half of the state’s taxes, this leaves the city in a catastrophic financial position. But the exodus is not just limited to the more affluent urbanites. Removal companies have been inundated with calls from residents looking to flee the city – even as the coronavirus pandemic starts to wane. Cuomo believes most have fled due to Covid, but so far there are few signs of people coming back.
New York has certainly suffered from Covid-19. The city is estimated to lose $7.4 billion in tax revenue as a result of the crisis. Before the pandemic, the city employed over four million people that helped contribute 8% to the nation’s GDP. But between February and May, over 1.25 million New Yorkers lost their jobs. To make matters worse, the city has been in lockdown for almost six months now and has implemented some of the most draconian restrictions in the whole of the United States. Mayor de Blasio has ordered checkpoints to be erected all around the city, with police issuing fines up to $10,000 for people who break the quarantine rules.
If that wasn’t enough to deal with, the entire country is seemingly under siege and in the middle of a violent culture war in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. For almost three months, radical activists of various groups have torched cities and caused an estimated $500 million dollars’ worth of property damage in the name of social justice. One of their demands is to “defund the police”. New York has not escaped the whirlwind sweeping across the country and Black Lives Matter demonstrations continue to cripple the city.
What makes New York different is that its Mayor, the man in charge of maintaining order, has apparently joined the cause of the activists. In a shameless act of political expediency, de Blasio caved into demands to defund the police. He went ahead and stripped $1 billion from the NYPD’s $6 billion annual police budget. That’s one sixth of the already-stretched funds used to keep New Yorkers safe as they go about their daily business. No wonder those who can get out are fleeing in droves.
This recklessness shouldn’t come as a surprise. The city has already witnessed a shocking rise in violent crime under the de Blasio’s watch. Compared with last year, gun violence is up 177 per cent, and murder is up 59 per cent. There are already double the number of shooting victims so far this year, compared to the same period last year. New York’s citizens are terrified – sales of body armour have rocketed 80 per cent. New Yorkers, already under serious financial strain from the lockdown are realising the city is sinking into lawlessness and have had enough.
Governor Cuomo, of course, just blames the police. That is, the same NYPD that has now been trashed and defunded under the watch of a progressive Democrat Mayor.
The effects of de Blasio’s experiment are everywhere – and it stinks. Literally. Due to a $106 million coronavirus sanitation budget cut, rubbish and trash is piling up in the street. With a 60% reduction in trash pick-ups, garbage – including used face-masks – lay uncollected everywhere. This is not a wise move in a city which is famously prone to infestation from rats.
As for the transport infrastructure, it’s not faring much better under the progressive new order either. The future of New York’s transportation system is being severely tested. The Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) is responsible for transport in N.Y. With an operating budget of $17 billion, 8 billion is derived from fares and toll revenue. But due to the coronavirus, from late March weekday subway use plummeted from 5.5 million daily trips to fewer than 500,000. Unless $12 billion of emergency federal aid appears, the MTA is considering cutting the service by an eye-watering 40 per cent.
Still thinking of getting on a plane and taking in the sights? Well, there’s nowhere to visit. Broadway is closed until spring. The Lincoln centre is closed. The museums are closed. All you will see are closed, bordered up shops. You’ll be unlikely to find a decent hotel as over a hundred of them have been turned over to help house the homeless. If you’re lucky, perhaps you can find a place to stay in one of the city’s 13,000 empty apartments.
In the 1970s New York was known as fear city. But even through the dark days of the 70s and the 80s – as the city was the crime capital of the United States – it was still a thriving global business capital. New Yorkers are a tough, resilient bunch and have been through a lot – the spirit that pulled people together post 9/11 was remarkable. But this failed experiment in progressive ideology is too much even for New Yorkers. The city is under siege from a reckless group on the Democrat left who have hijacked the city and allowed its basic public services to crumble.
No wonder New York City’s largest police union has backed Donald Trump!
Noel Yaxley is a freelance writer and political commentator.