8 ms·

What are residents of NYC opinion on Bloomberg? Is this reshaping good or worse for the city? It seems that he won his most recent re-election but barely, from

What are residents of NYC opinion on Bloomberg? Is this reshaping good or worse for the city? It seems that he won his most recent re-election but barely, from what i know he is a socially liberal, environmentally friendly, fiscal conservative.

belowlightsblue 13y ago
The NYT is doing alot of coverage about him with the elections coming up and all: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/nyregion/what-new-yorkers-think-of-mayor-bloomberg.html?hp&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/nyregion/what-new-yorkers-... I think jobs and the economy matter most to people and since Bloomberg was mayor during the 2008 recession, that's going to make him seem worse than he might have though he may not have been able to affect the worst of the economical situation in any way. In the story linked to above, it says less than half of surveyed think that crime has improved under BLoomberg. That is just plain absurd no matter how you look at the stats...Bloomberg's (arguably too strong) law policies have made the city safer than it was in 2002. IT just shows how hard it is for people to remember what things were like a decade ago, due to nostalgia, etc. Also you say he won his re-election "just barely" but that's because he bent the term limit rules for what most people considered in an illegitimate way
- busterarm 13y ago
  I remember very well what New York was like 10 years ago. And 20 and 30. I can't say that Bloomberg's policies have made the city any safer than it was 10 years ago. That is, I can't say that his policies are responsible for the reduction in (certain type of) crime. (Some types of crime are actually on the rise in NY). What I can say is that violent crime statistics have been in severe decline nationally since the end of the 1970s. New York pretty much follows the trendline exactly and doesn't seem remarkably exceptional in this. Certain neighborhoods are still high crime. Yes, I would say that 99% of Manhattan is about as safe as Disneyland, but the policing has been especially disproportionate between the use and effectiveness of things like Stop & Frisks, constant & disruptive patrol car drills crosstown during rush hour, and "Show of Force" demonstrations of the ESU in full body armor and M4 rifles stationed outside popular tourist areas. Some see these things as safety and security and others see them as waste and symbols of a state abusing its power. A lot of the revitalization efforts for areas of the city have been in the works since the 1950s (pay attention in NY to how much is named after or dedicated to Robert Moses). Case in point, the Times Square Redevelopment Project (though that was completed under Giuliani). When I was a child growing up in this neighborhood, there were porn theaters, street prostitutes, hustlers, con men and pickpockets everywhere. People got mugged in my elevator or at the payphone on my corner regularly. Nearly 80% of the storefronts in Midtown were vacant. My mom was a corporate real estate broker in the 70s and had a listing on 57th street and 5th avenue going for $5/sqft (in what was later the Playboy Enterprises building). Let that figure sink in for a second. I'm not nostalgic for those times, but back then we also had a bit more community than now. I actually knew by name the homeless people and the street hustlers in my neighborhood. My mom took care of most of them in her nursing work at St. Luke's Roosevelt. That sense is totally gone. Nightlife and entertainment in the city is _dead_ (we'll see how the Space nightclub does when it opens though). You used to regularly have people playing music on the street without too much bother. I remember a lot more people just being in the street and friendly (for NY standards) all the time. Everything is much more conservative and elitist than it used to be, but that's just as much times changing and culture moving on as Bloomberg is lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I get really passionate about this topic and am being a bit rambly, but two years ago I left New York City. I'm likely returning next year, but I had to get away and it's no longer somewhere I could imagine living the rest of my life. It's just not that much fun a place to live anymore. Almost every NY-native I know in my age group either can't stand to live there anymore or has been priced out. Most of my friends have moved away or want to. We're going to places like Portland and New Orleans...or moving to Europe.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    As an aside, some folks would say that the J-O theaters actually served an important function in our community and that with their closure, something is lost forever. Samuel R. Delany wrote a really good book about this and his experiences called Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. Not a book to read if you are at all homophobic or squeamish reading about sex acts though. Many, many references to Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
corylehey 13y ago
I'd say generally favorable and he's certainly done a lot, but a lot of people have grown to resent his tendency to force his own agenda regardless of public opinion, e.g. his crusade against soda, his third term, etc.
rayiner 13y ago
I think the majority of New Yorkers support his policies. He has basically engaged in a massive gentrification of the city. This has pushed poor people (many of them minorities) out of Manhattan and even Queens and Brooklyn, has led to higher housing prices, tearing down of "historic" buildings, etc. As a result, there are tons of people who hate him for these things. But I think the core demographic of upper middle class Manhattanites generally supports these policies. As an aside: I was watching a documentary about Giuliani (then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York) the other day. It was about how in the early 1980's he led a full-scale attack on the Mafia, by bugging the cars and houses of the heads of the five families and using the collected evidence along with the RICO Act to send them to prison. Apparently, after being indicted one of the bosses (Paul Castellano) was assassinated just a few blocks away from where my office was in Midtown. Today, that whole area is basically Disneyland. It is crazy how different New York is today than how it used to be. Last year, My wife used to stroll all over Manhattan with our daughter, often late at night waiting for me to get out of work, without any worry at all.
- asveikau 13y ago
  > Today, that whole area is basically Disneyland. I am sure lots of entities public and private have contributed to and accelerated this situation, but we must also keep in mind the nationwide trends in violent crime in the last few decades. I think this sets the stage more than any particular mayor, police chief, development company etc. can do.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    There has also been a nationwide trend of aggressive policing and aggressive prosecution with statutes like RICO, largely pioneered by the work of people like Giuliani in New York. Abstract trends of decreasing crime didn't break the Mafia...
    - enraged_camel 13y ago
      It is important to understand that violent crime is one of the many tools at Mafia's disposal. You could be living in a New York today that does have Mafia but similar levels of crime.
michael_miller 13y ago
As an NYC resident, I feel that Bloomberg has made the city a remarkably better place. Probably the most transformative effect of Bloomberg's initiatives has been making the outer boroughs appealing. Young people who might have otherwise lived elsewhere because of ridiculous Manhattan rents (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) are now flocking to neighborhoods like Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. These young people with disposable income create demand for more great restaurants, shops, and venues like the Barclay's center, all of which make the city a much more fun place to be. It isn't all roses. The poorer residents in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant are being forced to move elsewhere as their neighborhood gentrifies. However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. Bloomberg has simply accelerated the trend of creating more upscale neighborhoods. I can understand how someone in a less fortunate socioeconomic situation might feel differently, but it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. I partly agree, but artists move to an area partly by choice. Poor people are often born there, and then forced to move because the area has become trendy underneath their feet. it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective. The city might be better off in the aggregate, but the poor people presumably ended up in other places, which are slightly worse off.
- colmvp 13y ago
  > (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) Pretty sure even parts of Brooklyn have that type of rent, such as Williamsburg, DUMBO, maybe even Prospect Heights.
bradleyjg 13y ago
I'd say considerably better. You have to understand the backround though. In the beginning (or at least the beginning for me, I was pretty young during the Koch era) there was Dinkins, and the city was a crime ridden cesspool. You weren't supposed to take the subway at night, or go anywhere near a park. Parked cars routinely had their radios and sometimes tires stolen. There were very aggressive beggars all over the place. Whole parts of Manhattan, much less the outer boros, were no go zones. Then came Giuliani. I think most people that lived in the city under Giuliani have very mixed feelings. The crime rate dropped, which was great, but there was very much a sense that a deal had been made with the devil. While to this day stop and frisk is a major issue for minority communities, back then there was a sense that the NYPD was killing and beating up people for no reason. Then there was the whiff of corruption (around Kerik and others), the messy personal life, fights with the unions, and the drama around the Senate race. I'll skip the post-9/11 apotheosis because it's not really relevant in the long run. So that's when Bloomberg came in. He continued to preside over a drop in crime, but without as much visible divisiveness (though as mentioned above stop and frisk is still very much alive). Ditto with the public sector unions, they were still unhappy but there didn't seem to be the same sense of crises surrounding labor affairs. Meanwhile the finances of the city are very much improved, in spite of looming pension and health care problems the city is in very good financial shape as compared to any other large American city. No one thinks he's corrupt -- people think he's too rich to be corrupt. Then there's the nanny stuff, there's mixed opinions about that, but even smokers seem to be okay with having no smoking in bars. The biggest knock on him is that he only cares about Manhattan and the rich people that live there. That may be true from an emotional standpoint, but from a practical standpoint what he's done has benefited all layers of the city. The gentrification of Manhattan has generated a ton of revenue which is being plowed into services across the city. Honestly other than being better at feeling people's pain, I don't really see the argument.
- busterarm 13y ago
  Heh, back in the days when you didn't go above 96th or below 14th (except to the Financial District) and you didn't leave Manhattan for any reason except to visit Grandma. If you want to find one group who completely and decisively hates Bloomberg though, just talk to cab drivers. The things that he did regarding new medallions and all of the bullshit with the TLC the last 8 years have made most old-timers quit. The mere mention of the guy's name will bring out some pretty big curse words. The funny thing is though, most of the crime in the city peaked during the Koch era. He started some of the things that Giuliani and Bloomberg later got credit for. Dinkins gets saddled with a lot of the worst memories of it mostly because of how ineffective he was as Mayor. Koch did some right dickish things to outerborough New Yorkers though. The closing of bike/pedestrian traffic on the Queensboro Bridge will always stick out in my memory. Caused a 3000+ bike protest down Park Avenue... and a couple years ago they named the fucking bridge after him. >_<
jgalt212 13y ago
Bloomberg has made Manhattan unfordable except for those who pay the long term capital gains rate on regular earnings and those who stole money out of the ground in their home country and are looking for a good place to stash it out of reach of local authorities. And it's not for a lack of space because there is tons of vacant commercial real estate in the city. Any time my company does a demo at a bank, we see rows and rows of empty desks. In short, Bloomberg has favored unneeded commercial development and high end oligarch dwellings over supply that the even the top 3% of wage earners can afford. You can buy a $100MM Penthouse at One West 57th and pay the same taxes as a $2MM apartment due to dubiously applied 421-A tax abatements.
o0-0o 13y ago
The guy ran as a republican to get elected on Giuliani's coattails, and in his bleeding heart he's a liberal. Typical politician; meddling, petty, crony, crooked, and oh did I mention meddling?
- JackFr 13y ago
  No one thought for a minute he was Republican -- there were no coattails. The issue is that the Democratic machine in NYC is so sclerotic and dysfunctional, it is virtually impossible for an outsider to get on the ballot. For a billionaire fiscal conservative who will finance his own campaign, the NYC Republicans will be obliging.

belowlightsblue 13y ago

The NYT is doing alot of coverage about him with the elections coming up and all: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/nyregion/what-new-yorkers-think-of-mayor-bloomberg.html?hp&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/nyregion/what-new-yorkers-... I think jobs and the economy matter most to people and since Bloomberg was mayor during the 2008 recession, that's going to make him seem worse than he might have though he may not have been able to affect the worst of the economical situation in any way. In the story linked to above, it says less than half of surveyed think that crime has improved under BLoomberg. That is just plain absurd no matter how you look at the stats...Bloomberg's (arguably too strong) law policies have made the city safer than it was in 2002. IT just shows how hard it is for people to remember what things were like a decade ago, due to nostalgia, etc. Also you say he won his re-election "just barely" but that's because he bent the term limit rules for what most people considered in an illegitimate way

busterarm 13y ago
I remember very well what New York was like 10 years ago. And 20 and 30. I can't say that Bloomberg's policies have made the city any safer than it was 10 years ago. That is, I can't say that his policies are responsible for the reduction in (certain type of) crime. (Some types of crime are actually on the rise in NY). What I can say is that violent crime statistics have been in severe decline nationally since the end of the 1970s. New York pretty much follows the trendline exactly and doesn't seem remarkably exceptional in this. Certain neighborhoods are still high crime. Yes, I would say that 99% of Manhattan is about as safe as Disneyland, but the policing has been especially disproportionate between the use and effectiveness of things like Stop & Frisks, constant & disruptive patrol car drills crosstown during rush hour, and "Show of Force" demonstrations of the ESU in full body armor and M4 rifles stationed outside popular tourist areas. Some see these things as safety and security and others see them as waste and symbols of a state abusing its power. A lot of the revitalization efforts for areas of the city have been in the works since the 1950s (pay attention in NY to how much is named after or dedicated to Robert Moses). Case in point, the Times Square Redevelopment Project (though that was completed under Giuliani). When I was a child growing up in this neighborhood, there were porn theaters, street prostitutes, hustlers, con men and pickpockets everywhere. People got mugged in my elevator or at the payphone on my corner regularly. Nearly 80% of the storefronts in Midtown were vacant. My mom was a corporate real estate broker in the 70s and had a listing on 57th street and 5th avenue going for $5/sqft (in what was later the Playboy Enterprises building). Let that figure sink in for a second. I'm not nostalgic for those times, but back then we also had a bit more community than now. I actually knew by name the homeless people and the street hustlers in my neighborhood. My mom took care of most of them in her nursing work at St. Luke's Roosevelt. That sense is totally gone. Nightlife and entertainment in the city is _dead_ (we'll see how the Space nightclub does when it opens though). You used to regularly have people playing music on the street without too much bother. I remember a lot more people just being in the street and friendly (for NY standards) all the time. Everything is much more conservative and elitist than it used to be, but that's just as much times changing and culture moving on as Bloomberg is lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I get really passionate about this topic and am being a bit rambly, but two years ago I left New York City. I'm likely returning next year, but I had to get away and it's no longer somewhere I could imagine living the rest of my life. It's just not that much fun a place to live anymore. Almost every NY-native I know in my age group either can't stand to live there anymore or has been priced out. Most of my friends have moved away or want to. We're going to places like Portland and New Orleans...or moving to Europe.
- busterarm 13y ago
  As an aside, some folks would say that the J-O theaters actually served an important function in our community and that with their closure, something is lost forever. Samuel R. Delany wrote a really good book about this and his experiences called Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. Not a book to read if you are at all homophobic or squeamish reading about sex acts though. Many, many references to Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

corylehey 13y ago

I'd say generally favorable and he's certainly done a lot, but a lot of people have grown to resent his tendency to force his own agenda regardless of public opinion, e.g. his crusade against soda, his third term, etc.

rayiner 13y ago

I think the majority of New Yorkers support his policies. He has basically engaged in a massive gentrification of the city. This has pushed poor people (many of them minorities) out of Manhattan and even Queens and Brooklyn, has led to higher housing prices, tearing down of "historic" buildings, etc. As a result, there are tons of people who hate him for these things. But I think the core demographic of upper middle class Manhattanites generally supports these policies. As an aside: I was watching a documentary about Giuliani (then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York) the other day. It was about how in the early 1980's he led a full-scale attack on the Mafia, by bugging the cars and houses of the heads of the five families and using the collected evidence along with the RICO Act to send them to prison. Apparently, after being indicted one of the bosses (Paul Castellano) was assassinated just a few blocks away from where my office was in Midtown. Today, that whole area is basically Disneyland. It is crazy how different New York is today than how it used to be. Last year, My wife used to stroll all over Manhattan with our daughter, often late at night waiting for me to get out of work, without any worry at all.

asveikau 13y ago
> Today, that whole area is basically Disneyland. I am sure lots of entities public and private have contributed to and accelerated this situation, but we must also keep in mind the nationwide trends in violent crime in the last few decades. I think this sets the stage more than any particular mayor, police chief, development company etc. can do.
- rayiner 13y ago
  There has also been a nationwide trend of aggressive policing and aggressive prosecution with statutes like RICO, largely pioneered by the work of people like Giuliani in New York. Abstract trends of decreasing crime didn't break the Mafia...
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    It is important to understand that violent crime is one of the many tools at Mafia's disposal. You could be living in a New York today that does have Mafia but similar levels of crime.

michael_miller 13y ago

As an NYC resident, I feel that Bloomberg has made the city a remarkably better place. Probably the most transformative effect of Bloomberg's initiatives has been making the outer boroughs appealing. Young people who might have otherwise lived elsewhere because of ridiculous Manhattan rents (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) are now flocking to neighborhoods like Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. These young people with disposable income create demand for more great restaurants, shops, and venues like the Barclay's center, all of which make the city a much more fun place to be. It isn't all roses. The poorer residents in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant are being forced to move elsewhere as their neighborhood gentrifies. However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. Bloomberg has simply accelerated the trend of creating more upscale neighborhoods. I can understand how someone in a less fortunate socioeconomic situation might feel differently, but it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective.

anigbrowl 13y ago
However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. I partly agree, but artists move to an area partly by choice. Poor people are often born there, and then forced to move because the area has become trendy underneath their feet. it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective. The city might be better off in the aggregate, but the poor people presumably ended up in other places, which are slightly worse off.
colmvp 13y ago
> (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) Pretty sure even parts of Brooklyn have that type of rent, such as Williamsburg, DUMBO, maybe even Prospect Heights.

bradleyjg 13y ago

I'd say considerably better. You have to understand the backround though. In the beginning (or at least the beginning for me, I was pretty young during the Koch era) there was Dinkins, and the city was a crime ridden cesspool. You weren't supposed to take the subway at night, or go anywhere near a park. Parked cars routinely had their radios and sometimes tires stolen. There were very aggressive beggars all over the place. Whole parts of Manhattan, much less the outer boros, were no go zones. Then came Giuliani. I think most people that lived in the city under Giuliani have very mixed feelings. The crime rate dropped, which was great, but there was very much a sense that a deal had been made with the devil. While to this day stop and frisk is a major issue for minority communities, back then there was a sense that the NYPD was killing and beating up people for no reason. Then there was the whiff of corruption (around Kerik and others), the messy personal life, fights with the unions, and the drama around the Senate race. I'll skip the post-9/11 apotheosis because it's not really relevant in the long run. So that's when Bloomberg came in. He continued to preside over a drop in crime, but without as much visible divisiveness (though as mentioned above stop and frisk is still very much alive). Ditto with the public sector unions, they were still unhappy but there didn't seem to be the same sense of crises surrounding labor affairs. Meanwhile the finances of the city are very much improved, in spite of looming pension and health care problems the city is in very good financial shape as compared to any other large American city. No one thinks he's corrupt -- people think he's too rich to be corrupt. Then there's the nanny stuff, there's mixed opinions about that, but even smokers seem to be okay with having no smoking in bars. The biggest knock on him is that he only cares about Manhattan and the rich people that live there. That may be true from an emotional standpoint, but from a practical standpoint what he's done has benefited all layers of the city. The gentrification of Manhattan has generated a ton of revenue which is being plowed into services across the city. Honestly other than being better at feeling people's pain, I don't really see the argument.

busterarm 13y ago
Heh, back in the days when you didn't go above 96th or below 14th (except to the Financial District) and you didn't leave Manhattan for any reason except to visit Grandma. If you want to find one group who completely and decisively hates Bloomberg though, just talk to cab drivers. The things that he did regarding new medallions and all of the bullshit with the TLC the last 8 years have made most old-timers quit. The mere mention of the guy's name will bring out some pretty big curse words. The funny thing is though, most of the crime in the city peaked during the Koch era. He started some of the things that Giuliani and Bloomberg later got credit for. Dinkins gets saddled with a lot of the worst memories of it mostly because of how ineffective he was as Mayor. Koch did some right dickish things to outerborough New Yorkers though. The closing of bike/pedestrian traffic on the Queensboro Bridge will always stick out in my memory. Caused a 3000+ bike protest down Park Avenue... and a couple years ago they named the fucking bridge after him. >_<

jgalt212 13y ago

Bloomberg has made Manhattan unfordable except for those who pay the long term capital gains rate on regular earnings and those who stole money out of the ground in their home country and are looking for a good place to stash it out of reach of local authorities. And it's not for a lack of space because there is tons of vacant commercial real estate in the city. Any time my company does a demo at a bank, we see rows and rows of empty desks. In short, Bloomberg has favored unneeded commercial development and high end oligarch dwellings over supply that the even the top 3% of wage earners can afford. You can buy a $100MM Penthouse at One West 57th and pay the same taxes as a $2MM apartment due to dubiously applied 421-A tax abatements.

o0-0o 13y ago

The guy ran as a republican to get elected on Giuliani's coattails, and in his bleeding heart he's a liberal. Typical politician; meddling, petty, crony, crooked, and oh did I mention meddling?

JackFr 13y ago
No one thought for a minute he was Republican -- there were no coattails. The issue is that the Democratic machine in NYC is so sclerotic and dysfunctional, it is virtually impossible for an outsider to get on the ballot. For a billionaire fiscal conservative who will finance his own campaign, the NYC Republicans will be obliging.