Repost from Drom Line: Urban America's Compounding Decline

NYC From The Jersey Shore: Weather as murky as the mood...

Thanks to the Drom Line for, a new Canadian Magazine, for featuring my piece discussing The Big Three US Cities, in the news as ever. You can subscribe to email news alerts from the Drom Line here.

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“It’s Not You, It's Me”: Urban America’s Compounding Decline, Covid et al

An avid NYC admirer herself, Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero chorus could just as well capture the mood for America’s urban decline as does her stardom: “It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem, It’s Me.”

I will never forget my last adventure in the Big Apple pre-COVID, leaving March 1st, 2020 (!). On the precipice of the pandemic, the city’s energy and development seemed insatiable, not just with new skyscrapers popping up like weeds, but a youthful and vibrant culture resonating in every borough. It felt as it should be: an economic, social, and cultural powerhouse for all things American, nay the world. Sure, the city struggled with the same factor of any diverse city (homelessness, disorder, and overall cleanliness—‘take your shoes off!’ my sister screamed as we entered her apartment), but this was not the overwhelming narrative of the city’s development, as unfortunately it is today.

The skyscrapers still grow, but the story on the ground is different; The elite stay hidden in their cocoons in a manner akin to urban blight of the 1970s as opposed to the urban renaissance through much of the 2000s. Many buildings remain underutilized, if not barren, a lingering effect of the COVID work-from-home craze in urban areas with the least space. The crime and overall anti-social behavior, though immaculate in comparison to many smaller peers, is nonetheless scarred by its relative rise: innumerable stories run of drug addicts shooting up on street corners, and passengers lit on fire in the subways if they are not pushed on the tracks first.

 Of course, everything I listed above has always been a factor of life in New York and certainly any urban core in the United States, if not the world. But the problem for NYC and its behemoth counterparts in Los Angeles and Chicago is that the anti-social and urban dangers are again dominating the narrative as their populations throw in the towel and throw themselves into the suburbs. This may be a boon for the once stagnant suburbs of, say, Connecticut, but it is certainly blasphemous to the America of this man’s urban fantasies.

The worst of the pandemic is long over in the States, meaning a new normal has settled. Yet, this normal is plagued by pre-COVID urban development policies which make police (for better and for worse) bystanders to urban disorder, the mentally ill and drug-impaired wander the streets at their leisure, and a once vibrant economic model increasingly unappealing. Recent work by the Economist, in a similar vein, noted the outflow of Americans from New York State, California, and Illinois, the home states of our three focal cities.

A cacophony of factors defines any decline, but acknowledging their fundamental sources and willingly addressing them is another thing entirely. While it is clear to residents that these cities face great challenges, their political, business, and cultural leaders (all directly shaped or elected by said citizenry) seem profoundly bad at offering any solutions or even remediation!

Take Eric Adams, the grotesquely scandalized Mayor of New York City who, after a Trump-enacted prosecutorial withdrawal, is a heavy underdog for re-election. Despite being the first benefactor of the city’s (relatively) brand new Ranked Choice Voting System, this former Police Captain, rumored to live in New Jersey, has proven unable to pioneer the relative decline in crime due to his own scandals and the lingering stench of criminality that still puts NYC in the national news. Indeed, Adams’ scandals, centering around foreign bribes and campaign contributions in exchange for city-contracted development and benefits, also hit at the heart of New York’s cosmopolitan conundrum: The city of the world is too often instigated economically by the winds of the global elite and not the working-class citizenry of color that largely populate it.

Polling above Adams in the upcoming Mayoral Election, the city looks to two candidates with distinct liabilities. The current frontrunner is Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist immigrant of Ugandan-Indian heritage, with less than half a decade of political experience. Having risen from a polling error to ranked choice majoritarian, Mr. Mamdani looks to reclaim NYC for the far political left via trendy campaign posting and tactics that may appeal to the average social media user but fall flat when it comes to policy coherence (free buses, government-run grocery stores, etc).

Trailing Mamdani is a candidate he already beat in the Democratic Mayoral Primary: former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace, technically in response to sexual scandals, but largely compounded by his notoriously gruff and forceful style that is as brash as it is ideologically evolutionary (he stands now for many things he once opposed). Ironically, many of his supporters in the primary, which included a gobsmacking amount of people who called for his initial resignation, argued that NYC needs a bully like Cuomo as mayor to stand up to the hated—if not equally forceful and gruff—President Donald Trump. 

Much of that support, as well as a media narrative of inevitability, was obliterated with his primary loss to Mamdani, in large part due to the latter’s exceptional political messaging as well as the former’s gaping absence on the campaign trail in favor of heavily planned events and advertising-focused campaign. Cuomo has argued, correctly, that New York’s closed primary system, where voters must register months in advance as the party they choose to vote in, creates an incredibly unrepresentative primary field, in both design and low turnout - while this year’s race boasted the highest turnout since 1989, it was still under 25% of eligible voters, low for even the historically voting-aloof America. However, that will not change the tremor of his loss alongside the call for Democrats to unite around the now-anointed Mamdani. At this point, Mr. Cuomo may serve more as a vote sink for jaded moderates and commiserating members of the business community, as opposed to a legitimate governing option. In terms of an ongoing narrative, the only thing NYC will hold onto is its moniker of chaos. 

This is an unfortunate algorithm that the Windy City has been swirling around. Currently, Chicago finds itself a couple of years ahead of NYC’s development. The eponymous urban center vs. left battle resulted in the mayoral triumph of one of its most extreme politicians and a steadfast member of the notoriously radical Chicago Teachers Union, Brandon Johnson. Known for carving out fiscally untenable deals, ignoring urban disorder, and relegating every criticism of his administration and leadership to anti-Black racism, Johnson’s paltry single-digit approval rating puts him on par with a third-world despot rather than a progressive revolutionary. Furthermore, Chicago, more than the Big Apple, has long struggled with urban disorder and violence, stemming from a racial divide and resource wealth gap that will shock most analysts for a supposedly progressive city in a blue state. Its economy, especially in recent years, has seen substantial capital and business outflow in precisely a way that New Yorkers fear could come—or rather, continue—their way.

Where concerns of New York and Chicago (again) burning to the ground are folklore at best, in Los Angeles, they are a recent reality. After historically horrendous wildfires leveled entire city blocks while supposed surplus water supplies proved nonexistent, the still-recovering city had to contend with increasingly violent protests in response to ICE raids. This has only exacerbated popular opinion on the region’s long-term sustainability. Even its most signature industry, Hollywood, finds itself in decline as industries flee to lower tax states.

Both the mayor and governor argue that Los Angeles crime is under control. The police, for their part, have long learned how to counter urban chaos from their experience with the Rodney King Riots in the ‘90s. But the region’s people remain largely skeptical of their local leaders’ ability to control civil order, especially considering the area’s long struggle with open-air drug usage and its label as ‘paradise for the homeless’. After all, this suburban city has long found itself victim to a double-edged sword, being both astoundingly expensive and overwhelmingly hard to get around.

So what is to be done? As all cities operate in different states under differing circumstances and electoral systems, shifts in ideology have been tested—and failed. Could this change? That was the thinking in New York’s moving to the center under Adams, but his scandals have impeded otherwise needed progress for the city. And the ousting of Chicago’s previous Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, saw a political change further to the left, which has only compounded the city’s previous struggle. Even in terms of experience, L.A.’s Mayor, former Congresswoman Karen Bass, would seem the most able to construct deals across the spectrum and via high-profile relationships, but the only political skill she has displayed thus far is aloofness: she is still castigated for traveling to Ghana at the start of LA’s Wildfires. The crux of this conundrum could be that these cities’ citizens are unhappy, yet unwilling, to take the political steps necessary for systemic change. All three are Democratic bastions and look to stay that way, particularly in reaction to Donald Trump’s continuing federal antagonism. In other words, ‘If it IS broke, don’t fix it anyway.’

Experience and ideology aside, could these cities’ salvation come from a strategy emphasizing approach over ideology? In San Francisco, new centrist Mayor Daniel Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss Company, is rolling out a conciliatory political upheaval in arguably America’s most left-wing city. Though Lurie’s undertones clearly exude a rebrand to the city’s notorious leftism, his approach has been congenial and civil, noted by its abundant friendliness and openness to conversation, alongside success in co-opting local elites to action. As opposed to ceding his policies to political assumptions, Mr. Lurie tackles them head-on to diffuse any unnecessary opposition with nuance.  While their results are far too early to tell, San Francisco seems to approve such a model that prioritizes sensible governance within a familiar culture of progressivism. 

In this respect, then, we could suppose the best opportunity for America’s Big Three cities will come from yet-unidentified leaders, likely years away in the making. In the years it takes for them to emerge, the citizenry and elites will have the time to face tough conversations to meet that end. After all, San Francisco proved unable to stomach better governance until all of its people, from working-class areas of color to progressive bastions and business elites, fell into agreement. The closest to that bitter equilibrium would appear to be Chicago, with New York and certainly Los Angeles farther behind. 

Alas, the uniquely closed political systems inherent to America’s Big Three mean even a largely accepted ideology could take much longer to trickle down to the Democratic Party’s base, if ever. This could mean political elites linger much longer than their unpopularity would suggest. What to do then? Look again to the Bay. Just East of San Francisco, Oakland is fresh off an emergency mayoral election, called after its citizens overwhelmingly voted to recall the old one. As opposed to prevention, the Big Three may find just as much remedy in adjusting their leadership after-the-fact.