New York City's Mayoral Election: The Candidates, The Issues, and More
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2017
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Seth Barron and Nicole Gelinas join Brian Anderson to discuss the upcoming New York City mayoral election and some of the challenges facing the city today.
Bill de Blasio won the New York mayor's office in 2013, pledging to take the city in a different direction from his successful predecessors, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. From policing and taxes to housing and welfare, the mayor has pursued policies in opposition to those that helped turn the city around after decades of decline and made New York a symbol of urban recovery.
So far, however, most of the Giuliani/Bloomberg achievements remain intact; the city is flourishing, and de Blasio is expected to win reelection. But problems are mounting up: the region's transportation infrastructure is in dire need of repair, street homelessness is on the rise, and New York's political culture remains terribly corrupt.
Seth Barron is associate editor of City Journal and project director of the NYC Initiative at the Manhattan Institute. He writes primarily about New York City politics and culture.
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a columnist at the New York Post.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, described by many as the most progressive mayor in New York's history, |
| 0:08.4 | critics feared the worst. After 20 years of effective leadership from Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, |
| 0:14.6 | de Blasio's candidacy was supposed to be a repudiation of the two reform mayors. He certainly cast himself in that light. From policing, |
| 0:23.4 | taxes, housing, and welfare candidate de Blasio tried setting himself apart from his predecessors |
| 0:29.6 | whom he accused of favoring the wealthy, allowing, if not encouraging excessive inequality, |
| 0:36.3 | and policing too aggressively. Here we are four years later, |
| 0:40.4 | with Mayor de Blasio up for re-election. I think it's fair to say that he has not been the disaster |
| 0:45.6 | that some of his critics feared, and the achievements of the Giuliani Bloomberg years remain standing. |
| 0:51.5 | Crime is still at an all-time low, and the NYPD continues to be the best police |
| 0:56.2 | force in America. The economy is growing. But serious problems are beginning to manifest themselves. |
| 1:03.1 | The city's transportation network is in dire need of repair. Street homelessness is getting worse. |
| 1:09.7 | And New York City's political culture is horribly corrupt. |
| 1:13.9 | These are just a few of the issues that we'll be discussing today. In this episode of 10 blocks, |
| 1:19.4 | we're going to talk with two city journal editors who write frequently about New York, Nicole, |
| 1:24.1 | Julinas, and Seth Barron about some of these issues and what it will take to fix some of |
| 1:30.5 | New York City's most pressing challenges. |
| 1:40.8 | Hello, I'm City Journal editor Brian Anderson. |
| 1:43.9 | Thanks for joining us for the Ten Blocks |
| 1:45.6 | podcast featuring urban policy and cultural commentary with City Journal editors, contributors, |
| 1:50.9 | and special guests. Welcome back to the show. I'm Brian Anderson. Joining us now is Seth |
| 1:59.9 | Barron and Nicole Jelineas. Seth is City |
| 2:03.0 | Journal's associate editor, and you can follow him on Twitter at NYC Council Watch. Nicole |
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