Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City

Journal. Join me on today's show,

Nicole Jelineas. She's a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and a longtime City Journal contributing

editor. She's been on the show a number of times. Nicole's work focuses on urban economics and

finance and other issues. She's a columnist at the New York Post and the author of the book

After the Fall, Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington. In Nicole's latest essay for

City Journal, New Vice City, which was featured in our autumn issue, she describes New York City's

plans to stimulate its post-pandemic economy

by promoting gambling and pot use. So Nicole, thanks very much for joining us.

Good morning, Brian. Thank you for having me on.

So as part of her first state budget, which was introduced in the

spring, Kathy Hokel, Governor Hokel, called for accelerating the issuance of three major

casino licenses for downstate New York. Several developers have jumped in wanting to apply for the licenses

to set up casinos in Manhattan, and the mayor, Eric Adams, has seemingly gotten on board with this.

He's touting the job creation potential of city-based casinos. But as you show, you know, the record of other

cities turning to gambling to alleviate their economic problems and as a form of economic

development hasn't been all that successful. So I wonder, you know, if you can describe what New York could learn from those other cities.

Right.

And New York's embrace of casinos has been a long time coming.

You know, we've had the state lottery for more than half a century.

State and whenever the city supports it, the city has always

billed this as, you know, we're leaving tax revenue on the table. People are going to gamble

...