Beet
Atlas Star
Posts: 29,022
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« on: November 01, 2005, 10:38:31 PM » |
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While there's no doubt Giuliani did some great things for NYC during his tenure as mayor, it should be remembered
1) that the crime rate actually peaked in the city a little bit before he came into office. Though only possible to see in retrospect, there were broader forces going on in the country as a whole in around 1992-94 that was working against crime.
2) even while almost all US cities experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, NYC was much better off than other Northeastern cities to begin with, even before the start of the 1990s. For example, between 1950 and 1990, Chicago's population dropped from 3.6 million to 2.8 million; Boston's from 800k to 575k, Philadelphia from 2 million to 1.6 million. These were hardly middle-of-the-rust-belt cities. Detriot, Cleveland and Pittsburgh of course all did worse. Yet even during this much earlier period, New York City only went from 7.9 million to 7.3 million, proportionally a much smaller loss than any other big Northeastern city.
The are numerous possible reasons for this: obviously, the cultural attraction of NYC, the institutions of NYC, including as a lesser magnet for immigrants, the presence of Wall Street and the Manhattan business district in NYC... all of these insulated the city from the fate of other major Northeastern cities of 1950.
Hence, the other cities were on the verge of an upturn in the early 1990s, and NYC had extra advantages on top of what the other cities had... it's pretty clear in retrospect that Giuliani or no Giuliani, the situation in NYC was on the verge of a major improvement just as he took office.
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