tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/bill-de-blasio-7833/articlesBill de Blasio – The Conversation2020-10-07T12:25:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1476292020-10-07T12:25:59Z2020-10-07T12:25:59ZAmid COVID-19 spike in ultra-Orthodox areas, Jewish history may explain reluctance of some to restrictions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362016/original/file-20201006-14-1n436l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=36%2C14%2C4839%2C3230&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">COVID-19 has spiked in ultra-Orthodox Jewish parts of New York City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/person-walks-through-the-brooklyn-neighborhood-of-borough-news-photo/1278637895?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/nyregion/cuomo-shutdown-coronavirus.html">spike in coronavirus cases in several Orthodox Jewish areas of New York</a> has prompted state and city authorities to impose new localized restrictions aimed at halting the spread.</p>
<p>On Oct. 5, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that nearly 100 public schools and 200 private schools in 20 ZIP codes – many of which have a large ultra-Orthodox population and have seen increased rates of positive test results of COVID-19 – would <a href="https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-updates-new-yorkers-states-progress-during-covid-19-pandemic-41">end in-person classes</a> “temporarily.”</p>
<p>The move has <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/some-orthodox-jews-bristle-at-nycs-response-to-virus-surge/">sparked animosity</a> among some Orthodox Jews, who claim that they are being <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-new-york-new-york-city-andrew-cuomo-brooklyn-654a7eeeeccc82a80b435b6d4ed1c7fc">unfairly singled out</a>. It comes amid warnings from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio of <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2020/09/23/de-blasio-says-urgent-action-needed-to-contain-coronavirus-clusters-in-orthodox-communities-1317961">further action to prevent the spread</a> and follows earlier instances, including the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/nyregion/hasidic-funeral-coronavirus-de-blasio.html">breaking up a funeral for an Orthodox Jewish rabbi</a> by police in Brooklyn on April 28.</p>
<p>Similar tensions have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/world/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-ronni-gamzu-netanyahu.html">played out in Israel</a>, where recent plans to implement a system to identify coronavirus hot spots met resistance from some ultra-Orthodox leaders, who suggested it was unfair to place restrictions on their communities while many secular Israelis have been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-israel-protests-idUSKBN26O0XQ">gathering regularly to demonstrate against the government</a>. Rather than loosen restrictions on the ultra-Orthodox community, the government <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-despite-restrictions-anti-netanyahu-protests-continue-at-thousands-of-locations-1.9205689">tightened restrictions on demonstrations</a>, resulting in additional tension between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israelis.</p>
<p>Most prominent rabbis around the world have supported government regulations intended to curb the spread of coronavirus, even if it means closing places of study and worship. But some <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190680251.001.0001/oso-9780190680251-miscMatter-7">observant Jewish</a> communities in the United States and Israel have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-cases-orthodox.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">reluctant to adopt social distancing</a>. </p>
<p>Outsiders are often <a href="https://time.com/5815426/israel-orthodox-jewish-coronavirus/">outraged</a> when religious communities defy policies meant to protect the general public. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://pages.uncc.edu/joyce-dalsheim/">an anthropologist who studies</a> religion, politics, identity and conflict in Israel and Palestine, <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8322.12152">my research</a> helps explain why some strictly observant Jewish communities disobey public health guidelines – and it’s more complicated than simply flouting the rules. </p>
<h2>Who are Haredi Jews?</h2>
<p>Ultra-Orthodox, or <a href="https://jerusaleminstitute.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PUB_haredcom_eng.pdf">Haredi</a>, Jewish communities are <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/haredim-charedim/">a diverse population</a>, with varying spiritual and cultural practices. But they all follow <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/halakhah-the-laws-of-jewish-life/">Halacha</a>, loosely translated as Jewish law. </p>
<p>As such, many do not share the same information sources that others take for granted. In <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-coronavirus-the-greatest-challenge-to-ultra-orthodox-life-since-the-holocaust-1.8730678">accordance with the rulings of their rabbis</a>, internet access, television broadcasts and certain cellphone functions are generally limited in strictly observant Jewish communities. </p>
<p>Maintaining their closeness to God by <a href="https://faculty.biu.ac.il/%7Emfriedma/Haredi-Violence.pdf">distancing themselves from the secular world</a> prevented many Haredim from seeing news reports of the virus <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/asia/asia-europe-us-coronavirus-delay-intl-hnk/index.html">spreading worldwide</a> in February and March. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330424/original/file-20200424-163067-16kal5r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The funeral for a Brooklyn rabbi who died from COVID-19 in the ultra-Orthodox Borough Park neighborhood in New York on April 5.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-speaks-as-hundreds-of-members-of-the-orthodox-jewish-news-photo/1217002199?adppopup=true">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some Haredi leaders <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/synagogues-to-close-under-new-coronavirus-regulations-1.8708347">maintained that gathering to pray and study remained paramount</a>. Studying the Hebrew scriptures, or Torah, is a commandment and a duty in Judaism. Haredi men generally gather to pray three times daily. Students at yeshivas, or Jewish seminaries, may spend 18 hours a day studying together. </p>
<p>More than a way of life, prayer and study are believed to be the means for protecting life itself. <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.99b.11?ven=William_Davidson_Edition_-_English&lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en">According to Jewish sages</a>, “One who engages in Torah study also protects the entire world.” Indeed, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=nifOxU_RrCAC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=%22Without+the+Torah+the+world+falls%22&source=bl&ots=7Am9VF_t3p&sig=ACfU3U3Q6yb0mHKTkkld2PGewrLSIwOqZw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjAl8Pi7NHoAhXAhHIEHQ5xAykQ6AEwAnoECAgQNA#v=onepage&q=%22Without%20the%20Torah%20the%20world%20falls%22&f=false">without Torah the world falls</a>.” </p>
<p>The importance of engaging with the Torah explains why one <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/haredim-have-finally-begun-embracing-social-distancing-why-did-it-take-so-long/">prominent rabbi in Israel insisted</a> in March that “canceling Torah study is more dangerous than the coronavirus.”</p>
<p>Ultimately, the Israeli government intervened to enforce its coronavirus restrictions. On March 22, police were sent into <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/medics-attacked-en-route-to-conduct-virus-test-in-haredi-neighborhood-1-injured/">Me’a She’arim</a>, a Haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem, to end public gatherings, close synagogues and shutter schools. </p>
<p>They were met with <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-ultra-orthodox-clash-with-cops-enforcing-virus-lockdown-3-arrested/">curses, slurs and thrown stones</a>. Some Haredim even <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/middleeast/israel-coronavirus-ultra-orthodox-intl/index.html">called the Israeli police “Nazis.”</a></p>
<h2>Collective memory</h2>
<p>While such responses might seem extreme to outsiders, they become clearer when considering Jewish history and the memories provoked by police intervention. </p>
<p><a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/">Anthropological research</a> demonstrates that people <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=BZ1BmKEHti0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=geertz+the+interpretation+of+cultures&ots=wbFN8-5Bw3&sig=ero6Kq6bskmr4Us3Trii8TedPHA#v=onepage&q=geertz%20the%20interpretation%20of%20cultures&f=false">give meaning to their experiences</a> in different ways. Our perception, imagination and actions are deeply embedded in the whole of our experiences. The past – whether individually experienced or collectively nourished by the community – gives meaning to the present. </p>
<p><a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/">Henri Bergson</a>, a French philosopher, used the term “duration” to explain how the past shifts to show itself in ways that appeal to current experiences in different ways for different people.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8322.12152?casa_token=Tn91SVNDWrkAAAAA%3AkB9zs8FYq6qXADFp-T2uFM6pD_7vGJaf6tPawJMiCOGIQrZGeb0yUwCJYXVYpiDCIVyVLrVAwW42Ark">times of crisis</a> like the coronavirus pandemic, this sense of duration becomes more acute. </p>
<p>For some, hospital tents erected in public places evoke World War I. A Holocaust survivor recently told me the stay-at-home order brought back memories of her childhood <a href="https://www.adl.org/holocaust-education/hidden-child-foundation">years of confinement hiding from the Nazis</a>. One New Orleans resident found that the “flood” of coronavirus deaths <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/26/new-orleans-surviving-katrina-battles-covid-19-coronavirus">recalled Hurricane Katrina</a>.</p>
<p>Duration as personal memory is central to an individual’s sense of self, but it arises in collective memories, too. </p>
<p>Collective memory, including the <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199944422.001.0001/acprof-9780199944422">stories we all tell</a> ourselves and our children about our past, gives meaning and purpose to our collective selves. These stories recount struggles and triumphs and help <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=3GWqOS-52IsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=Hayden+White,+the+content+of+the+form&ots=lIsbL_gf73&sig=It2nqawWmAxhg0jFXqq893LnZsk#v=onepage&q=Hayden%20White%2C%20the%20content%20of%20the%20form&f=false">define our moral community</a>.</p>
<p>Duration interacts with collective memory, and is <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=NtuCCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=DAvid+Lowenthal&ots=wXjCzA5aPq&sig=lIONB1lrdm33E0PDQD4y8CukHNc#v=onepage&q=DAvid%20Lowenthal&f=false">key</a> to the formation of group identity. </p>
<h2>History of persecution</h2>
<p>The historical persecution of Jews around the world is central to both secular and strictly observant Jews. However, how that memory works in contemporary circumstances is not predetermined. My <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8322.12152">research demonstrates</a> that different aspects of the past inform collective meaning and actions differently. </p>
<p>Unlike most Israelis – who see Jewish history as a justification for the state of Israel and understand the Israeli army and police as existing to protect them – <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/riot-in-jerusalem-haredi-area-over-virus-regulations-girl-hit-by-police-grenade/">some Israeli Haredim distrust</a> the government and its functionaries. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=lang_en&id=0ZKwDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Dalsheim,+note+on+terms&ots=oRddwDBKDR&sig=xGcDgtH2LnA-y1hRmOen0kk82yE#v=snippet&q=Haredi&f=false">Haredi Jews</a>, who make up about 10% of Israel’s population, are <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/bo20852544.html">foundationally opposed to Zionism</a>, the political ideology of Jewish nationalism that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. </p>
<p>While Haredi Jews believe that God promised the land of Israel to the Jewish people, they are also certain that promise cannot be fulfilled by human intervention in God’s work, such as the establishment of a nation state. They <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/israel-has-a-jewish-problem-9780190680251?cc=us&lang=en&">have previously clashed</a> with the Israeli government and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/haredim-protest-in-jerusalem-over-proposed-draft-law-544605">law enforcement</a> over compulsory military service and other policies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330421/original/file-20200424-163136-q8umf9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli police officers disperse ultra-Orthodox protesters who oppose military conscription in Jerusalem, July 2, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-police-officers-intervene-ultra-orthodox-jews-with-news-photo/1153324783?adppopup=true">Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Suspicion of police</h2>
<p>So when armed men in uniform entered their neighborhoods to close down synagogues and yeshivas, members of the Haredi community drew on their collective memories of soldiers and police <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/pogroms">wreaking havoc and destruction on Jewish communities</a> in czarist Russia and later in Western Europe. Rather than feeling protected by the state, they were <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Coronavirus-and-the-haredi-community-622471">fearful</a> and <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/want-people-to-follow-coronavirus-guidelines-create-trust-622980?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spot_im_redirect_source=pitc&spot_im_comment_id=sp_jpost_622980_c_jxfgUX&spot_im_highlight_immediate=true">suspicious</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13621020802015388?casa_token=aU5wWEADNp0AAAAA%3ARHwnzr8E3ZiSC0mtGxTW5XjJ7gHw_kJpq-6QYf4JfWtt4GdckGFZL-TxsZ712l3BY6B6LAMxlRAH">Suspicion of the police</a> is common <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Coronavirus-and-the-haredi-community-622471">in other communities</a> historically mistreated by law enforcement. The collective memories of both <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/police/Police-and-minorities">Black Americans</a> and the Roma of Europe, for example, associate police with violence and danger. </p>
<p>When facing a crisis like the coronavirus, many people rely primarily on science, technology and governments for protection. And the Haredim <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41349798?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">do not reject science or medicine</a>.</p>
<p>But for them, living the Torah life through daily study and prayer is <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190680251.001.0001/oso-9780190680251-chapter-6">the primary means</a> by which all human life is maintained and preserved. When the political order interferes with their work, the consequences could be more disastrous than a pandemic. It could mean the end of Jewish life, if not humanity itself. </p>
<p><em>This article is an updated version of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/jewish-history-explains-why-some-ultra-orthodox-communities-defy-coronavirus-restrictions-135292">story that was published</a> on April 27.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joyce Dalsheim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Authorities have closed schools in some ultra-Orthodox areas of New York. The reasons for apparent noncompliance with public health guidelines are complicated, explains a cultural anthropologist.Joyce Dalsheim, Associate Professor of Global Studies, University of North Carolina – CharlotteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1301522020-01-18T13:34:25Z2020-01-18T13:34:25ZBill de Blasio’s bagel gaffe and the fraught politics of food<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310712/original/file-20200117-118343-14dnjw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C10%2C2344%2C1846&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Oh no he didn't.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/toasted-bagel-royalty-free-image/982874472">secret agent mike/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio hadn’t already dropped out of the 2020 presidential race, #bagelgate might have been the nail in the coffin. </p>
<p>His Jan. 15 tweet praising a toasted bagel on National Bagel Day instantly set off hardline bagel devotees-cum-voters. De Blasio <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1217530245672325123">quickly amended his tweet</a> to delete the word “toasted.” But the damage was already done. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/01/15/bill-de-blasios-hot-take-on-toasted-bagels-turns-out-to-be-lukewarm-and-wrong/">Purists scorned the very idea of toasting a bagel</a>, calling into question his bona fides as a New Yorker.</p>
<p>The outrage over bagel protocol may seem silly. But few acts are as personal as eating, and food is closely intertwined with place and culture.</p>
<p>For a politician, food might seem like a low-hanging fruit. Is there an easier way to appeal to the masses? Everyone, after all, eats.</p>
<p>But when politicians wade into local food customs, they do so at their own risk. <a href="https://history.iastate.edu/directory/stacy-cordery/">My research</a> on presidents and first ladies suggests that uninformed assumptions about food often get candidates and elected officials in trouble.</p>
<p>Bill de Blasio isn’t the first politician to run afoul of food norms and face the wrath of voters. And he certainly won’t be the last.</p>
<h2>Culinary campaign calamities</h2>
<p>Most political wannabes try hard to bridge the gap between their wealthy backgrounds and the rest of us. It rarely works.</p>
<p>During the 1976 presidential campaign, incumbent president Gerald Ford, before the eyes of bewildered Texans, peeled back the aluminum foil – but not the corn husk – and took a giant bite out of a tamale. Ford never lived it down. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ezkvxk/how-a-plate-of-tamales-may-have-crushed-gerald-fords-1976-presidential-campaign">According to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee</a>, “The Great Tamale Incident” sealed Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in the Lone Star State.</p>
<p>In 2003, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry unwittingly broke food norms <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2018/09/22/john-kerry-cheesesteak-philadelphia/">when he ordered</a> Swiss cheese for his Philly cheese steak instead of Cheese Whiz. Nine years later, Republican Mitt Romney <a href="https://www.grubstreet.com/2012/06/romney-orders-a-sub-in-hoagie-country.html">asked for</a> a “sub” in Pennsylvania, where, as locals will tell you, they call them hoagies. And Romney again made himself an easy target for mockery in 2019, when the millionaire businessman <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/386219-romney-mocked-for-saying-hot-dog-is-his-favorite-meat/">claimed his favorite type of meat</a> was a hot dog.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310691/original/file-20200117-118323-16708fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just a regular American guy grilling regular American food.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mitt-romney-l-the-republican-presidential-hopeful-and-news-photo/593352876">Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pizza is treacherous terrain: Republicans Donald Trump, Sarah Palin and John Kasich have all faced withering criticism <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/john-kasich-pizza-knife-fork-donald-trump-bill-de-blasio-448338">for eating pizza with a fork</a>. Bill de Blasio <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/forkgate-bill-de-blasio-pizza-fork-and-knife-new-york_n_4577126">made the same mistake</a>, too, in what was dubbed “forkgate.”</p>
<p>But no food has a greater potential for campaign catastrophe than the corn dog. The optics of state fair corn dog consumption are never good. The web is full of wince-worthy photos of <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Bachmann-2012/24de81bd98484559a8d2c96625a71b96/5/0">Michele Bachmann</a>, Rick Perry and <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Bernie-Sanders/fa3f03097b594a7dafdd8ea240b50849/2/0">Bernie Sanders</a> all struggling to maintain their dignity while biting into a battered, oversized wiener popsicle. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310698/original/file-20200117-118327-5xyt04.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=597&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rick Perry dives in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Perry-2012/c40a9463e09c4af58db48c02072d0aa4/3/0">AP Photo/Charles Dharapak</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Better to be <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-st-cory-booker-could-be-first-vegan-president-20190201-story.html">a vegan like Cory Booker</a> – and avoid them altogether – than be seen on the wrong side of the corn dog. That may be one rule that a majority of voters can agree on.</p>
<h2>You’re out of touch…</h2>
<p>Other politicians are either unaware – or don’t care – about their elitism. </p>
<p>In 1972, the beer-swilling, working-class regulars in a Youngstown, Ohio bar cringed when Democratic vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/sargent-shriver-founding-director-of-peace-corps-dies-at-95/2011/01/18/ABqGTSR_story.html">hollered</a>, “Make mine a Courvoisier!”</p>
<p>In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis <a href="https://apnews.com/4d16b5f492dbc41ff8bb18a5486d6520">suggested to debt-ridden Iowa farmers</a> that they grow <a href="https://www.kitchenstories.com/en/stories/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cooking-and-shopping-for-in-season-endive">Belgian endive</a>, a bitter, leafy green seldom found outside of gourmet restaurants. Almost 20 years later, fellow Democrat Barack Obama told those same farmers <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/8/20/374027/-">that arugula might bring in more profits</a> than corn and soybeans. </p>
<p>Obama also made the mistake of asking for Dijon mustard – and no ketchup – for his cheeseburger. Fox News host Sean Hannity let him have it, calling him “<a href="https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/video/2009/05/07/media-20090507-dijon.jpg">President Poupon</a>.” </p>
<p>The producers of an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4-vEwD_7Hk">infamous 2004 attack ad</a> damned Democratic presidential aspirant Howard Dean for his elitism. Not surprisingly, food played a role. </p>
<p>Dean, the ad sneered, was a “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K4-vEwD_7Hk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In an infamous ad, the Club for Growth derides Howard Dean as a ‘sushi-eating…left-wing freak show.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These gastronomic tales show how the semiotics of what and how we eat matter profoundly to millions of people. </p>
<p>On the one hand, to transgress is to risk looking inauthentic, disrespectful or foolish – none of which is sound politics.</p>
<p>On the other hand, unabashedly embracing the latest health food trends can get a politician ridiculed as elitist and out of touch.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best outcome is simply to win. A president can indulge in guilty gastronomic pleasures. Ronald Reagan <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/president-reagans-jelly-beans-048915">loved his jelly beans</a>, George H.W. Bush <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/07/garden/suddenly-pork-rinds-are-classy-crunch.html">couldn’t put down his pork rinds</a> and Bill Clinton, until his heart surgeries, was irresistibly drawn to McDonald’s. </p>
<p>For political candidates, however, a shrewd understanding of American eating habits is the recommended minimum daily requirement on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stacy A. Cordery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Food might seem like an easy way to appeal to the masses. But when politicians wade into local food customs, they do so at their own risk.Stacy A. Cordery, Professor of History, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1204802019-07-18T11:34:08Z2019-07-18T11:34:08ZWhy the federal government isn’t prosecuting the officer who choked Eric Garner<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284556/original/file-20190717-147299-18lnqhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gwen Carr, Eric Garner's mother, says the federal government should have filed charges.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Police-Chokehold-Death/8e51a7d7c1d94b9bb6ededf7bdc8b689/2/0">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Justice Department won’t file federal charges against the New York City police officer who put <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/statement-united-states-attorney-richard-p-donoghue">Eric Garner</a> into <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/nyregion/eric-garner-death-daniel-pantaleo-chokehold.html">the chokehold that led to his death</a>. With the statute of limitations having run out, the case, legally, is closed.</p>
<p>The decision, announced almost exactly five years after Garner was pronounced dead following a confrontation with police officers in Staten Island on July 17, 2014, has sparked <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/742473964/5-years-after-eric-garners-death-activists-continue-fight-for-another-day-to-liv">renewed objections</a> from his relatives, activists and politicians.</p>
<p>Every officer involved has remained on the force, and no criminal charges have been filed. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-determine-future-nypd-cop-accused-killing-eric/story?id=63502832">Daniel Pantaleo</a>, the officer caught on video with his arm around Garner’s neck, was assigned to desk duty, but has stayed on the department’s payroll and even received an <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2016/09/officer-in-eric-garner-death-boosts-overtime-pay-105359">increase in his overtime pay</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/nyregion/eric-garner-death-daniel-pantaleo-chokehold.html">Garner’s death</a> was brutal, but as a former federal prosecutor and a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=893598">criminal procedure professor</a> who studies how prosecutors handle police violence cases, the lack of federal charges doesn’t surprise me. </p>
<p>According to criminal justice professor <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rxOWsY4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Philip Stinson</a>, local prosecutors are often <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/18/us/police-involved-shooting-cases/index.html">reluctant to prosecute</a> the officers they work with to investigate cases. Reporting by the Marshall Project suggests they may not want to anger the police unions they often <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2018/05/23/prosecutor-elections-now-a-front-line-in-the-justice-wars">count on for political support</a>. And <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/">existing law</a> gives the police the benefit of the doubt in most situations. Based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-justice-system-fails-us-after-police-shootings-51978">my research</a>, it seems that this is just how the justice system works.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284554/original/file-20190717-147284-1u0ywqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo allegedly used a banned chokehold in the July 2014 death of Eric Garner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Police-Chokehold-Death/6cae5301fcd04168826004a0b2969454/29/0">AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Obstacles to prosecution</h2>
<p>The case’s basic details are not contested. Pantaleo, who is white, was among a group of officers who approached Eric Garner, who was black, during a routine arrest for selling <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.09.016">untaxed, loose cigarettes</a>.</p>
<p>The encounter, which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWbwZz2L2Kg">a bystander shot using his phone</a> and the city’s medical examiner <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/08/01/337177619/nyc-man-s-chokehold-death-was-a-homicide-medical-examiner-says">ruled a homicide</a>, soon turned contentious. It culminated with Pantaleo taking Garner down to the pavement with his arm wrapped around his neck. Pantaleo is seen shortly afterward on the video pressing down on Garner’s head as other officers crowded around him.</p>
<p>A few months after Garner’s death, the Staten Island district attorney announced that he had presented the case to the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/03/368249828/reports-nyc-grand-jury-does-not-indict-officer-in-chokehold-case">grand jury</a>, but did not obtain an indictment. </p>
<p>A public <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-justice-system-fails-us-after-police-shootings-51978">outcry ensued</a>. Garner’s dying words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1095796015620171">#BlackLivesMatter protests</a>.</p>
<p>But the fact is that it is extremely difficult to bring charges against on-duty cops for excessive force.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that in police use-of-force cases, allowance must be made “for the fact that police officers are <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/490/386/">often forced to make split-second judgments</a> – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving – about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” </p>
<p>Ever since, few juries have found police officers guilty of using excessive force. Since 2005, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-officers-convicted-fatal-shootings-are-exception-not-rule-n982741">only 35 officers have been found guilty</a> of charges related to killing civilians. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=829&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284559/original/file-20190717-147318-acpokt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1042&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign and plaque near where Eric Garner had a deadly encounter with the police in the Staten Island borough of New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Police-Chokehold-Death/bbc5132a3f9a4e0eb62056bdd8f1e837/4/0">AP Photo/Mark Lennihan</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Federal civil rights</h2>
<p>Because of the Constitution’s protection against <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/double_jeopardy">double jeopardy</a>, which prevents anyone from being charged twice for the same crime, people aren’t usually prosecuted more than once for a single incident. But because U.S. law considers the states and the federal government to be <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-646_d18e.pdf">legally independent jurisdictions</a>, the Justice Department can indict an officer who has previously been charged under state law, even if he was acquitted. </p>
<p>When excessive force prosecutions against police officers don’t result in a conviction at the state level, the local U.S. attorney’s office may indict the officers for violating a person’s civil rights. This happened most notably in 1991 in the case of <a href="https://ktla.com/2019/07/08/barry-kowalski-who-won-convictions-in-rodney-king-civil-rights-case-dies-at-74/">Rodney King</a>, the black motorist who was beaten by Los Angeles police officers, and recently after the South Carolina mistrial of police officer Michael Slager, for shooting <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/walter-scott-shooting/walter-scott-shooting-michael-slager-ex-officer-sentenced-20-years-n825006">Walter Scott</a>, another unarmed black man, in the back. </p>
<p>But the type of proof needed to bring a federal civil rights case is much more demanding than for a state criminal case. While there are numerous state charges that might be brought against an <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/8/13/17938170/us-police-shootings-gun-violence-homicides">officer who causes the death of a civilian</a>, from murder to manslaughter to reckless endangerment to assault, there is only one route for a civil rights case. </p>
<p>In those cases, prosecutors must prove that officers used <a href="https://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/officer-safety/use-of-force/pages/welcome.aspx">excessive force</a> against a person, generally defined as force that was clearly unreasonable in the circumstances. In addition, they have to prove that the officer’s actions were “<a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/law-enforcement-misconduct">willful</a>.”</p>
<p>And willfulness is “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/eric-garner-william-barr-nypd-officer-daniel-pantaleo/index.html">the highest standard of intent</a> imposed by law,” as the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, Richard P. Donoghue, said in his public statement about Pantaleo. “An officer’s mistake, fear, misperception or even poor judgment does not constitute willful conduct under federal criminal civil rights law.” </p>
<h2>A narrow path</h2>
<p>Many news outlets reported that the decision to close the Garner case happened once U.S. Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/07/16/ag-barr-made-decision-to-not-bring-charges-against-eric-garner-cop-official/">ordered the case dropped</a>, overruling the Civil Rights Division <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/eric-garner-william-barr-nypd-officer-daniel-pantaleo/index.html">in his own department</a>. </p>
<p>Activists have questioned Barr’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/william-barr-has-long-history-abusing-civil-rights-and-liberties-name">civil rights record</a>, noting that while serving as President George H.W. Bush’s attorney general, Barr released a report titled “<a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/139583NCJRS.pdf">The Case for More Incarceration</a>.” Barr’s predecessor, Jeff Sessions, <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/why-jeff-sessions-final-act-could-have-more-impact-than-expected">quashed the Justice Department’s attempts to reform policing</a>.</p>
<p>Still, I’m not sure the outcome would have been different with someone else in the White House. </p>
<p>In fact, disagreements on whether the case could be successfully prosecuted in federal court also snarled proceedings <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/nyregion/eric-garner-case-death-daniel-pantaleo.html">during the Obama administration</a>. And there was only ever a narrow path to prosecution.</p>
<p>When Donoghue gave a detailed explanation for his decision, he took an unusual step. Most of the time, when officers don’t get charged, the reasons are shrouded in secrecy. Instead, Donoghue gave a <a href="https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/07/16/eric-garner-federal-civil-rights-charges/">painstaking explanation of the ambiguities</a> in the video, the <a href="http://thechiefleader.com/news/news_of_the_week/city-medical-examiner-rebuts-pba-contention-about-garner-s-death/article_51d36d86-fa34-11e8-baae-eb6888c5f56e.html">conflicting medical expert reports</a>, and the reasons he believed the high standard of intent could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>I once served in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which Donoghue now runs. I hate the fact that many people will never feel that justice was done in Eric Garner’s tragic and avoidable death.</p>
<p>Yet I’m not sure that I could have reached a different conclusion myself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caren Morrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US legal system often gives the police the benefit of the doubt.Caren Morrison, Associate Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1180552019-07-08T11:10:46Z2019-07-08T11:10:46ZNew York’s new rental protections won’t end the outsize influence of big developers who pay the city’s bills<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277160/original/file-20190530-69051-lpdjfr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5483%2C3622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New York has become a 'city for the rich' in recent decades, a shift in its real estate market that impacts policy-making, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/es/image-photo/new-york-city-beautiful-colorful-sunset-526412356">Alessandro Colle / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York has passed sweeping <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2019/6/12/18661872/nyc-rent-stabilization-reform-legislation-universal-rent-control">new laws</a> that will close some legal loopholes that allowed the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments to be deregulated and tenant protections bypassed.</p>
<p>State lawmakers are calling the legislation “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/nyregion/rent-protection-regulation.html?module=inline">the strongest tenant protections</a>” in the history of the city, which is fabled for its cutthroat housing market. </p>
<p>I’m a scholar who <a href="https://www.ie.edu/school-architecture-design/people/faculty/cem-kayatekin/">studies the socioeconomics of cities</a>, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/34465481/_Dissertation_The_Global_City_and_Its_Discontents_A_Study_of_New_York_Citys_Garment_District_1930-1980">particularly New York City</a>. While I recognize that this new law may prove important, my research points to a far weightier crisis that New York must address if it is to remain a livable city. </p>
<p>The city’s budget depends heavily on property taxes generated by extremely high-value real estate, and that distorts local policy-making in ways that hurt everyday residents. </p>
<h2>New York’s existential crisis: Property</h2>
<p>New York has the <a href="https://www.housingwire.com/articles/43253-here-are-the-top-10-most-expensive-rental-markets-in-the-us">second most expensive rental market</a> in the United States, after San Francisco. More than half of all New Yorkers <a href="https://100resilientcities.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OneNYC-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf">spend more than 30% of their income</a> on housing – the limit of what is considered “<a href="https://www.census.gov/housing/census/publications/who-can-afford.pdf">affordable</a>” by the U.S. Census Bureau.</p>
<p>Between 2017 and 2018, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/20/nyregion/landlord-tenant-disputes-housing-court.html">16 households</a> in the Brooklyn borough of New York lost their homes each day on average. During that same period, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/20/nyregion/nyc-affordable-housing.html#">232,000 eviction notices</a> were filed against tenants in the city’s five boroughs. Homelessness is at a <a href="https://www.amny.com/news/nyc-homeless-in-shelters-1.30474501">record high</a>.</p>
<p>For decades New York mayors have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/15/opinion/l-giuliani-s-housing-plan-412643.html">promised</a> to <a href="https://www.gothamgazette.com/columnists/center-for-an-urban-future/1925">create more affordable housing</a>, without <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/26/17901946/nyc-housing-affordability-decline-report-scott-stringer">making much progress</a>.</p>
<p>Now, New York Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Bill de Blasio says his administration has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/nyc-tenants-get-a-rent-law-blessing-that-landlords-see-as-curse">finally done the impossible</a>. He calls the city’s new rent laws “a remarkable achievement that will halt displacement, harassment and unjust evictions.” </p>
<p>Even a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/landlord-rent-protection-regulation.html">phone call from significant real estate groups to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo</a> seeking to block the measures from going forward seemingly fell on deaf ears – much to big developers’ dismay. </p>
<p>Powerful real estate lobbies make <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/landlord-rent-protection-regulation.html">significant contributions</a> to state political races and have successfully beaten back many past efforts to curb their profit margins in New York City. </p>
<p>Property taxes generated via New York City real estate have been a significant source of municipal revenue <a href="https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/cgi-park2/2018/08/how-has-the-mix-of-taxes-collected-by-new-york-city-changed-over-the-years/">starting in the 1920s</a>. In 2017 property taxes accounted for <a href="https://council.nyc.gov/budget/how-nycs-budget-works/#revenue-budget">about 30%</a> of the city’s $82 billion budget, which also includes income tax, state and federal grants and other smaller revenue streams. </p>
<p><iframe id="lKoqv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/lKoqv/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>This makes property taxes by far the largest single source of income for New York City’s government. The tax revenue has been critical to the city’s survival <a href="https://observer.com/2015/05/a-taxing-matter-looking-back-on-the-history-of-421-a/">since the late 1970s</a>, when New York dug itself out of bankruptcy by cultivating a high-end real estate market to restore its tax base. </p>
<p>As historian Adam Curtis explains in his 2015 BBC documentary “<a href="https://thoughtmaybe.com/hypernormalisation/">Hypernormalisation</a>,” New York transitioned from hollowed-out metropolis to a glittering “city for the rich” in recent decades thanks to tax incentives given to developers – including Donald Trump – to build <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/05/super-tall-super-skinny-super-expensive-the-pencil-towers-of-new-yorks-super-rich">extremely high-value condos</a> for millionaires and billionaires. </p>
<p>This has had a cascading effect across New York’s real estate market. A plot once priced to hold regular housing is now assessed based on its potential value as the site of high-end condos. Such real estate speculation <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/04/10/new-york-city-gentrification-creating-urban-islands-of-exclusion-study-finds/">fragments lower- and middle-class neighborhoods</a>, leading to the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/this-is-what-happens-after-a-neighborhood-gets-gentrified/432813/">expulsion of their residents</a> into the ever-increasing fringes of the city: gentrification. </p>
<h2>Unequal and opposing forces</h2>
<p>New York is not unique among American cities in relying heavily on property tax to fund public services. Property taxes accounted for approximately 22% of <a href="https://lacontroller.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BUDGET-2017-18.pdf">Los Angeles’ budget last year</a> and <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/obm/supp_info/2017%20Budget/2017BudgetOrdinance.pdf">approximately 21%</a> of Chicago’s. </p>
<p>What is unique is New York’s reliance on high-end real estate as the primary way to generate that property tax income. This dependency hurts not just the housing market but also the city’s ability to prepare for climate change, my research finds.</p>
<p>In March, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a US$10 billion “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/bill-de-blasio-my-new-plan-to-climate-proof-lower-manhattan.html">plan to climate-proof lower Manhattan</a>” – a slice of the city that is home to Wall Street, the Financial District and other swaths of high-value property.</p>
<p>Declaring climate change “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/bill-de-blasio-my-new-plan-to-climate-proof-lower-manhattan.html">the greatest threat to our survival</a>,” de Blasio has called for extending lower Manhattan’s footprint into the surrounding waterways, establishing berms high enough to keep flood waters at bay.</p>
<p>“Six years ago, Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York City,” de Blasio wrote in a March op-ed in New York Magazine. “The storm put 51 square miles of it under water. Seventeen thousand homes were damaged or destroyed. Forty-four New Yorkers lost their lives.”</p>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2019/05/29/de-blasios-climate-rhetoric-on-the-stump-doesnt-mirror-reality-back-home-1032693">frustrated New Yorkers</a> found the “our” in de Blasio’s concern for “our survival” rather confusing. </p>
<p>Of the 44 New Yorkers who died in Hurricane Sandy, only <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/17/nyregion/hurricane-sandy-map.html">two lost their lives in lower Manhattan</a>. Likewise, lower Manhattan makes up a minuscule piece of the 51 square miles of New York that was submerged during the storm. </p>
<p>The mayor’s resiliency plan doesn’t protect the most vulnerable people or places in New York, like Rockaway Beach, Queens and Dumbo, Brooklyn – it protects the most valuable part.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/282107/original/file-20190701-105215-1epk79t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn was one of many places that experienced severe flooding during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Superstorm-Sandy/584d260af0774cce9f884e1a0235001b/3/0">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Residents and real estate are two unequal and opposing forces in City Hall. Caught between the interests of 9 million New Yorkers and the Financial District’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/nyregion/manhattan-climate-change-hurricane-sandy.html">$60 billion worth of property</a>, de Blasio – or any New York mayor – will always struggle to represent, to govern, the whole city. </p>
<p>To maintain its fiscal and structural health, the city government must protect its real estate developments that cater to the superwealthy. But to retain its social stability, livability and to survive climate change, it must protect its residents – significant numbers of whom are <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/poor-people-living-high-poverty-neighborhoods-nyc-article-1.3227239">poor and working-class</a>, not superrich.</p>
<h2>Real resiliency</h2>
<p>To meet the dual challenges of affordability and climate change, New York must wrest its financial livelihood from the grip of property taxes, restructuring its economy such that the city’s municipal finances – and by extension, governance – serve a broader array of interests and sectors.</p>
<p>This urban budgetary problem, which affects many cities worldwide to a greater or lesser degree, is one of the main subjects of my current research.</p>
<p>One of a few models I am investigating is that of Berlin, which in June voted in favor of passing a <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/06/berlin-rent-freeze-senate-vote-affordable-housing/592051/?fbclid=IwAR1T1QsGokBj_t2S2bZcZ1_-ImjiITZE7Fc_thM50jKKGwcKua-slFJiNWg">five-year rent freeze</a> to suppress rapidly rising housing prices. </p>
<p>Berlin can contemplate this relatively radical policy because the city’s budgetary reliance on property taxes has dropped from <a href="http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/decentralization/June2003Seminar/Germany.pdf">around 35% to 15% over the past seven decades</a>. Value-added tax, income and corporate tax make up the difference, supplying <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjlqrHK3ZnjAhUtQRUIHS0rAL0QFjAAegQIBBAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.berlin.de%2Fsen%2Ffinanzen%2Fdokumentendownload%2Fvermoegen%2Ffitch-rating-report_state-of-berlin-2016.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3VY7dE6F-YonGUkWbgIYJF">around 61% of the city’s revenue stream</a>. </p>
<p>That means developers don’t hold the same financial or political sway in Berlin as they do in New York, and public services don’t depend on ever more $50 million condos getting built. </p>
<p>Identifying other cities that, like Berlin, have broad-based budgets may begin to shed light on ways New York could build a sustainable revenue model that will help it to untangle the isolated interests of property from the interests of the whole city.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cem S. Kayatekin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New York City’s municipal budget relies heavily on the property taxes of extremely high-value real estate. That drives gentrification and distorts local policy in other ways that hurt residents.Cem S. Kayatekin, Assistant Professor of Architecture / Urbanism, IE School of Architecture and Design, IE UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1164612019-05-14T12:46:41Z2019-05-14T12:46:41ZGlass skyscrapers: a great environmental folly that could have been avoided<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274348/original/file-20190514-60549-11ssax8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4047%2C2730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New York restricts the growth of glass skyscrapers. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/panorama-midtown-manhattan-lower-dusk-blue-1334754314?src=B-eWnk4HzPFyiMtqvH7rzg-9-99">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York Mayor Bill de Blasio <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/04/22/de-blasio-glass-skyscrapers-have-no-place-on-our-earth/">has declared</a> that skyscrapers made of glass and steel “have no place in our city or our Earth anymore”. He argued that their energy inefficient design contributes to global warming and insisted that his administration would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/nyregion/glass-skyscraper-ban-nyc.html">restrict glassy high-rise developments</a> in the city.</p>
<p>Glass has always been an unlikely material for large buildings, because of how difficult it becomes to control temperature and glare indoors. In fact, the use of fully glazed exteriors only became possible with advances in air conditioning technology and access to cheap and abundant energy, which came about in the mid-20th century. And <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2017/jun/high-rise-buildings-much-more-energy-intensive-low-rise">studies suggest</a> that on average, carbon emissions from air conditioned offices are 60% higher than those from offices with natural or mechanical ventilation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-tall-buildings-the-making-of-the-modern-skyscraper-56850">A short history of tall buildings: the making of the modern skyscraper</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As part of <a href="https://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=44CAM_ALMA21432539350003606&context=L&vid=44CAM_PROD&lang=en_US&search_scope=SCOP_CAM_ALL&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=cam_lib_coll&query=any,contains,Schoenefeldt&sortby=rank&offset=0">my research</a> into sustainable architecture, I have examined the use of glass in buildings throughout history. Above all, one thing is clear: if architects had paid more attention to the difficulties of building with glass, the great environmental damage wrought by modern glass skyscrapers could have been avoided. </p>
<h2>Heat and glare</h2>
<p>The United Nations Secretariat in New York, constructed between 1947 and 1952, was the earliest example of a fully air conditioned tower with a glass curtain wall – followed shortly afterwards by Lever House on Park Avenue. Air conditioning enabled the classic glass skyscraper to become a model for high rise office developments in cities across the world – even hot places such as Dubai and Sydney.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274313/original/file-20190514-60563-1nnulay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The UN Secretariat building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/8250223333/sizes/l">United Nations Photo/Flickr.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet as far back as the 19th century, horticulturists in Europe intimately understood how difficult it is to keep the temperature stable inside glass structures – the massive hot houses they built to host their collections. They wanted to maintain the hot environment needed to sustain exotic plants, and devised a large repertoire of technical solutions to do so. </p>
<p>Early central heating systems, which made use of steam or hot water, helped to keep the indoor atmosphere hot and humid. Glass was covered with insulation overnight to keep the warmth in, or used only on the south side together with better insulated walls, to take in and hold heat from the midday sun. </p>
<h2>The Crystal Palace</h2>
<p>When glass structures were transformed into spaces for human habitation, the new challenge was to keep the interior sufficiently cool. Preventing overheating in glass buildings has proven enormously difficult – even in Britain’s temperate climate. The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park – a temporary pavilion built to house the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in 1851 – was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0066622X00004068">a case in point</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273827/original/file-20190510-183100-ocgn5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Painting of Queen Victoria opening the Crystal Palace in London, 1851.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Abel_Prior_-_Queen_Victoria_opening_the_1851_Universal_Exhibition,_at_the_Crystal_Palace_in_London_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Thomas Abel Prior/Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Crystal Palace was the first large-scale example of a glass structure designed specifically for use by people. It was designed by Joseph Paxton, chief gardener at the Duke of Devonshire’s Chatsworth Estate, drawing on his experience constructing timber-framed glasshouses. </p>
<p>Though recognised as a risky idea at the time, organisers decided to host the exhibition inside a giant glasshouse in the absence of a more practical alternative. Because of its modular construction and prefabricated parts, the Crystal Palace <a href="https://doi.org/10.1680/ehah.11.00020">could be put together</a> in under ten months – perfect for the organisers’ tight deadline.</p>
<p>To address concerns about overheating and exposing the exhibits to too much sunlight, Paxton adopted some of the few <a href="https://doi.org/10.1680/ehah.11.00020">cooling methods</a> available at the time: shading, natural ventilation and eventually removing some sections of glass altogether. Several hundred large louvres were positioned inside the wall of the building, which had to be adjusted manually by attendants several times a day.</p>
<p>Despite these precautions, overheating became a major issue over the summer of 1851, and was the subject of frequent commentaries in the daily newspapers. An <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135508001218">analysis of data recorded</a> inside the Crystal Palace between May and October 1851 shows that the indoor temperature was extremely unstable. The building accentuated – rather than reduced – peak summer temperatures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274315/original/file-20190514-60554-1xrm6xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A timeline of the temperature in the Crystal Palace, May to October, 1851.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1359135508001218">Henrik Schoenefeldt.</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These challenges forced the organisers to temporarily remove large sections of glazing. This procedure was repeated several times before parts of the glazing were permanently replaced with canvas curtains, which could be opened and closed depending on how hot the sun was. When the Crystal Palace was re-erected as a popular leisure park on the outskirts of London, these issues persisted - despite changes to the design which were intended to improve ventilation.</p>
<h2>Chicago glass</h2>
<p>These difficulties did not perturb developers in Chicago from building the first generation of highly glazed office buildings during the 1880s and 1890s. Famous developments by influential architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, such as the Crown Hall (1950-56) or the Lakeshore Drive Apartments (1949), were also designed without air conditioning. Instead, these structures relied mainly on natural ventilation and shading to moderate indoor temperatures in summer.</p>
<p>In the Crown Hall, each bay of the glass wall is equipped with iron flaps, which students and staff of the IIT School of Architecture had to manually adjust to create cross-ventilation. Blinds could also be drawn to prevent glare and reduce heat gains. Yet these methods could not achieve modern standards of comfort. This building, and many others with similar features, were eventually retrofitted with air conditioning. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/274316/original/file-20190514-60541-xwskac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chicago’s Crown Hall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/yusunkwon/439825014/sizes/o/">yusunkwon/Flickr.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet it’s worth noting that early examples of glass architecture were not intended to provide airtight, climate controlled spaces. Architects <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0066622X00004068">had to accept</a> that the indoor temperature would change according to the weather outside, and the people who used the buildings were careful to dress appropriately for the season. In some ways, these environments had more in common with the covered arcades and markets of the Victorian era, than the glass skyscrapers of the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Becoming climate conscious</h2>
<p>The reality is that the obvious shortcomings of glass buildings rarely received the attention they warranted. Some <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/American_Building.html?id=r_1PAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">early critics</a> raised objections. Perhaps the most outspoken was Swiss architect Le Corbusier, who in the late 1940s launched an attack on the design of the UN Secretariat, arguing that its large and unprotected glass surfaces were unsuitable for the climate of New York. </p>
<p>But all too often, historians and architects have focused on the aesthetic qualities of glass architecture. The Crystal Palace, in particular, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/13644/pioneers-of-modern-design/9780141932323.html">was portrayed</a> as a pristine icon of an emerging architecture of glass and iron. Yet in reality, much of the glass was covered with canvas to block out intense sunlight and heat. Similarly, the smooth glass facades of Chicago’s early glass towers were broken by opened windows and blinds.</p>
<p>There’s an an urgent need to take a fresh look at urban architecture, with a sense of environmental realism. If de Blasio’s plea for a more climate conscious architecture is to materialise, future architects and engineers must be equipped with an intimate knowledge of materials – especially glass – no less developed than that held by 19th century gardeners.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henrik Schoenefeldt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Glass has always been a notoriously energy inefficient building material – but an obsession with aesthetics led architects to ignore its shortcomings.Henrik Schoenefeldt, Senior Lecturer (US: Associate Professor) in Sustainable Architecture, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802972017-07-11T01:04:08Z2017-07-11T01:04:08ZGive and take: Credentials could aid panhandling<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177202/original/file-20170706-14401-f09xg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People have always asked for alms, including the men depicted in this 17th-century European etching.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/360654?sortBy=Relevance&amp;ft=beggar&amp;offset=0&amp;rpp=20&amp;pos=14">Wenceslaus Hollar/The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York Mayor Bill de Blasio recently said on a radio show that he would like to ban panhandling but wouldn’t try because the <a href="http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2017/07/07/de-blasio-blames-rising-homelessness-on-not-even-homeless-panhandlers-113264">courts wouldn’t allow it</a>. Many panhandlers “are not particularly in need and just are finding a way to get some easy money and that does frustrate me,” he said.</p>
<p>We – a sociologist and an economist based in New York City – have studied panhandling in downtown Manhattan for several years. We think that de Blasio and other leaders who want to root out panhandling can use smarter ways to quell local fears of being scammed while ensuring that the poor are able to solicit alms.</p>
<p>We have looked at where panhandlers work and how their numbers change over time. We have also talked to many panhandlers at length. This kind of scholarship is rare, so policymakers in the Big Apple and in other communities may want to check out our findings.</p>
<h2>Legal trouble</h2>
<p>As the proportion of major American cities banning panhandling shot up to 27 percent from 19 percent <a href="https://www.nlchp.org/documents/Housing-Not-Handcuffs">between 2006 and 2016</a>, opponents increasingly sued to overturn these restrictions.</p>
<p>A series of court rulings affirming the constitutional right to panhandle in places like <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/tampa-panhandling-ban-in-downtown-and-ybor-city-ruled-unconstitutional/2288662">Tampa, Florida</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/kentucky/articles/2017-02-16/right-to-beg-kentucky-court-strikes-down-panhandling-law">Frankfort, Kentucky</a> bode badly for these bans. </p>
<p>But curbside solicitations should – at least theoretically – command broad enough support to not require a judicial assist. Egalitarians want to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. Libertarians prefer voluntary transactions that circumvent bureaucracy. Religions of all kinds tell believers to give alms.</p>
<h2>When more people give</h2>
<p>One aspect of panhandling we have researched is how it responds to the flow of donations. Do more people do it, in other words, when the number of passersby grows?</p>
<p>Not really, it appears. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177604/original/file-20170710-5952-9bsiom.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There aren’t as many panhandlers in downtown Manhattan as you might expect.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-man-asking-support-outstretched-hand-617980274?src=p8p9e2UZwA9vD2KAiAkOWg-1-88">Cozy Home/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To figure this out, we monitored the rate of panhandling in downtown Manhattan – a square mile that includes Wall Street, Ground Zero and the surrounding areas – from 2014 to 2015. During this period, One World Trade Center opened near the former site of the twin towers, much of Ground Zero was restored and <a href="http://www.downtownny.com/research-statistics">tourism surged</a>. But the number of panhandlers increased very little.</p>
<p>Even when we saw sidewalk traffic spike, we saw only a <a href="https://doi.org/10.7916/D8028Z7G">modest uptick</a> in the total number of hours people spent panhandling. That suggests that giving to panhandlers does not tend to increase the frequency of solicitations.</p>
<p>We also counted the number of people who panhandle at a time in downtown Manhattan. Teaming up with some of our students, we found an average of eight to 10 panhandlers actively asking for donations at any given time during peak summer hours. Despite de Blasio’s concerns, that’s not a lot, considering that this small area generates as much economic activity as the <a href="http://eadiv.state.wy.us/i&e/Profile15.htm">state of Wyoming</a> and includes some of the world’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-bankers-make-2016-8">richest pedestrians</a>.</p>
<p>Given that it’s hard to think of a better place to panhandle, we were surprised to find so few people doing it. One reason why these numbers may seem low is that they don’t include the majority of homeless people we found because they weren’t panhandling. </p>
<h2>Problems and regulation</h2>
<p>Most governments that crack down on panhandling do it out of concern that it will bother passersby who don’t want to give. We studied this problem to see what could be done.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177205/original/file-20170706-9219-1xw22dw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Downtown Manhattan is packed with pedestrians – including some very rich ones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photos_NewYork1_032.jpg">Urban~commonswiki/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The math is pretty simple: The greater the ratio of pedestrians who want to give to pedestrians who don’t, the smaller this problem is.</p>
<p>That gave rise to our core idea about what it takes to regulate panhandling intelligently. That is: Encourage what we call “successful panhandling,” which brings together willing donors and willing solicitors; and discourage “unsuccessful panhandling,” which targets people who don’t even want to see solicitations, let alone give money to someone asking for help on the sidewalk.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with most anti-panhandling ordinances is that they try to ban or discourage both kinds instead of promoting the former and discouraging the latter.</p>
<h2>Panhandling credentials</h2>
<p>The policies we think will work best would spread information about panhandlers, particularly through the issuance of credentials. The basic problem now is that potential donors know very little if anything about the panhandlers they encounter. That makes them reluctant to give.</p>
<p>Case in point: Almost any time we talked to a colleague or friend about our panhandling research, the first topic that came up was scams – they either declared that all panhandlers were scam artists or asked us what we had learned about how many were scam artists. But none of the panhandlers we encountered were faking their poverty. And contrary to what de Blasio said, they were putting in long hours and weren’t raking in “easy money.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177605/original/file-20170710-5952-5oisc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The courts are frowning on anti-panhandling ordinances, which they say violate the Constitution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-panhandles-las-vegas-582345919">Jason Ogulnik/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People in some professions – <a href="https://certification.acsm.org/acsm-certified-personal-trainer">personal trainers</a> and <a href="https://www.sharecare.com/health/acupuncture/what-credentials-should-acupuncturist-have">acupuncturists</a>, for instance – have solved similar problems by establishing credentials. As we proposed in a <a href="https://doi.org/10.7916/D8QJ7PZJ">recent paper</a>, we believe the same approach might reduce concerns about panhandling, in turn reducing efforts to restrict or ban the practice.</p>
<p>How might this work?</p>
<p>Nonprofits that aid low-income people, churches, <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/business-improvement-districts-support-small-business">business-improvement districts</a> and other groups could issue (and rescind) panhandling credentials. Authorized panhandlers could wear a special button, hat or other item to convey their status.</p>
<p>These worn items would include ID numbers that potential donors could verify, and a system could be established to report counterfeits. These ID numbers might also make way for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/04/sweden-cashless-society-cards-phone-apps-leading-europe">cashless panhandling</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-14/in-cashless-sweden-even-god-now-takes-collection-via-an-app">as Sweden now allows</a>, and they might also assist in reporting and discouraging “<a href="http://www.newschannel5.com/news/man-charged-with-aggressive-panhandling-in-nashville">aggressive panhandling</a>.”</p>
<p>We’d welcome credentialing experiments in Manhattan and elsewhere in the U.S. People who want to give donations and people who need to ask for them deserve a better chance of finding each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The courts are saying that down-and-out Americans have a right to seek curbside alms despite efforts to ban the practice. Two scholars have come up with an alternative to anti-panhandling ordinances.Brendan O'Flaherty, Professor of Economics, Columbia UniversityGwendolyn Dordick, Doctoral Lecturer in Sociology, City University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398592015-05-21T10:00:48Z2015-05-21T10:00:48ZAmerica’s mayors are taking on the big problems, but they can’t escape partisan divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81922/original/image-20150515-25415-1yusq0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making things happen in Philadelphia </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/Philadelphia_skyline_from_south_street_bridge.jpg/1024px-Philadelphia_skyline_from_south_street_bridge.jpg">Bmoredlj</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Paralysis, gridlock, dysfunction: these are just three of the words commonly used to describe federal politics. Making things happen is no easy task in a polarized Washington, DC. But move a couple of levels down – to our cities – and a different picture emerges.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bu.edu/ioc/initiative-on-cities-releases-first-national-survey-of-mayoral-priorities/">Novel evidence</a> we have collected suggests that in the face of an intransigent federal government, it is the cities that are tackling the big issues traditionally associated with higher levels of government. </p>
<h2>A case in point: the ‘Cities of Opportunity’ Task Force</h2>
<p>At the 2014 summer meeting of the US Conference of Mayors, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a “<a href="http://usmayors.org/citiesofopportunity/">Cities of Opportunity</a>” task force whose goal is to tackle issues of economic opportunity and inequality at the local level. </p>
<p>Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s optimism about the inequality task force is representative: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Cities are incubators of change and innovation, and mayors are at the forefront of it all – we get things done.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bill de Blasio was even more explicit on the same subject:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Mayors are starting to respond to this crisis, and this task force is going to organize and focus the progressive ideas coming out of cities across the US, and put city issues back on the national agenda.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So far, members of the task force have met and exchanged ideas on income inequality, early childhood education, and broadband (August 2014) and housing and transportation (March 2015). </p>
<h2>What mayors think</h2>
<p>In June 2014, we conducted in-depth survey-interviews with 72 mayors of American cities, including many of the nation’s largest. </p>
<p>Our nationally representative sample of mayors cited a wide array of important national issues as their chief concerns and priorities.</p>
<p>For example, almost one-fifth of mayors named socioeconomic equality as one of their top two policy priorities. </p>
<p>What’s more, just under one-third of mayors believed that cities should try to reduce income inequality, even if such policy efforts came at the expense of businesses and/or wealthy residents. </p>
<p>Mayors Nutter and de Blasio, in other words, appear to be in good company in expressing priorities counter to traditional views of local governments’ agendas. </p>
<p>Mayors’ concerns about ostensibly national issues stretch beyond questions of economic redistribution. </p>
<p>When we asked about climate change, 60% agreed that cities should play a strong role in reducing the effects of climate change, even though doing so requires sacrificing revenues and/or expending financial resources. </p>
<p>As with income inequality, a significant portion of mayors are willing to back their policy preferences on national issues with financial outlays. This is especially striking given the current fiscal constraints affecting them. </p>
<p>However, given the sharp partisan divide that these issues elicit at the national level, it is unsurprising that mayoral views on these topics are similarly split along partisan lines. </p>
<h2>Urban politics are partisan too</h2>
<p>Republican mayors were 15 percentage points less likely to list issues pertaining to socioeconomic equality as one of their top two policy priorities. Similarly, they were 40 percentage points less likely to agree that cities should work to reduce income inequality regardless of whether these efforts had negative effects on businesses and/or wealthy residents. </p>
<p>The partisan story is the same for climate change: 90% of Democratic mayors believe that cities should play an active role in addressing climate change even if those policies come with fiscal drawbacks. By comparison, only 20% of Republican mayors agree – a 70 percentage point gap. </p>
<p>In fact, the partisan divide among mayors was also evident in areas beyond the big national issues. </p>
<p>Partisanship also bleeds over into how mayors rate or evaluate information sources and potential partners. Indeed, Democratic mayors were comparatively less likely to look to business organizations as cooperative partners and sources for policy information than their Republican counterparts. And when it comes to considering the policy experiences of other cities, Democrats look to one group of cities and Republicans another. </p>
<p>Moreover, these partisan ratings cannot be explained by other factors. When we used statistical models that accounted for a variety of demographic characteristics, including city size, racial composition and property values, partisanship still was a powerful predictor of mayoral preferences. </p>
<p>While partisanship affecting policy in the US is hardly ever surprising, strong partisan effects in cities <a href="http://uar.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/02/1078087414568027.full.pdf+html">have been seen as unusual</a>. Our results challenge traditional views of cities as technocratic service providers focused on economic development. </p>
<p>Cities, of course, are still enormously constrained in what they can do. </p>
<p>They are buffeted by fiscal and legal constraints from the federal and (especially) state governments. For example, state tax and expenditure limits (TELs) restrict growth in government revenues/spending.</p>
<p>Moreover, in recent months, states – especially those with right-leaning state legislatures – have taken concrete <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/us/govern-yourselves-state-lawmakers-tell-cities-but-not-too-much.html?_r=0">steps</a> to limit local autonomy through preemption laws that restrict the actions local governments can take on issues as varied as regulating landlords, raising the minimum wage and enacting plastic bag bans. </p>
<p>These intergovernmental tensions notwithstanding, a significant portion of mayors still appear eager and willing to tackle some of the most important contemporary political issues. </p>
<p>The sharp partisan divide suggests, however, that we will see substantial variation in the type of initiatives implemented nationwide.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Levine Einstein has received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Glick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows how cities are tackling the issues usually dealt with by states and the federal governmentKatherine Levine Einstein, Assistant Professor, Political Science , Boston UniversityDavid Glick, Assistant Professor , Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/357512015-01-08T10:53:59Z2015-01-08T10:53:59ZHong Kong on the Hudson?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68096/original/image-20141231-8198-hwirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C11%2C3119%2C2115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">City planners are looking to redevelop the eastern part of midtown Manhattan. How can they preserve its character, economic importance, and functionality? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blick_auf_Manhattan.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Good historians know that history rarely teaches clear lessons. When it does, we should heed them. In the 1920s, urban visionaries completely refashioned midtown Manhattan, making it the most modern and economically vibrant downtown in the world. Their work can serve as an inspiration and example for businessmen, city officials, and residents who are currently struggling to find ways to keep midtown – now an aging business district – the center of world capitalism, without destroying its historic character or creating impossible pedestrian and vehicular congestion. </p>
<p>So far, leaders of the 21st century campaign to remake Manhattan have paid little heed to what urban critic Lewis Mumford called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Lewis-Mumford-Reader/dp/0394746309">“usable history.”</a> In 2013, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a sweeping plan to rezone a 73-block area surrounding Grand Central Terminal, which would allow for the construction of super-size skyscrapers, some of them taller than the Chrysler Building. This would make New York more competitive with Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London in the fiercely contested battle to attract and retain businesses with global reach, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/arts/design/the-plan-to-swallow-midtown.html?pagewanted=all">Bloomberg argued</a>.</p>
<p>Opposition from New York’s City Council and community leaders forced Bloomberg to withdraw his plan. They argued that it would increase already intolerable congestion in the area and that it failed to provide sufficient funding for transit improvements to handle the massive increase in commuter traffic generated by a surge of new skyscraper development.</p>
<h2>Back to the drawing board</h2>
<p>But the rezoning issue isn’t dead. Mayor Bill de Blasio has promised to introduce a comprehensive proposal of his own. In September his administration unveiled one part of it: an agreement between the city and developer SL Green Reality Corporation that would permit the developer to build a tremendous skyscraper one block west of Grand Central Terminal. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, the new office behemoth – One Vanderbilt – would occupy an entire city block. At 1,450 feet, it would be the second tallest building in New York City, behind One World Trade Center. </p>
<p>For this municipal dispensation to scrape the sky, SL Green had to promise <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-30/sl-green-grand-central-tower-to-advance-after-zoning-plan.html">$210 million in transit improvements</a>. Before construction can begin, however, the plan must pass through a labyrinthine municipal land-use review process. If approved, the promised transit updates must be finished before January 2020, the anticipated completion date. In the interim, as the new mayor and his planners fashion their much broader midtown rezoning plan, New Yorkers should be attentive to their own history. </p>
<h2>Some lessons from the last century</h2>
<p>Nearly a century ago, in the 1920s, audacious developers, architects, and city officials built the world’s first twentieth century downtown around Grand Central Terminal. And they did it right, merging skyscraper development of unprecedented scale with transit projects to swiftly move pedestrians and vehicles. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-City-Manhattan-Modern-America/dp/1416550194">They built high without creating paralyzing congestion below</a>.</p>
<p>It was one of the boldest private construction projects in the history of cities, and its anchor institution was the new Grand Central Terminal, completed in 1913. Compelled by the state legislature to electrify its steam trains, the New York Central Railroad buried them, eliminating a blighted, fourteen block marshaling yard north of the terminal that pedestrians were forced to traverse on iron catwalks, braving swirling smoke and hot ash.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68092/original/image-20141231-8217-q3kik9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grand Central Terminal, completed in 1913, eliminated a blighted fourteen block area – pictured here – that forced pedestrians to traverse on iron catwalks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aolsvc.pbs.aol.com/wgbh/amex/grandcentral/gallery/">New York Historical Society</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the roof of Grand Central’s new smokeless tunnel, the railroad built Park Avenue – “straight as a sunbeam,” <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Collected-Writings-Zelda-Fitzgerald/dp/0817308849">in Zelda Fitzgerald’s words.</a> The new Parisian-like boulevard was flanked by high-rise apartments of restrained design: the world’s first skyscrapers built for permanent living.</p>
<p>Working from the plans of chief engineer William J. Wilgus, the railroad sold “air rights” to private developers of the large lots it owned around the Terminal. With <a href="http://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WWWdisplay.cgi?288652">“revenue plucked from the air,”</a> the state-of-the-art transportation complex was completed on time and under budget.</p>
<h2>Men with ambition created a livable city</h2>
<p>Many of the residents of the new Park Avenue were migrants from Fifth Avenue. In the 1920s, descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Commodore, sold their cheerless chateaus to a new breed of Jewish real estate tycoons who razed them and built commercial space for merchandising impresarios. They, in turn, transformed Fifth Avenue, from 42nd Street to Central Park – an area once called Vanderbilt Alley – into the most exclusive shopping district in the world.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68093/original/image-20141231-8213-1gftf6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tudor City, located at the eastern end of 42nd Street, is an overlooked model of affordable in-town living.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tudor_City_jeh.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And on a rocky bluff at the eastern end of 42nd Street, real estate kingpin Fred French built Tudor City, a park-like skyscraper community for mid-Manhattan office workers. Only a five-minute walk from Grand Central Terminal, it remains an overlooked model of affordable in-town living, the kind of middle-range living quarters midtown requires today to draw and retain the young, cyberspace entrepreneurs it needs to remain as hip and fully alive as Chelsea and Hudson Yards. </p>
<p>In the 1928, Walter Percy Chrysler, a former railroad mechanic from the Kansas plains, began developing plans for the silver-capped symbol of the auto age he helped usher in. That same year, directly across 42nd Street from the Terminal, real estate developer Irwin Chanin was completing the fifty-six-story skyscraper that still bears his name. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68099/original/image-20141231-8204-13bf5mj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographer Samuel Gottscho’s iconic 1932 image of the Chrysler Building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_Building_Midtown_Manhattan_New_York_City_1932.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Let the sun shine in</h2>
<p>In 1919, there were no terrifically tall buildings north of Times Square. By 1930, midtown housed half of New York’s skyscrapers. These towers were not pure products of unrestrained capitalism. They were built to the specifications of zoning laws designed to bring sunlight onto city streets and prevent overcrowding of the land. Working within these restraints, Raymond Hood and other aggressive style setters fashioned a uniquely New York architecture characterized by sharply defined “set backs,” modeled on ancient <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Ancient_ziggurat_at_Ali_Air_Base_Iraq_2005.jpg">Assyrian ziggurats</a>. It was “a style,” <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9801E0DD1139E633A25751C0A9639C946795D6CF">said commercial architect Ely Jacques Kahn</a>, “born of necessity.”</p>
<p>These “setbacks” let in light and air that prevented many of the city’s streets from becoming dark, suffocating corridors. Architectural adjustments along these lines should be a sin qua non of the new midtown that Mayor de Blasio’s planners are envisioning. </p>
<p>The midtown of the 1920s had the density and diversity that make cities lively and livable. But to prevent density from devolving into paralyzing congestion, it must be married to movement, the swift dispatch of people and goods. With its pedestrian ramps and shop-lined underground passageways that connected it to nearby buildings and transit platforms, Grand Central Terminal became the world’s greatest people moving machine.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68094/original/image-20141231-8219-6tytzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grand Central’s unique design facilitated the easy movement of thousands of commuters and tourists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7148/6685532657_c7fb882c73_b.jpg">Adam Lerner/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unaccompanied by ambitious transit improvements, a skyscraper revolution on the east side of midtown is a formula for urban paralysis. Reopening and upgrading passageways that have been boarded up for decades would create a greatly needed circulation network in the world’s largest central business district. This, too, must be on Mayor de Blasio’s midtown agenda. Completing the Second Avenue Subway Line, first proposed in 1929 during Mayor Jimmy Walker’s administration, would also be essential. When completed it is projected to handle over half a million riders daily. </p>
<h2>The new mandarins</h2>
<p>The New York of the 1920s was built by men who were either born in Gotham or arrived from elsewhere to plant their flag and remake midtown’s commerce and culture: David Sarnoff in radio; Horace Liveright in book publishing, Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel in movies, Duke Ellington in music. </p>
<p>“It is the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievement,” <a href="http://www.travel-studies.com/sites/default/files/White,%20Here%20Is%20New%20York.pdf">wrote</a> New Yorker columnist E. B. White. </p>
<p>These blazingly ambitious outsiders from west of the Hudson and east of the Danube bear scant resemblance to the footloose financial mandarins who are driving the current campaign to turn midtown into Hong Kong on the Hudson. For them, New York is a place to park their capital, but rarely themselves, in cloud houses eighty and more stories high, cut off from the messy vitality of the streets below.</p>
<p>As currently demonstrated in the revitalized Chelsea neighborhood, the new breed of venture capitalists in the high tech and media industries are drawn to neighborhoods built to human scale, not to soulless skyscraper districts.</p>
<p>Midtown’s skyline is a thrilling, ever changing phenomenon, and is currently being transformed by a spate of super-tall, super-slender, super-luxury condos. East Midtown – where scores of buildings are over seventy years old – needs modern business towers as alluring and efficiently designed as its new residential towers. But buildings worth saving should be refurbished and given new purpose, preservation being “a better stimulant for development than rezoning,” as architect Robert A. M. Stern <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/opinion/a-smart-way-to-revive-east-midtown.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">argues</a>. After being designated historic districts, the once decrepit SoHo and Flatiron neighborhoods were rejuvenated.</p>
<p>And why rezone 73 blocks of Midtown, as Mr. Bloomberg proposed, when decisions about what to build and how to build can be made on a project-by-project basis, with community input? </p>
<p>Whatever the outcome of the zoning debate, East Midtown will be updated and remain a world-class commercial district. A century ago, New York was a city so spontaneously alive it contained the seeds of its own regeneration. It has not lost that capacity for reinvention. The template for Midtown’s revitalization, however, should be its own history and heritage, not Shanghai or Singapore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donald L. Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Good historians know that history rarely teaches clear lessons. When it does, we should heed them. In the 1920s, urban visionaries completely refashioned midtown Manhattan, making it the most modern and…Donald L. Miller, Professor of HIstory, Lafayette College Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199962013-11-07T14:56:59Z2013-11-07T14:56:59ZChallenge facing De Blasio after New York returns to Democrats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34691/original/grcqwj7g-1383827695.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Listening to the people? Bill de Blasio.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Alatriste</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Tuesday, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, won New York’s mayoral election by a margin of about 46 percent, defeating Republican Joseph Lhota. His resounding victory apparently gave him a mandate for a policy agenda well to the left of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg – but how different a direction will he actually take?</p>
<p>De Blasio’s most obvious difference from Bloomberg is on his approach to inequality. Bloomberg, who was <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-bloomberg/">ranked</a> by Forbes as the world’s 13th richest man with a fortune estimated at $31 billion, had been increasingly characterised as out of touch with ordinary New Yorkers; de Blasio, by contrast, picked up many of the themes invoked by Occupy Wall Street when it coined the slogan “we are the 99 percent”.</p>
<p>Throughout his campaign, he stressed that New York’s apparent prosperity disguised a city of two tiers: one highly affluent, represented by Bloomberg (the 1%), and the other poor and struggling. De Blasio contended that his predecessor ignored the poor and the middle class, focused excessively on Manhattan (the city’s richest borough) and promoted programmes that primarily benefited the upper stratum.</p>
<h2>Exploiting the income gap</h2>
<p>Indeed, this mayoral election has drawn unprecedented attention to inequality and to the decline of the city’s middle class. Considerable evidence substantiates de Blasio’s rhetoric: census analysis shows that median household income in the city dropped from US$48,632 (£30,300) in 2007 to $45,806 in inflation adjusted (2007) dollars, and New York has the widest income gap of any large American city.</p>
<p>Renter households, who comprise almost 70% of residents, have suffered from inflationary pressures on the residential real estate market while their incomes stagnated. Nearly 30% of renter households are paying half or more of their income in rent, an increase of nearly 5 points since 2007; an additional 23% percent pay more than a third, an increase of two points over the same six years.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34689/original/tjmgrnz2-1383827338.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trickle-down legacy: outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan Rayburn / World Bank</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even as these problems were widely debated during the campaign, Bloomberg did little to shake off his plutocratic image. In a much-quoted New York Magazine <a href="http://nymag.com/news/politics/bloomberg/in-conversation-2013-9/">interview</a>, he asserted that: “If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to move here, that would be a godsend, because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else.” By contrast, de Blasio instead kept his focus on the city’s increasing inequality, arguing that wealth would not simply trickle down from the fortunes of billionaires. As he sees it, the city badly needs strong programs for affordable housing and for universal pre-school – as well as increased taxation on incomes above half a million dollars a year.</p>
<h2>Economy trumps law and order</h2>
<p>De Blasio also drew a sharp contrast with the Bloomberg era on the issue of police tactics. While Bloomberg and his predecessor Rudolph Giuliani attracted some support with their tough-on-crime approach – which did apparently succeed in dramatically improving public safety – de Blasio attacked the police for their indiscriminate use of “stop and frisk.” This tactic involves police detaining anyone they deemed suspicious and conducting a warrantless search. This resulted in young men of colour being regularly stopped while going about their daily routines. “Stop and frisk” provoked enormous resentment in low-income communities and has become the subject of protracted legal <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ousted-stop-frisk-judges-lawyer-fights-order-20810117">wrangling</a>. </p>
<p>Yet while Lhota tried to make de Blasio’s opposition to stop and frisk a central campaign issue, arguing that a de Blasio win would take New York back to the bad old days of high homicide rates and street muggings, this message failed to hit home. New Yorkers were by now sufficiently sanguine about crime to name the economy as their primary concern in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/news/election-2013/2013/11/05/new-york-exit-poll-worried-but-optimistic/">exit polls</a>.</p>
<p>Bloomberg, who spent freely from his private fortune on his election campaigns, was re-elected twice, remaining in office for 12 years – but not without controversy. He was much criticised for seeking a third term by overriding a referendum that had established a two-term limit for mayors. He won re-election in 2009 arguing that the city needed his financial and management expertise to overcome the effects of the global financial crisis, but the bad feeling around his re-election never fully dissipated. It ultimately carried over to the Democratic primary election, where de Blasio defeated establishment candidate Christine Quinn.</p>
<h2>A pro-development mayor</h2>
<p>Yet despite his former obscurity and surprising win in the primary, de Blasio does not entirely represent a break with the city’s past. One way in which his mayoralty is unlikely to differ strongly from his predecessor’s is in support for real estate development. Business Insider, on the day after the election, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/get-ready-for-the-de-blasio-construction-boom-in-new-york-city-2013-11">reassured its readers</a> that “Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will be New York’s most pro-development mayor in decades,” noting that “he’s maintained good links with (and raised a lot of money from) the real estate industry.”</p>
<p>He also received financial support from the taxi industry and from a group that wants to substitute electric vehicles for the horse-drawn carriages in Central Park. Either in return for these favours or because he agreed with their positions, he has opposed allowing competitors to yellow cabs in the outer boroughs and indicated that he would eliminate the carriages in the park, despite the job losses this would entail. On the other hand, he comes out strongly against gentrification, calling for a zoning requirement that all new residential projects include affordable housing.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/34694/original/96h6nj6k-1383828410.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Defeated: Republican candidate Joseph Lhota, who lost by 49%.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MTAPhotos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where de Blasio does sharply differ from both Bloomberg and the vanquished Lhota is in his lack of managerial experience, which his opponents invoked as a serious weakness. His previous positions (city councilman and public advocate) commanded miniscule staffs and budgets; now, he will be heading a work force of almost 300,000 and overseeing a budget of $70 billion. </p>
<p>Still, of New York’s previous mayors nearly all except Bloomberg came into office without having had major managerial responsibilities. Most had held legislative office; Abe Beame had served as city comptroller, while Giuliani had been a federal prosecutor. That de Blasio ran a nearly flawless campaign, catapulting him from being a virtually unknown underdog to the overwhelming favorite (not to mention his successful management of Hillary Clinton’s 2006 US Senate campaign) augurs very well for his administration.</p>
<p>But however big de Blasio’s plans for the city, his substantial win by no means guarantees future progressive victories. One of the oddities of New York’s mayoral races is their seeming inconsistency. In 1985 Edward Koch, also a Democrat, won by 68 points; yet, after the much narrower win by Democrat David Dinkins four years later, the law-and-order Republican Giuliani carried the city in 1993, followed by Bloomberg in 2001. For all that his wide margin of victory may look like a healthy progressive mandate, New York has sharply changed direction before – and it surely will again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Fainstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Tuesday, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, won New York’s mayoral election by a margin of about 46 percent, defeating Republican Joseph Lhota. His resounding victory apparently gave him a mandate for a policy…Susan Fainstein, Senior Research Fellow, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.