Gotham in Decline

Those of us who grew up in New York City in the 1980s have troubling memories of a grimy, graffiti-ridden urban landscape where danger was a part of everyday life and you could not walk the streets without anticipating the possibility of becoming a victim of harassment or worse.

The election of Rudolph Giuliani in the 1993 mayoral race drew howls of outrage from the left, but under Giuliani, and his police commissioner William Bratton, the city at last began to make steps to becoming slightly more civilized and habitable. The tough approach continued under Michael Bloomberg, but it came to an abrupt end under Bill de Blasio, who rejected tough policing as unfair to minorities in New York. De Blasio did not seem to understand or care that while crime and disorder affected almost everyone, those who be ...