What’s the Matter With New York?

Bashing New York City has long been a popular pastime on the right. Conservatives routinely portray the Big Apple as a dystopian wasteland. And the bashing has reached a fever pitch since Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, announced multiple charges against Donald Trump. How dare Bragg pursue these cases, Republicans ask, when crime is running out of control on his home turf?

But New York crime isn’t really out of control. As in many places, crime jumped during the pandemic, but it seems to be subsiding; although Republicans won’t believe it, crime in America’s safest big city remains much lower than crime in, say, Miami or Columbus, Ohio.

Still, even before the pandemic there was a steady if not huge flow of people out of New York. Why were they leaving? It probably wasn’t crime, although perceptions can be at odds with reality. It probably also wasn’t taxes; I’ll get there in a minute. The biggest factor, almost surely, was and is the cost of housing.

About perceptions: From the early 1990s until the pandemic, a big decline in crime went along with consistent public beliefs that crime was rising. Interestingly, though, only a minority of the public said that crime was rising in their area — Americans seem to have believed that crime was surging someplace, just not where they lived.

And for what it’s worth, despite the recent increase in crime, large parts of New York don’t feel menacing to a casual observer. I know that Marjorie Taylor Greene, after a quick visit, called the city “disgusting,” “filthy,” “repulsive” and “a terrible place.” And there are, of course, bad neighborhoods. But for most of us who actually live here, life looks, well, normal, and it’s hard to believe that large numbers of people are fleeing an urban nightmare. In fact, in many ways the quality of life in New York is high — if you can afford it.

But can you afford it?

New York is a high-tax state — it has to be, to pay for relatively generous social programs. And New York City imposes additional taxes. These taxes do make living in New York more expensive.