There is a lot of expressing of opinions both by Republicans and Democrats about the mayoral election in New York City. I believe that Zohran Mamdani will be elected mayor of New York and that will provide a rare opportunity for a real-life experiment. There are a lot of predictions being made and, frankly, I doubt that many of the most dire will happen but it will provide an opportunity for testing these hypotheses.
Will
- Crime increase substantially?
- A substantial number of New Yorkers flee the city?
- Anti-semitism increase?
- New York become even less affordable?
My own view is that I doubt that Mr. Mamdani will get many of his proposals enacted into law and the most amazing thing will be how ordinary things are.
Victimization and 911 calls might increase but I suspect that crime reports will show a decrease in serious crime. The only way that crime will show an increase is if a) the increase is so large denying it is is impossible and b) if mayors, police chiefs, etc. were rewarded for increasing rates of serious crime.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
One thing I’ve learned is that the Mayor doesn’t have a lot of control over several important aspects of city management, so a lot of what he wants to do will be contingency on NY state compliance.
I also think he will have a weak mandate since it looks like he will win with only about 44% of the votes, based on recent polls. He’s winning in large part because he’s the Democratic nominee and the opposition is unpopular and divided.
NYC has reported increases in crime in the past. AFAICT all cities have done that. You seem to be claiming that Democrats wont report crime increases but they certainly did in Chicago, Baltimore, Philly, etc. It’s pretty hard to hide it since there are multiple reporting agencies. Note that with deBlasio while they reported crime initially decreased, continuing the trend, they reported the large increase at the end of his term. You posit a conspiracy where thousands of police and city workers would need to conspire to keep stuff quiet. Some of the reporting agencies actually count the number of crimes reported in the media, so you would have to get all of the NYC media in on the conspiracy. Have a hard time seeing the NY Post getting in on that or the local Fox News people.
Stupid conspiracy stuff aside, as I understand the mayorship in NYC, he needs the city council to pass stuff so I doubt most of his stuff passes. The predictions that de Blasio would ruin NYC never happened and dont see it happening this time either barring unforeseen stuff. I would expect smaller changes around the edges, some increases in taxes and a few added services. Probably a few people continue to leave the city but that will be mixed between tax concerns, housing costs and the ability to work remote.
Steve
And yet there are significant discrepancies among 911 calls, victimization reports, and official crime statistics. I’ve provided my explanation which satisfies Occam’s Razor and is in accordance with what we know about human behavior. Now provide yours.
THe 911 thing is well studied. 911 looks at lots of calls including ones that are not crime related. We also know that classifications of calls range once investigated. For both 911 and the victim surveys we know that many crimes dont get reported, so we know the absolute numbers are not correct. For that matter we know that the victim surveys arent correct either as they suffer from the same issues as all self reported surveys, but they all largely move in the same direction as reported crimes.
But you have moved the goalposts. Why would all of the reporting agencies cover up crimes for Mamdani when they didnt for de Blasio? Are you claiming this is something all cities do or just blue ones? If so why do crime rate increases and decreases largely parallel those in red cities/states? Per Chat the magnitude of change may vary but they go in the same direction.
“Overall Rates: Cities in “red states” (states that voted for Donald Trump in recent presidential elections) consistently have higher murder rates than cities in “blue states” (states that voted for Joe Biden), a trend that has persisted for over two decades. This disparity holds true even when the largest cities (often perceived as “blue” areas within “red” states) are removed from the analysis.
Recent Trends: In 2023, cities in blue states experienced significantly larger declines in gun violence rates than cities in red states. Blue-state cities saw an average decrease of nearly 15% in year-to-date gun homicides, while red-state cities only saw a 3.7% drop.
Mayoral Affiliation vs. State Laws: Research suggests that the political affiliation of a city’s mayor has less influence on crime rates than the surrounding state’s laws and policies. State-level factors, such as gun laws, poverty rates, and social services funding, appear to be more strongly associated with crime outcomes.”
Steve
What I am referring to here is 911 calls classified as “requiring a police response”. In Chicago at least those 911 calls have remained more or less constant even as the population has declined and official crime statistics show a decrease in crime. Chicago has a long and well-known propensity to massage the numbers.
As to New York City politics, I have no idea. I’ve never lived there.
Requiring a police response does not mean a crime was committed. We know that the very large majority of 911 calls do not involve crime and we also know that a small percentage, estimates are in the 15% range, of crimes are reported via 911. Since the amount of crime, especially violent crime, makes up such a small percentage of 911 calls to which police respond, the total isn’t going to vary that much even with large swings in crime. (You must not have any police in your family. This is a near constant complaint on the part of the police in our family and those I have known.)
Also, there are over 27 organizations that monitor and report crime numbers nationally. I count at least 6 for Chicago alone. I count at least the same number for NYC. So for NYC Mamdani would need to get the police, the same NYC police who idolize Giuliani and are very much not socialists, to lie and cover up numbers and the other organization to lie and cover up as well as get e ermine participating in the Victims reports to agree to lie and cover up.
https://www.adt.com/why-people-call-911
Steve