In an op-ed in the New York Times former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg presents his prescription for the city’s post-pandemic recovery:
The first is urgent: improving vital services New Yorkers rely on every day, including policing, transportation, sanitation and education.
and
The second broad challenge is more difficult, and inevitably in tension with the first: focusing on the city’s future years from now. Ultimately, the mayor will be judged not by the next day’s newspapers, but by the next generation. It’s his job to look beyond the light at the end of the tunnel and start building more tracks, even when it’s unpopular to do so.
then
In partnership with the state, the mayor can work to get trains on a full schedule again, which would help employers in every industry bring back their workers. It would help thousands of small businesses and their employees reclaim their customers. And it would provide confidence to those who may be thinking about opening a business of their own.
His prescription is conjoined with his endorsement of Eric Adams for mayor.
The one question he doesn’t address, understandable for a New Yorker and a former mayor at that, is whether New York City should recover. Given the obvious increased risk of spreading disease in crowded living conditions, the general movement of the population away from big cities, the near-certainty of future pandemics however good or bad the handling of this one has been, and the increasing acceptability of work-from-home, I think it’s a question worth considering.
