Young people leave, disgusted by the increase in rents. Crime? Let’s not talk about it. The price of restaurants: insane. Culture? Inaccessible. And then the streets of Manhattan remain scattered, Covid obligation and teleworking. Not to mention the 60,000 homeless people, the floods that threaten climate change … It’s time for
pack your bags and leave for Miami or Austin. Or not. For nearly thirty years we’ve been hearing the same refrain here: New York isn’t what it used to be. The golden age has passed.
The decline threatens.
By the time we arrived, the city was barely recovering from the rampant crime of the 1980s. Real estate was treading on the water, weighed down by the exodus of whites to the suburbs. And then there was September 11, 2001. Then the crash and recession of 2008-2009. Then Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Then the pandemic and its supposed permanent effects on the most densely populated city in the United States. Then this coming crisis, fueled by inflation. Hiring of young people for a first job fell by 30%, with entry-level salaries no longer sufficient to pay an average rent of nearly $ 3,600. The city is even more expensive and the number of serious crimes has increased by 26% in one year.
Yet many still want to live in New York
Yes, you must really want to live in New York. But precisely: many want it. In twenty years the city has grown by over 800,000 inhabitants. Not bad for a foil. The secret of New York is that it never stops changing. It stretches, retracts, transforms. As soon as they are installed, New Yorkers experience change on a daily basis and play “was better before”. A recent New Yorker post teases this craze: “I have to tell you the truth, New York has changed irrevocably in the two hours since I moved here.”
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Problems? There are, and how! But no one is unsolvable. The city is changing. In his time, thanks to sensible reforms, such as those under discussion, which aim to unblock housing construction; or, on bad days, under the effect of violent convulsions. The smoke of crises does not necessarily have to clear for the world to re-immerse itself in this unique cauldron of culture, races, brilliant ideas, subversive art and gigantic business. New York is not fucked up.
