What’s wrong with New York?

Attacking New York City has long been a popular pastime on the right.

Conservatives often describe the Big Apple as a dystopian wasteland.

And the attacks have reached a fever pitch since Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced multiple indictments against Donald Trump.

How dare Bragg prosecute these cases, Republicans ask, when the delinquency Is it out of control in its own territory?

But crime in New York isn’t really out of control.

As in many places, crime has skyrocketed during the pandemic, but appears to be declining; believe it or not republicans, crime in the big city Safer of the United States is still much lower than, for example, Miami or Columbus (Ohio).

However, even before the pandemic there was a steady though not huge flow of people leaving New York.

Why were they leaving?

Probably not because of the crime, although perceptions may be at odds with reality.

They probably weren’t taxes; I’ll get to that in a minute.

The main factor, almost certainly, was and is the housing cost.

About perceptions:

From the early 1990s until the pandemic, a steep decline in crime was accompanied by a public belief that crime was on the rise.

Interestingly, however, only a minority of the public said crime was increasing in their area: Americans appear to have believed that crime was increasing. in some placebut not where they lived.

And for what it’s worth, despite the recent rise in crime, much of New York doesn’t seem threatening to the casual observer.

I know Marjorie Taylor Greene, after a quick visit, described the city as “disgusting”, “dirty”, “repulsive”” AND “a terrible place“.

And there are, of course, bad neighborhoods. But for most of us who live here, life seems, well, normal, and it’s hard to believe that large numbers of people are fleeing an urban nightmare.

Indeed, in many respects the life quality in New York it’s high, if you can afford it.

But can you afford it?

New York is a state with a high tax rateto pay for relatively generous social programs.

And New York City imposes additional taxes. These taxes make living in New York more expensive.

However, while average tax rates are lower in red states than in blue states, taxes in red states are highly regressive:

they collect a much larger share of income from the poor and middle class than the top 1%.

As a result, the differences between red and blue household tax rates are smaller than one might expect.

According to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, 60% of middle-class taxpayers in Texas pay 9.4% of their income in state and local taxes.

This figure is higher than the tax rate paid by middle-income households in California.

New Yorkers pay the most, at 12.5%, but those three extra tax points probably aren’t a compelling reason to walk away.

Large tax differences hit top 1%:

11.3% in New York versus 3.1% in Texas.

But they are also the type of people who tend to place a high value on the comforts of a large, sophisticated city;

New York remains a favorite residence of the extremely wealthy.

For the middle class, however, living in New York is really difficult, not so much for taxes as for the cost of housing.

Here’s a very rough indicator (I’m sure the experts can provide a more exact measure, but the conclusions probably won’t change):

Zillow says the average rent for an apartment in New York is $3,500about $1,500 more than the average rent in, say, Dallas.

Since the median household income in New York is about $70,000 a year, the “house tax” that middle-class families pay to live in New York is on the order of 20% of your incomemany times greater than the difference in actual taxes.

And if you want to buy a house, the price difference is similar: Dallas is 40% cheaper.

Oh, and to the extent that you see homelessness – a symptom of social unrest in NYC – homelessness is largely the result of a expensive and unobtainable housing.

So the cost of housing, not crime or taxes, is the main reason people might want to leave New York.

It is not much consolation to realize that the problem of unaffordable housing is even more serious much of California what .. here.

The point is, this shouldn’t happen.

The New York metropolitan area is far more densely populated than anywhere else in the United States, with the average resident living in a census tract with 15,000 people per square mile.

Yet many more houses could be built: I live in a neighborhood of 60,000 inhabitants per 2.6 km2, and it’s nicer and quieter than you probably imagine; no, it’s not a nightmare of crowded humanity.

One of the main reasons developers aren’t building more homes in the New York area, and therefore living here is expensive, is that they aren’t allowed due to zoning, land use restrictions, and most importantly in the suburbs, the community opposition.

In other words, let’s forget the lurid fantasies of the right:

The main problem in the New York area is NIMBYism (NIMBY is an acronym for “Not in My Backyard”), not crime or taxes.

c.2023 The New York Times Society