THE WESTERN FRONT
Apple Without Appeal
High taxes are only one reason to hate New York.
BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
NEW YORK--It's now fashionable to pound on Mayor Michael Bloomberg for raising taxes. His property-tax hike of 18.5% and increases in the sales taxes as well as transit and other fees will not get the city back on it's feet. But there's more wrong with New York than billions of dollars debt, an economic recession and a depression--physical as well as economic--in lower Manhattan. Gotham has a large and loyal following who'd be loath to admit it, but except for the very rich, the quality of life in this city is worse than it should be and far below most of the rest of America.
A real estate broker said it to me best when I moved to this city nearly three years ago and was looking for an apartment: "If you've never lived in New York, you'll have to lower your expectations."
She was right. Housing in New York is appalling. The apartment I first moved into was small by standards of any other city I've lived in and expensive: $2,500 for a two-bedroom--three-room--apartment.
Approximately one million apartments in the city are rent-controlled or rent-stabilized. The government regulates how much landlords can charge for these apartments, so they are often priced well below market value. They are therefore some of the most sought-after dwellings in the city. Some of them are unbelievably nice and cheap, but those usually aren't the ones that are available. A year ago I moved into a place that is less than 300 square feet apartment, and with what I pay in rent I could buy a three-bedroom house in most of the rest of America.
My neighbor is in his late 60s and has lived in his rent-controlled apartment for more than 40 years. His rent is so low that he never considered buying a home. Consequently, he still pays rent and has never amassed any equity in a home. This is one of the rarely noted effects of rent control: It leaves too many New Yorkers with no appreciable assets in their old age.
Because rent regulation constricts the supply of housing, unregulated apartments are far more expensive than they would be in a normal market. They're often tiny, let in little if any light and--because of crime--need multiple locks on the door.
Beyond housing, New York City is a tough place to live. The subways are cleaner than they once were, but they are still disgusting; I routinely see rats picking through the garbage tossed onto the tracks. Metro-North, which carries commuters from points north into the city each morning, is reliable but slow moving.
Mostly, though it's just plain expensive to live here. Anyone who wants to raise a family and isn't wealthy would be well advised to move out of the city. Almost everything costs more here, from private schools to groceries to furniture and even medicine. There are fewer choices on the supermarket shelves; limited real estate means limited shelf space. The Wal-Marts and grocery megastores are relegated to the suburbs.
I love to drive. But in New York, forget it. Parking on the street is a hassle--with alternate-side-of-the-street parking, if I had a car I'd have to move it twice a week or face getting a parking ticket. Garage parking is often more expensive than the $325 a month I paid for my first apartment, in Front Royal, Va.--which was bigger than any New York apartment I've lived in.
Rudy Giuliani famously arrested the crime rate. But lately I've noticed more graffiti popping up in my Brooklyn neighborhood. The vandalism to government property and buildings seems to linger for months before anyone gets around to painting over it. Over the past couple of months I've seen three people urinating in public, one on a well-to-do street in Brooklyn Heights and another on a tree next to the World Financial Center in Manhattan, a short walk from Ground Zero--all in broad daylight.
A better life in the city is not a lost cause. Mr. Giuliani proved--among other things--that it is possible for a leader with courage and conviction to govern this sprawling metropolis and to institute good public policy.
Mr. Bloomberg has demonstrated his willingness to take on the public-school bureaucracy. Bringing reason and excellence to the city's public schools would significantly improve the quality of life here. But it's hard to see how that is going to happen without vouchers or some other end run around the education bureaucracy.
The fight for the city can't stop there. Lower Manhattan needs to be linked to more transportation. Even now workers are rebuilding the World Trade Center PATH station, which brought commuters from New Jersey and was destroyed on Sept. 11. But Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road must also be brought downtown.
Mostly, however, the mayor needs to be looking for ways to reduce the cost of living in the city. A good place to start would be to cut taxes and urge the state Legislature to let rent regulation die when it comes up for renewal next month. But it can't stop there. The city needs more housing and business space. The mayor needs to find ways to encourage more construction. That means taking on powerful and entrenched unions and streamlining construction regulations to scrap union work rules.
A good time to do these things would have been now. Everyone knows the current fiscal crisis is severe and will entail a lot of sacrifice. It's easier to make that sacrifice, however, when doing so improves quality of life in the long run. This crisis was an opportunity. It's too bad the businessman mayor didn't see it.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003487 |
