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The Economist January 1st 2022
United States
New York politics
Adams eve
NEW YO RK
An excop prepares to take over America’s biggest city at a diffi cult time
M
ayors in new york are usually inau gurated on the steps of City Hall, where they deliver an uplifting speech lay ing out their vision for the city. Sometimes those visions are successful: Rudy Giulia ni, elected on the back of a decadeslong crime wave, vowed to make the city safer, and he did. Michael Bloomberg, elected after the attacks of September 11th 2001, said lower Manhattan must be rebuilt. To day, it is thriving. But David Dinkins never quite managed to be a mayor for all New Yorkers, which may be impossible. Nor did the outgoing mayor, Bill de Blasio, mean ingfully reduce economic inequality. Eric Adams, who will take over from Mr de Blasio on January 1st, planned to hold his inauguration in Flatbush, a working class neighbourhood in Brooklyn—a nod to both the outerborough coalition that propelled him into offi ce and to his own upbringing in Brooklyn and Queens. But Omicron put paid to those plans; as cases spiked in New York, Mr Adams cancelled his own celebration. “I don’t need an inau guration,” he explained. “I just need a mat
tress and a fl oor…We don’t want to put peo ple in danger.” That may be the easiest de cision he makes for years to come. Mr Adams inherits a reeling city. The economic fallout on New York from the September 11th attacks was largely con fi ned to lower Manhattan; the pandemic, by contrast, has shuttered businesses across all fi ve boroughs. New York lost 630,000 jobs in 2020 and has an unem ployment rate, 9%, that is more than dou ble the national average. Tourists are stay ing away. The city has 100,000 fewer res taurant jobs than it did in early 2020, and hotel occupancy rates hover around 50%, compared with 90% before the pandemic. Subway ridership is only just over half → Also in this section 30 American science and China 32 How to give away $9bn 33 Lonely boys 34 Lexington: Chicago’s racial politics
its prepandemic levels. Only 28% of Man hattan’s offi ce workers are at their desks on any given day, and just 8% come in every day. Midtown is dead. Employment is un likely to return to prepandemic levels un til at least 2024. James Parrott of the New School’s Centre for New York City Aff airs expects that doubledigit unemployment rates for the city’s AfricanAmerican and Latino populations could last even longer. Fortunately, Mr Adams has a better rela tionship with the city’s businesses than did his predecessor, though that is a low bar. Stephen Scherr, the chief fi nancial of fi cer of Goldman Sachs, is on the incoming mayor’s transition team, which includes 700 people, compared with Mr de Blasio’s team of 60 in 2013. Mr Adams has also created a corporate council of advisers, in cluding executives from the fi nance, real estate, hospitality and tech sectors—all fo cused on encouraging workers to get back to their desks and not leave New York for warmer, lowertax climes. Mr Adams has grand plans to turn the city into a cyberse curity hub. He also wants to attract crypto currency businesses, and has suggested he might be paid in bitcoin. He also ran on public safety, distin guishing him from his wealthy, liberal Democratic rivals, and boosting his popu larity in the city’s highercrime areas. Overall, New York is far less safe than it was before the pandemic, with murders up 50% and nonfatal shootings double what they were two years ago. Unusually, Mr Ad
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