Progressives ruined San Francisco, now New York could be next
It should be the most prosperous, exciting city in the world. The one which never sleeps and where, to misquote Mark Twain, you can make your mark and be a made man.
It should be drawing capital from every corner of the capital markets. It should be dominating the technology and media industries. It should stand in stark contrast to London, which is sinking under the weight of red tape and high taxes.
Yet New York is not doing any of this right now. Instead, like its West Coast cousin San Francisco, it has fallen victim to far-left policies. It is being run by officials who seem intent on destroying its economy, driving out businesses, entrepreneurs, and the hard-working middle classes.
It is becoming yet another in a long list of great trading hubs of the Western economy that are in decline thanks to the wokery that has gripped local governments.
It has just been reported that New York City is passing a bill outlawing discrimination on the basis of weight. The legislation is expected to be signed into law by its Democrat Mayor Eric Adams later this month.
As with so much employment legislation, it was probably introduced with good intentions. It is now estimated that 40pc of American adults are obese, and no one believes that these individuals should experience prejudice.
But weight (and height, for that matter) now joins a list of over two dozen “protected characteristics” in New York's human rights law, which also includes age, marital status, military status and natural origin.
Well-meaning though this move may be, it adds further layers of confusion and complexity for employers. Hiring staff now involves navigating a minefield of legislation and a constant unease that any missteps could lead to a lawsuit.
The council's Republican minority leader Joseph Borelli told the New York Times that the regulation is a license to “sue anyone and everyone” and he might be right. The lawyers may get rich, but everyone else will get poorer.
Yet this is just one of a number of burdens being placed on New York's economy. For the last twenty years, its local government has become one of the most zealously paternalistic in the world, with rules on everything from drink sizes to sugar content in food.
Businesses are micro-regulated to a bewildering extent. Just to become a “cosmetologist” – or, as most people might know it, a “beautician” – you have to complete 1,000 hours of approved study and pass both written and practical exams.
Locksmiths require training certificates. Meanwhile, a business owner can be fined for leaving a door or window open while the aircon is running or if the pavement outside their premises is not sufficiently clean.
This is happening against a backdrop of worsening crime. In 2022, there was a 22pc increase in major crimes driven not by homicide, but mostly by burglaries, theft and assault – the offences that tend to have a direct impact on businesses.
Perhaps this is unsurprising in a city which, the Manhattan Institute recently warned, began “defunding the police” before it became a nationwide movement.
The percentage of the city budget devoted to policing was 4.9pc last year, compared with 5.2pc 20 years ago. Once retirement benefits are taken into account, that has meant a significant reduction in the number of officers. The days when New York pioneered “zero tolerance” policing are long in the past.
This is all starting to have a profound impact on both society and the economy.
A recent analysis by the economists Art Laffer and Stephen Moore found that six of the seven most highly taxed “blue” or Democrat-controlled states, had lost an estimated five million of their wealthiest residents and almost $250 billion of taxable income to lower tax “red” or Republican states over the last decade.
With close to $80 billion in lost revenue, New York is right at the top of the list.
It is not hard to figure out why. New York has the highest state tax rate in the US, with an additional 12.2pc levied on top of federal taxes, while states such as Florida and Tennessee rank near the bottom with around 6pc.
As the Scottish Nationalists may soon discover, when governments attempt to charge significantly higher taxes within regions of the same country, people start to move, and at an accelerating rate with every year that passes.
New York is heading down the same catastrophic path as San Francisco.
The “golden city” is no longer glittering: soaring taxes and rising crime rates have started to drive away businesses in droves, with retailers such as Nordstrom shuttering their stores.
Meanwhile, over the last five years statewide growth in New York has averaged a miserable 0.3pc, ranking it in 37th place out of 52 states.
Wall Street still performs well, but it dropped out of the top 10 globally for new listings last year in a ranking dominated by Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul.
It is still the global financial centre, but Silicon Valley is still the global tech centre, and that hasn't stopped San Francisco from descending into a doom loop.
Many of the great commercial centres of the West are falling victim to the same malaise. Their young, socially liberal populations keep voting for far-left local governments that impose ever higher taxes and place more and more burdens on businesses and entrepreneurs.
As a result, they are steadily ruining themselves, freeing up space for trading centres like Dubai, Singapore, Seoul and perhaps Shanghai to fill.
It has happened to San Francisco, it is happening to New York – and unless its voters get to grips with the challenges it faces it could very soon be happening to London as well.
