https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/30/us/new-y ... index.html

Residents say they're overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, as the NYPD struggles to rein in crime. Just as NYC is getting its infrastructure together. Had great times in Times Square.

Where do Americans feel safe? 20M guns flooding the country every year tells me there isn't a safe place anywhere in this joint. In the league of advanced nations we've always been the deadliest by a wide margin. It doesn't matter who the President is. It's how we roll and it'll never change. The only thing I can point to is the water.

I feel very safe where I live in San Francisco

SL1200MK2 wrote:

I feel very safe where I live in San Francisco

Really? Our crime rate is quite high these days. Car has been broken into 3 times in a year, brazen thieves. Once in the middle of broad daylight in front of us.

Aeroflot777 wrote:

SL1200MK2 wrote:

I feel very safe where I live in San Francisco

Really? Our crime rate is quite high these days. Car has been broken into 3 times in a year, brazen thieves. Once in the middle of broad daylight in front of us.

Oh rad! Always good to see other San Franciscans! To answer your question, I do feel quite safe. However, I don’t have a car so fortunately I’ve not experienced that.

In any case, I feel property crimes are obviously terrible here but if I am to answer about my personal safety, I do indeed feel safe.

That said, I do understand where you are coming from and perhaps I’ve been lucky so far.

What part of town are you in, good sir?

wingman wrote:

Where do Americans feel safe? 20M guns flooding the country every year tells me there isn't a safe place anywhere in this joint. In the league of advanced nations we've always been the deadliest by a wide margin. It doesn't matter who the President is. It's how we roll and it'll never change. The only thing I can point to is the water.

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there. I grew up in northern NJ very close to Manhattan, NJ and NY have always had strict gun laws in fact if you got caught with a gun in NYC it was one year in jail mandatory and it was well advertised. I would drive into NYC and first thing you were met by the "squeegee" guys soon as you had to stop when you came out of any of the tunnels and bridges from NJ. Rain or shine they would shakedown drivers for a handout by squeegeeing your windows regardless if you wanted it or not. NYC was a sewer in a lot of places like the 42 street . Well I remember well when Mayor David Dinkins finally got beat out by Rudi Giuliani you can say what you want about the Giuliani of today which I think he's lost his mind. But there is no doubt the early years of Giuliani were pretty remarkable. From his tough stance on the mob and prosecution of them when he was a US attorney to when he became mayor and instilled police policies like "Broken Windows" and other zero tolerance policies. You can argue they were unfair or racist but there is no argument that they had an effect. NYC was transformed from the sewer it once was to a city people actually wanted to go visit and felt safe and that mindset carried over in to the Bloomberg administration when Michael Bloomberg became mayor and continued and even expanded stop and frisk. I don't care what anyone says and how unfair it seems those policies worked. Now NYC is back to the cesspool it once was where no one wants to go there.

SL1200MK2 wrote:

However, I don’t have a car so fortunately I’ve not experienced that… What part of town are you in, good sir?

Fortunate indeed, fingers crossed it stays that way! Out next to Ocean Beach in the avenues.

stratosphere wrote:

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there.

OK, let's zero in on NYC like the OP asked us to. New Yorkers don't feel safe now and you suggest that if Giuliani's policies or Giuliani himself were reinstated then the people there would feel safe again. Possibly they'd feel even safer going back to the policies and social conditions of the 40s and 50s. I concede the point in part but you should still respond to my own question which is a valid one. If New Yorkers don't feel and "no one wants to go there" as you put it, then what other major US metropolis could they move to where they'd feel safer? Where is it that everyone does want to go to now instead of NYC because it's so much safer. Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong. No one feels safe which is why Americans buy so many guns. It sure as shit ain't for hunting clay pigeons. It's because we live in society demented by a perverse and circular logic that thinks the solution to safety is more guns. But when that promise fails to deliver results yet again then the only recourse is to load up on more guns. It's why I pointed to water. When you compare US cities to their sister cities in our peer group of advanced nations that's the one key difference..the water. It's obvious.

stratosphere wrote:

I grew up in northern NJ very close to Manhattan, NJ and NY have always had strict gun laws in fact if you got caught with a gun in NYC it was one year in jail mandatory and it was well advertised.

That's why we need comprehensive, national gun laws. Unless you want NYC to set up check points at the bridges and tunnels, you can't stop someone buying a gun elsewhere and bringing it in to NYC.

wingman wrote:

stratosphere wrote:

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there.

OK, let's zero in on NYC like the OP asked us to. New Yorkers don't feel safe now and you suggest that if Giuliani's policies or Giuliani himself were reinstated then the people there would feel safe again. Possibly they'd feel even safer going back to the policies and social conditions of the 40s and 50s. I concede the point in part but you should still respond to my own question which is a valid one. If New Yorkers don't feel and "no one wants to go there" as you put it, then what other major US metropolis could they move to where they'd feel safer? Where is it that everyone does want to go to now instead of NYC because it's so much safer. Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong. No one feels safe which is why Americans buy so many guns. It sure as shit ain't for hunting clay pigeons. It's because we live in society demented by a perverse and circular logic that thinks the solution to safety is more guns. But when that promise fails to deliver results yet again then the only recourse is to load up on more guns. It's why I pointed to water. When you compare US cities to their sister cities in our peer group of advanced nations that's the one key difference..the water. It's obvious.

I don’t know about that, I bought three guns for hunting coat pigeons in the last year. One is waiting pickup at the FFL.

It’s illegal now to bring a firearm into NYC, it’s illegal nationally for a convicted felon, domestic abuser, a person with history of mental illness and persons with drug convictions to purchase a firearm. What is changing?

I found this article in the New York times kind of interesting, and maybe somewhat illustrative as to why gun control is such a frustrating issue to discuss. It seems like you have to have basically everyone doing it, because even a tiny number of dishonest or inattentive brokers can get a lot of guns into the wrong hands, but for the same reason, most people are going to only see completely legal gun sellers and owners, and any regulation essentially punishes them for things they didn't do.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

wingman wrote:

stratosphere wrote:

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there.

OK, let's zero in on NYC like the OP asked us to. New Yorkers don't feel safe now and you suggest that if Giuliani's policies or Giuliani himself were reinstated then the people there would feel safe again. Possibly they'd feel even safer going back to the policies and social conditions of the 40s and 50s. I concede the point in part but you should still respond to my own question which is a valid one. If New Yorkers don't feel and "no one wants to go there" as you put it, then what other major US metropolis could they move to where they'd feel safer? Where is it that everyone does want to go to now instead of NYC because it's so much safer. Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong. No one feels safe which is why Americans buy so many guns. It sure as shit ain't for hunting clay pigeons. It's because we live in society demented by a perverse and circular logic that thinks the solution to safety is more guns. But when that promise fails to deliver results yet again then the only recourse is to load up on more guns. It's why I pointed to water. When you compare US cities to their sister cities in our peer group of advanced nations that's the one key difference..the water. It's obvious.

I don’t know about that, I bought three guns for hunting coat pigeons in the last year. One is waiting pickup at the FFL.

It’s illegal now to bring a firearm into NYC, it’s illegal nationally for a convicted felon, domestic abuser, a person with history of mental illness and persons with drug convictions to purchase a firearm. What is changing?

Nothing, since the illegal gun market is alive and well. And with the ATF being tiny, for a nation of our size, it will always be ineffective. They have what, 2-3K agents? That's smaller than the Dallas Police.

Newark727 wrote:

I found this article in the New York times kind of interesting, and maybe somewhat illustrative as to why gun control is such a frustrating issue to discuss. It seems like you have to have basically everyone doing it, because even a tiny number of dishonest or inattentive brokers can get a lot of guns into the wrong hands, but for the same reason, most people are going to only see completely legal gun sellers and owners, and any regulation essentially punishes them for things they didn't do.

Exactly related to my previous comment. Federal enforcement is just surface - going after high profile cases and convicted felons who are stupid enough to make traceable purchases.

There is no reason to punish law-abiding gun owners, but the status quo is unsustainable with illegal trade being run mostly by urban gangs and organized crime.

wingman wrote:

Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong.

New York (state) has a lower homicide rate than all of the states those cities are in bar Seattle (Washington state):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... icide_rate

But even then the lowest US homicide rate state (New Hampshire) has a murder rate of 0.9 per 100,000, and it’s the only US state below the vast majority of EU nations.

The average US homicide rate (6.6, roughly the rate of two places Republican politicians exclaim are great places to live, Texas and Florida) is still 6x the UK rate, 9x the German rate and 12x the Italian rate.

The crime rates in NYC are going up but they are still well below those obscene highs of the 1980's-1990's. Part of the new fear is many more 'innocent' persons being killed or injured in gun and other violent conflicts that get a lot of attention by our news and social media. Many in NYC say the most immediate blame is from well intended changes in law to reduce racist police and criminal justice practices, including limiting use of bail on many arrested criminals. To me it is also from economic imbalances, poor access to mental and physical health care and an American culture that encourages violence with guns. The now over 2 years of the Covid-19 pandemic with its affects on society seems to be a factor too as much of the increase has occurred during that time.

Of course, with rising crime and murder rates, comes calls for 'law and order', mainly by politicians from outside the cities wanting to return to harsh law enforcement and criminal prosecution but not dealing with the underlying social and economic issues to win elections.

Moose135 wrote:

stratosphere wrote:

I grew up in northern NJ very close to Manhattan, NJ and NY have always had strict gun laws in fact if you got caught with a gun in NYC it was one year in jail mandatory and it was well advertised.

That's why we need comprehensive, national gun laws. Unless you want NYC to set up check points at the bridges and tunnels, you can't stop someone buying a gun elsewhere and bringing it in to NYC.

What you just described is illegal. In essence your argument is that criminals don't abide by gun restrictions, which is one reason why gun control is a losing issue in this country.

stratosphere wrote:

wingman wrote:

Where do Americans feel safe? 20M guns flooding the country every year tells me there isn't a safe place anywhere in this joint. In the league of advanced nations we've always been the deadliest by a wide margin. It doesn't matter who the President is. It's how we roll and it'll never change. The only thing I can point to is the water.

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there. I grew up in northern NJ very close to Manhattan, NJ and NY have always had strict gun laws in fact if you got caught with a gun in NYC it was one year in jail mandatory and it was well advertised. I would drive into NYC and first thing you were met by the "squeegee" guys soon as you had to stop when you came out of any of the tunnels and bridges from NJ. Rain or shine they would shakedown drivers for a handout by squeegeeing your windows regardless if you wanted it or not. NYC was a sewer in a lot of places like the 42 street . Well I remember well when Mayor David Dinkins finally got beat out by Rudi Giuliani you can say what you want about the Giuliani of today which I think he's lost his mind. But there is no doubt the early years of Giuliani were pretty remarkable. From his tough stance on the mob and prosecution of them when he was a US attorney to when he became mayor and instilled police policies like "Broken Windows" and other zero tolerance policies. You can argue they were unfair or racist but there is no argument that they had an effect. NYC was transformed from the sewer it once was to a city people actually wanted to go visit and felt safe and that mindset carried over in to the Bloomberg administration when Michael Bloomberg became mayor and continued and even expanded stop and frisk. I don't care what anyone says and how unfair it seems those policies worked. Now NYC is back to the cesspool it once was where no one wants to go there.

New York state's gun homicide rate is the second lowest in the country and NYC's rate is one of if not the lowest in the state.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

wingman wrote:

Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong.

New York (state) has a lower homicide rate than all of the states those cities are in bar Seattle (Washington state):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... icide_rate

But even then the lowest US homicide rate state (New Hampshire) has a murder rate of 0.9 per 100,000, and it’s the only US state below the vast majority of EU nations.

The average US homicide rate (6.6, roughly the rate of two places Republican politicians exclaim are great places to live, Texas and Florida) is still 6x the UK rate, 9x the German rate and 12x the Italian rate.

Weird how weak gun laws result in high gun homicides.

All the New Yorkers I know feel completely safe in their homes and I feel safe visiting them.

Many of them live in beautiful brownstones in neighborhoods once considered war zones.

the OP article is referencing to date statistics that are in comparison to the same period in 2021; the wikipedia link is through 2020.

but perhaps we should dismiss the feelings of the people in the cnn article as invalid

The four states at the bottom of the list for rates, ID, VT, ME, NH, all have fairly high gun ownership rates and few gun regulations. DC, at the top, has famously tight regulations, challenged in Heller v.
DC, and highest rate. Go figure.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The four states at the bottom of the list for rates, ID, VT, ME, NH, all have fairly high gun ownership rates and few gun regulations. DC, at the top, has famously tight regulations, challenged in Heller v.
DC, and highest rate. Go figure.

Comparing urban to state rates is intellectually dishonest.

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

New York is still safer than Florida or Texas.



https://www.statesman.com/story/news/po ... 358120001/

When we calculated the overall increase among the cities in each state -- disregarding cities that had just a few murders, where a small increase would lead to a large percentage increase -- the increase in New York state came to 46%, compared with 31% in Texas and 22% in Florida.

According to Pew Research Center, which used data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, murders rose by 30% between 2019 and 2020 across the country. Pew’s analysis showed that on a statewide basis, per 100,000 people, New York’s increase in murders was higher than the increases in Florida and Texas. The number of homicides per 100,000 remains lower in New York, at 4.7 at the end of 2020, than in Florida, 7.8, and Texas, 7.6.

Lets be real, even if the left bankrupted every American gun manufacture through lawsuits, there would still be a flood of guns. China or another country would fill the void. Right now in major cities, "June Bug" is on the street corner selling crack and has a 9mm in his pants and they are both illegal.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The four states at the bottom of the list for rates, ID, VT, ME, NH, all have fairly high gun ownership rates and few gun regulations.

Democrat leaning places with high urbanisation and (comparatively) low gun numbers also dominate the bottom of the murder rate list, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Oregon, Rhode Island, Minnesota (at #44 out of 50, the way the GOP spoke about it you’d think it was number 1), New Jersey, Washington state and Connecticut.

DC, at the top, has famously tight regulations, challenged in Heller v.
DC, and highest rate. Go figure.

Well DC isn’t a state, but right after DC n the high murder rate category are Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee. All fun loving GOP voting strongholds.

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

America has the highest rate of incarceration on the planet. Locking up more people than other nations hasn’t solved America’s crime problem. Although NY imprisons less than the US average it’s still high on a worldwide scale, above nations that have notoriously harsh prisons like Brazil, Russia, Belarus and Turkey.

I think it is worth mentioning that crime does not equal involvement of a gun.
Assaults, small theft without a deadly weapon are still a crime. Or even bullying behavior alone can scare the crap out of people even though I'm not sure if there are any laws that can do anything about it.

Bring back “stop and frisk”.

It worked and its not racist. Miniorities are worse off from these anti policing policies that worked and cleaned up NYC.

william wrote:

Lets be real, even if the left bankrupted every American gun manufacture through lawsuits, there would still be a flood of guns. China or another country would fill the void. Right now in major cities, "June Bug" is on the street corner selling crack and has a 9mm in his pants and they are both illegal.

I’ve lived in a few cities and have never heard of “June Bug”. Is this like the urban version of “Cletus” or “Billy Bob”?

Aaron747 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The four states at the bottom of the list for rates, ID, VT, ME, NH, all have fairly high gun ownership rates and few gun regulations. DC, at the top, has famously tight regulations, challenged in Heller v.
DC, and highest rate. Go figure.

Comparing urban to state rates is intellectually dishonest.

Not necessarily. The states of Mississippi, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and a few others, for instance, have a higher gun death rate than the urban area of Chicago, which itself is indeed higher than the State of Illinois as a whole.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosm ... irearm.htm
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder ... -s-cities/

SL1200MK2 wrote:

william wrote:

Lets be real, even if the left bankrupted every American gun manufacture through lawsuits, there would still be a flood of guns. China or another country would fill the void. Right now in major cities, "June Bug" is on the street corner selling crack and has a 9mm in his pants and they are both illegal.

I’ve lived in a few cities and have never heard of “June Bug”. Is this like the urban version of “Cletus” or “Billy Bob”?

Yes. It was a popular nickname among Black folks, now less and less. Its a southern thing, one is known by their nickname as much as their legal name in the neighborhood.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The four states at the bottom of the list for rates, ID, VT, ME, NH, all have fairly high gun ownership rates and few gun regulations.

Democrat leaning places with high urbanisation and (comparatively) low gun numbers also dominate the bottom of the murder rate list, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Oregon, Rhode Island, Minnesota (at #44 out of 50, the way the GOP spoke about it you’d think it was number 1), New Jersey, Washington state and Connecticut.

DC, at the top, has famously tight regulations, challenged in Heller v.
DC, and highest rate. Go figure.

Well DC isn’t a state, but right after DC n the high murder rate category are Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee. All fun loving GOP voting strongholds.

The demographic committing nearly 50% of these homicides despite making up less than 10% of the population isn't what most people would consider GOP lovers...

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

Well one guy online who lies about everything says NYC is over so must be true

MaverickM11 wrote:

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

Well one guy online who lies about everything says NYC is over so must be true [/quote]
I often feel like I'm watching a Pace salsa commercial when I hear people talk about the evils of the big city or city X is dying. "New York City??"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbp9UrwC-mI

MaverickM11 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

Well one guy online who lies about everything says NYC is over so must be true

Dunning-Kruger on full display around these parts, on the regular.

Aaron747 wrote:

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

I doubt many of their employees take the subways.

Let me add my voice to the "it was much worse in the '80s and early '90s". I remember waiting in line to get into the Holland Tunnel in Tribeca being harassed by a conga line of prostitutes, squeegee men and dudes selling stolen stereos etc.. This is just after Giuliani took over around 1993, it probably wasn't until 1996 that the turn around in the city, which everyone hails, started . That same spot in Tribeca today is an upscale family residential neighborhood.

The current environment is upsetting but it is no where near where things were in 1993. And NYC was a great city in 1993 with tons of excitement, commerce, tourism etc.. Is it heading in the wrong direction, yes since the pandemic hit. But it's turning back in the right direction. I like the new Mayor, former NYPD Captain who understands there is a balance between what BLM represents on one end of the spectrum and the desire for law and order on the other end.

I think in 3-5 years the city will be in a better spot than prior to the pandemic. I've been on A-net for a while and I've seen the city written off a few times, none of those predictions came true.

The return to the office will happen, there's tens of billions of dollars in investments in the City's infrastructure that is opening between now and the middle of the next decade:

Second Ave Subway phase II extension, LIRR's East Side Access, Gateway Tunnel Project, redevelopment of Penn Station, Metro North Penn Access, Interborough Express, LaGuardia Airport redevelopment, Kennedy Airport redevelopment etc..

NIKV69 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

I doubt many of their employees take the subways.

They take Metro North to New Canaan, PATH to Jersey City and high speed ferries from Belford and Atlantic Highlands NJ to get home to Fairhaven, Little Silver and Rumson.

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

Violence generates clicks. The old adage "if it bleeds, it leads" is still true today. Mass shootings all across the country are boring anymore. Yeah, it happens, but so what? It is such a common occurrence that 20 or more must be killed and injured for the needle to even move. So, the right wing media has to pivot to something. Like the hell scape that is "liberal run" cities. Stabbings, shootings, beatings happen in all corners of the country but if the right wing media shouts loud enough about "liberal cities" their base will believe it and it generates clicks and revenue so they can be number one in ratings and "own the libs". Because, isn't that the goal? Not informing people but "own the libs"?

AirWorthy99 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

...and realizing what a horrible mistake they made.

Wall Street elites who fled to Florida amid COVID-19 want to return to NYC
https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/wall-stre ... to-return/

Florida is the least affordable place to live in the U.S.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-le ... ples-rent/

NYC will be just fine, and hopefully with a realignment in real estate prices both corporate and residential, will attract new people and companies for whom NYC has been out of reach for years.

AirWorthy99 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

That article is almost 1.5 years old and the landscape seems to have shifted, with major banks requiring their staff to return anywhere from 3 to 5 days a week.

Key excerpts from: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/investin ... index.html

Citigroup’s chief executive Jane Fraser announced in March 2021 that the majority of the company’s 210,000 employees will be allowed to go hybrid with three days in the office and two days at home each week. UBS made similar plans last month with the launch of their Virtual Worker Framework that will allow some US employees to work 100% remotely.

Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are taking hardline approaches, requiring employees to come into the office five days a week.

“Bringing our employees safely back to the office is core to our apprenticeship culture and client-centric business,” said Andrea Williams, Goldman Sachs global head of media relations. “What’s clear through the process is that we are better together than apart, especially as an employer of choice for those in the beginning stage of their career.”

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said during a keynote speech at the Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney last month that it’s unrealistic to expect to excel at a job without being physically present.

“A lot of us have gone into the mindset of ‘Jobland’,” Gorman said. “Well if you’re in ‘Careerland,’ you need to be around other people to learn from them a bit.”[/i]

Work from home does nothing for developing new staff, networking, collaborative creativity etc.. The employees want to get back to meeting friends and colleagues after work for drinks, taking clients out for fancy dinners on the company's dime, and business trips etc.. How are you ever going to meet anyone in your field at home?

I love Florida, just got back. It's someplace to go when your kids are out of the house, Florida public schools cannot touch public schools in New Jersey, Connecticut etc.. It's public transportation networks are pathetic which means terrible traffic, and the food options are terrible. Way too many chains.

When I worked in Lower Manhattan I had excellent Asian, Spanish, Italian, Greek, French food all within a five minute walk. I could walk over and eat at Le District and Eataly for a upscale lunch or over to Mott Street where I can get 5 dumplings for $1.25 and a hot and sour soup for $1.75.

MaverickM11 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

Well one guy online who lies about everything says NYC is over so must be true

Here’s what gets me. I always wonder if they actually believe these things or if they’re just trying to be included in the crowd they seek acceptance from. It obviously ignores facts but still, people also believe in god.

wingman wrote:

stratosphere wrote:

AAHH yes the too many guns argument. Well since the OP is referencing NYC I will start there.

OK, let's zero in on NYC like the OP asked us to. New Yorkers don't feel safe now and you suggest that if Giuliani's policies or Giuliani himself were reinstated then the people there would feel safe again. Possibly they'd feel even safer going back to the policies and social conditions of the 40s and 50s. I concede the point in part but you should still respond to my own question which is a valid one. If New Yorkers don't feel and "no one wants to go there" as you put it, then what other major US metropolis could they move to where they'd feel safer? Where is it that everyone does want to go to now instead of NYC because it's so much safer. Are you talking about Copenhagen, Basel, Tokyo, Seoul, Melbourne, or Berlin? In that case then I totally concede the point. But if you think that people in Miami and Houston and Charlotte or LA, Seattle, Chicago or Indianapolis feel a whole lot safer than New Yorkers then my opinion is that you're wrong. No one feels safe which is why Americans buy so many guns. It sure as shit ain't for hunting clay pigeons. It's because we live in society demented by a perverse and circular logic that thinks the solution to safety is more guns. But when that promise fails to deliver results yet again then the only recourse is to load up on more guns. It's why I pointed to water. When you compare US cities to their sister cities in our peer group of advanced nations that's the one key difference..the water. It's obvious.

All those US cities have higher crime rates than NYC, even now with the current spike (which all those cities are having, yet it only seems to matter that NYC has one). Funny how people supposedly move to Miami for safety reasons, but it's one of the more dangerous cities in the country.

I encourage people to get informed with real statistics.

https://www.bestplaces.net/crime/

STT757 wrote:

Let me add my voice to the "it was much worse in the '80s and early '90s". I remember waiting in line to get into the Holland Tunnel in Tribeca being harassed by a conga line of prostitutes, squeegee men and dudes selling stolen stereos etc.. This is just after Giuliani took over around 1993, it probably wasn't until 1996 that the turn around in the city, which everyone hails, started . That same spot in Tribeca today is an upscale family residential neighborhood.

The current environment is upsetting but it is no where near where things were in 1993. And NYC was a great city in 1993 with tons of excitement, commerce, tourism etc.. Is it heading in the wrong direction, yes since the pandemic hit. But it's turning back in the right direction. I like the new Mayor, former NYPD Captain who understands there is a balance between what BLM represents on one end of the spectrum and the desire for law and order on the other end.

I think in 3-5 years the city will be in a better spot than prior to the pandemic. I've been on A-net for a while and I've seen the city written off a few times, none of those predictions came true.

The return to the office will happen, there's tens of billions of dollars in investments in the City's infrastructure that is opening between now and the middle of the next decade:

Second Ave Subway phase II extension, LIRR's East Side Access, Gateway Tunnel Project, redevelopment of Penn Station, Metro North Penn Access, Interborough Express, LaGuardia Airport redevelopment, Kennedy Airport redevelopment etc..

NIKV69 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

I doubt many of their employees take the subways.

They take Metro North to New Canaan, PATH to Jersey City and high speed ferries from Belford and Atlantic Highlands NJ to get home to Fairhaven, Little Silver and Rumson.

As someone actually living in NYC, I think this is the most accurate post of all. I'll chime in with my perspective in terms of safety as some who has lived here, off and on, since 2000.

Giuliani Era: I moved to NYC at the tail-end of his tenure. Giuliani was laser-focused on crime and nothing else and the results, especially compared to how the city was in the early 90's, really spoke for themselves. In 2000, the city had an edgier and grittier feel to it, but it felt safe in most places. Crime was mostly focused in specific neighborhoods, but there wasn't any good reason to go to them. But even in some of those areas, there was a feeling that things were improving.

Bloomberg Era: Bloomberg more or less kept Giuliani’s policies, but with a softer touch and he mostly focused on quality-of-life issues, like street cleanings, homeless encampment crackdowns, beatification, and gentrification of more neighborhoods. Crime steadily decreased each year, but it wasn’t as substantial a drop as under Giuliani. The city seemed much more well-run, organized, cleaner, and just felt safer. Even some of the rougher neighborhoods, like Harlem and Inwood, started seeing vast improvements, gentrification and felt safer. I'd say the city seemed safest during his time and was probably best run.

DeBlasio Era: His first term wasn't all that bad. He more or less kept Bloomberg's policing policies, but eased up a little. He also lessened-up on quality-of-life ordinances. His big thing was implementing equity and social programs. Crime rates went down, but the decreases were far more incremental. Quality-of-life issues, however, got a little worse. Homelessness went up a bit his first term as he didn't crack down on it like Bloomberg did. I'd still say the city felt safe in his first term, while things like cleanliness declined slightly. Overall, it wasn’t too bad, though.

DeBlasio's second term was a mess. He basically used the success of his first term as a springboard for his failed presidential run and ignored the city he was elected to govern. After that failed, he didn't bother to get back into governing. His previously competent staff left and their progressive replacements ran the city in the mayor's absence. They eased up on enforcing quality-of-life crimes and things started getting worse. For instance. fireworks, which are illegal in NYC, became more common and there wasn't much of a crackdown on them. Things like street drag racing also increased. Crime stayed the same up to 2020. Overall, from 2019 and onwards, the city became a more annoying place to be in and I felt the quality-of-life had noticeably declined.

And then came that bail reform law in 2019. The progressives won big in the NYS legislature in the 2018 election and Cuomo, who was focused on another term and needed their support, caved into their demand for bail reform. Crime spiked pretty much after they implemented it, so they quickly made changes to calm things down. The progressives ended up kicking Cuomo out of office anyways, so it was all for naught. But regardless, letting career criminals out to offend and reoffend with no consequences isn't exactly the best policy and it will show in the crime statistics.

On top of bail reform, several other factors led to our recent crime spike:

First was deBlasio letting out a lot of inmates from jail because of COVID concerns. That was just insane. What did he think would happen?

https://www.newsweek.com/nyc-prisoners- ... ay-1510697

Second factor was the BLM protests and how they got out of control. DeBlasio basically sided with the looters and didn't do anything initially. And Cuomo, who again needed progressive support and didn't overtly condemn them, sat on his hands and said it was deBlasio's responsibility to keep order. Only after things got really bad did Cuomo threaten to intervene, but the damage was already done. Basically, criminals thought they could get away with it since there weren’t major repercussions.

The third factor was the NYPD. Since a lot of these BLM protests were about defunding the police and a lot of politicians were parroting that line, they felt disrespected and either quit or just stopped doing their jobs. Cops might blame loose bail laws allowing offenders off the hook (and that is a factor), but a lot them just stopped caring. A real dereliction of duty.

And another factor has been the fentanyl crisis and its effects on the homeless. So before, the homeless weren't weren’t all that aggressive. They might have panhandled, but they were not obnoxious about it. The last few years, we’ve seen a different breed of homeless. They’re younger, more wired and far more aggressive. They’re in much worse shape and some of them are just too far gone and may be beyond help. Indeed, there have been several incidents with junked-out homeless pushing people off subway platforms or breaking into apartments and stabbing people. I’m willing to bet that this might be related to DeBlasio letting lots of inmates out of jail and some of these inmates just ended up on the streets and back on drugs.

All this has led to a situation where crime, while not as bad as it was twenty years ago, is still higher than it has been recently and is making people uncomfortable. And the fact that there has been a series of high-profile random violent incidents is making people more on edge. Random offenses were very rare before.

Even my neighborhood has been affected. My precinct is considered one of the safest within the five boroughs. However, within the last month, we have had the following:

-A shooting at a nearby shopping center where a teenage bystander was hit;
-A group of kids went into a local restaurant and just beat up the owner for no good reason;
-Shooting at a house party;
-Carjacking at shopping center.

In my time living in this neighborhood, it’s the first time there’s been a shooting. Crime in my local precinct is up 63% from last year.

And this has had consequences. Eric Adams, who isn’t really a Democrat, got elected because residents were concerned about crime and he made reducing it the sole focus of his campaign. Hell, even my local city councilman, who was really good and a moderate against bail reform, etc., lost to a crazy, racist nutbar because of crime worries.

So, do I feel safe? I would say generally, yes, but I'm more wary of my surroundings. I would put safety at the level it was when Giuliani was mayor. But it’s still not good enough considering how good things were before as recently as two years ago. I think electing Adams is a good start and he is trying to implement some policies that focus on reducing crime. NYS also changed the bail reform law as the governor is worried about re-election and will campaign as a moderate, much to the progressives’ dismay. Those changes should help, but they don’t take effect right away. Also, I go into Manhattan twice a month to visit a client and I take the regional rail and subway to get to their office. I will say that I’ve noticed a greater police presence and way less homelessness than a few months ago. Even friends who go into Manhattan everyday say it’s a lot better than last year, with most of the improvements coming recently. I’m hoping we’ve reached a nadir and I think Adams’ new policies and the bail reform changes will work, but we’ll see. If not, we will get more nutbars elected like my city councilmember.

STT757 wrote:

Work from home does nothing for developing new staff, networking, collaborative creativity etc.. The employees want to get back to meeting friends and colleagues after work for drinks, taking clients out for fancy dinners on the company's dime, and business trips etc.. How are you ever going to meet anyone in your field at home?

Agreed. I think working-from-home is going to die down. There's already Zoom fatigue. And most employers in the South or Midwest are back in the office; WFH is more of a coastal phenomenon, but even that is changing. My brother-in-law works for one of the FAANGs in the Bay Area and they initially adopted a total WFH policy, but have gradually changed it and have been incentivizing employees to get back to the office: those who return part of the time can keep their current salary; those who work remotely, but stay in the Bay Area will have a slight reduction in salary; and those who work remotely and relocate to another state will have an even bigger salary reduction. His company is following the policies of other big tech companies. Wall Street companies have been doing the same thing and are even more aggressive at getting employees back to the office.

AirWorthy99 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

NIKV69 wrote:

I love how the anti gun crowd is making this a gun issue. People are being punched, stabbed pushed in front of trains. NYC is gone. It isn't coming back. It's not the gun laws. Maybe start with not just letting violent criminals back on the street after arrest.

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

I don’t know where you’ve been, but as others are posting, WFH is essentially scaling back or ending entirely. So, huh??

I just sent out a memo last week informing our dept. managers that we’re back to 4 days in-office as of end of May.

Aaron747 wrote:

AirWorthy99 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

The continued presence of the world's major investment banks says NYC is not gone. But whatevs.

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

I don’t know where you’ve been, but as others are posting, WFH is essentially scaling back or ending entirely. So, huh??

These are the same exact people that were telling us to STOP LIVING IN FEAR NOW and end all covid restricitons...in Q2 2020. Do they secretly want to WFH?

MaverickM11 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

AirWorthy99 wrote:

One thing the COVID era gave us is, yes, working from home. Many just did not want to continue living in a city which prohibited you from going to work, school and going out. And then you had the said investment banks saying you can work from home.

Many of the people who worked from home, are still home. But instead in sunny Florida, living like a prince at a fraction of the cost of NY. And yes, much less taxes.

https://www.businessinsider.com/pandemi ... ts-2020-12

I don’t know where you’ve been, but as others are posting, WFH is essentially scaling back or ending entirely. So, huh??

These are the same exact people that were telling us to STOP LIVING IN FEAR NOW and end all covid restricitons...in Q2 2020. Do they secretly want to WFH?

Hard to say what they want when they don't even know.

sierrakilo44 wrote:

Well DC isn’t a state, but right after DC n the high murder rate category are Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina and Tennessee. All fun loving GOP voting strongholds.

And take a look where the majority of those murders take place, in blue cities. All those fun-loving libs. Throw the blue cities out and you have those states fall waaaaay down the list.
Birmingham and Montgomery, Blue.
New Orleans (murder central) Blue,
Kansas City, Blue.
Little Rock, Blue.
Charleston, Blue.
Nashville, Very Blue