“Is New York City Dead?” Is a Question About Nothing
Jerry Seinfeld wrote this piece for The New York Times. It’s a cute, Manhattan-centered op-ed.
According to Forbes, he made $51 million during the first half of this year. He made $20 million from his last Netflix special alone. I enjoy his eponymous TV show and his standups, but of course he doesn’t think NYC is “dead.” The view from his $32 million home in Amagansett hasn’t changed.
I write this not to pick on Jerry Seinfeld — we need cheerleaders — but to illustrate a point: When we ask if New York City is “dead” or not, who are we asking for?
Whether New York City is “dead” is a privileged question. For every misguided comment about the city falling directly into the disarray of the 1970s, there are a dozen photos on social media of people walking their dogs in Brooklyn Bridge Park and a sarcastic note about how the city is decaying. The discussion of whether a great, 400-year-old American city is “dead” is banter among the privileged, which is to say it’s really a discussion about nothing.
For the most vulnerable, the city is already on life support.
Estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2018 show that about 14% of homeless people in the United States lived in New York City. In 2019, average stay in shelters for families with children was nearly 450 days. About one-tenth of New York City’s public school students don’t have stable housing. On any given night, around 60,000 people will stay in a homeless shelter in New York City.
New York City has some of the highest child care costs in the country. In 2016, the average cost of child care in New York City was $16,000 per year, and subsidies are in short supply for families that need them. This puts undue stress on families who rely on child care as part of the basic infrastructure that would allow them to work and live comfortably in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The pandemic didn’t create a child care crisis, rather, it exacerbated one that has existed for a long time.
According to the New York State Department of Labor, restaurants are the largest employment industry in the New York City labor market region, employing more than 270,000 people in 2017. These workers make about $29,000 annually. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York City costs more than $3,000 per month, or more than $36,000 per year. To waste time arguing that New York City is doing just fine ignores the terrifying reality many of these people face, and even though outdoor dining is a hit, we can’t even be bothered to tip well.
Rather than wasting time talking about whether New York City is “dead” or not, we should continue to seek actionable ways we can make it better for everyone. We can start by continuing to patronize local businesses, supporting local workers, taxing the ultra-rich, and lobbying the Federal government to provide much-needed aid.
Privilege is a buzzword; in action it is a concept that must be internalized to be impactful. It’s something that should shape how we approach the people around us in a meaningful way. The ongoing question of whether New York City is “dead” shows just how little we’ve learned, and how far we have to go.
