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Comment by ipnon | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing that would make the average New Yorker happier than the collapse of real estate prices and the evacuation of big business. Most New Yorkers rent their apartments and fondly remember a time before their corner stores were Starbucks, Duane Reade and Chase. You do the math.

New York City has more millionaires than any other city. But the average New Yorker isn't a millionaire. These changes are bad for millionaires and partially caused by their exodus already. The people who stay will have an easier time affording their homes and starting their small businesses. That doesn't sound like the end to me.

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Maybe their real estate will be cheaper, but if the city loses the income tax those higher earners and their luxury consumption, that loss of revenue is gonna fall to the middle class to make up, a middle class putting net more children into the school system too. NYC's annual spending per capita is already one of the highest in the nation.

That makes the assumption that the highest-paid residents of the city are currently paying their fair share. I somehow doubt that, so I don't see the loss of revenue from their absence as great as predicted.

https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/nycs-high-income-t...

"1 percent of New York City residents generated 43 percent of city income taxes"

While I am not saying the current rate is fair or perfect, to say that the city wouldn't be hurt by losing tax revenue ignores the fact.

I wonder how much the cost of having the millionaires (in terms of the average resident paying for food, rent, parking, etc) is offset by their large contribution

I know not everyone would agree with me - but I think local governments almost always agree that attracting high earners is good for the city. Not only do they make schools and local government better funded but the raising of prices usually means higher wages (and more possible jobs) for the working class. There is a reason once Detroit lost its high wage workers the city sorta collapsed onto itself.

I'm sure it will hurt the city. But it should also be noted that income tax makes up about 60% of the budget, not all of it.

Or NYC can cut their budget. NYC spends 3.2 Billion on homeless services. https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-citys-spending-on-home...

Not saying the cuts need to come from that segment, but let the sheer size of some of these budgetary items sink in.

> Not saying the cuts need to come from that segment

Are you sure? You didn't mention any other segment.

$88B annual police budget. Maybe we can find some wiggle room in that budget.

Does somebody know how much SF spends on police annually?

I think around $600M.

https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/sites/default/files/Docum...

NYC’s entire budget this year is 88B I believe. The NYPD is about 5 of that if I’m recalling correctly.

It was 96Bn last year minus the 8Bn in cuts as a result of the decrease in revenues occurring due to the pandemic.

The NYPD, again off the top of my head, is about 7% of the annual budget?

A far cry from many American cities which can spend between a quarter and a half of their budgets on policing (see Chicago, and LA for examples).

But, there may still be wiggle room. I was pretty disgusted by their actions during the protests personally what with the shoving women to the ground hard enough to cause seizures and concussions, the driving vans into protesters, and whatnot.

Also the discriminatory policing in mask enforcement. There’s gotta be a better way. I’m very curious about the efficacy of their anti terrorism efforts but have no data or really any idea on what they’re doing in that regard.

The city is certainly safer than it used to be although violent crime seems to be ticking up nation wide, which I presume to be because everyone’s home rubbing shoulders in their neighborhoods instead of at work.

Lots of variables in play.

Where are you getting that number? Best sources I can find say $6 billion with another $4 billion in related obligations (pensions etc.). $88 billion is nearly the city’s whole budget.

You are correct. I transposed some numbers on the table I found.

If the population numbers in the article are correct (~16,000 people homeless), that works out to $200,000 per person per year. I'm not familiar with how that is used, but from an outsider it sounds like there are a lot of inefficiencies in spending.

I'd be interested in the throughout then, instead of annual snapshot figures. If the average homelessness is say 5 weeks /1.2 months roughly, then you may be servicing 10x as many homeless people or 160 thousand, for 20k each.

With servicing meaning: short term housing for the duration of the homelessness, medical care, counselling, labour force training and placement, employer and landlord subsidies for the first six months of employment/housing contract etc.

Good point!

Doubt they will raise taxes more than what is already the highest rates in the country. More likely outcome is that as salaries across the spectrum decrease their spending will too. This has every chance of going well for the city as it does the other way. Hard to predict the second degree effects on things like crime anyway.

Has any major city ever drastically cut spending to address a secular trending down of tax revenue? Honest question, cause as far as I can tell modern cities just keep spending until they literally can’t at which point the city is long ago put a fork in it done.

Color me skeptical that NYC has the electoral will to make wise fiscal decisions going forward.

Is there really much middle class left in this country to speak of? [1] There is a bit but it's rapidly declining.

[1] http://blogs.reuters.com/david-rohde/files/2012/01/middle_cl...

Thanks for pointing this out. I wasn't actually aware of the consistency of this shift over time. I didn't love this graph, however, so I went looking and found far better displays (IMO) of this trend here: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-midd...

In particular, the following is more informative and doesn't rely on a zoomed-in axis to emphasize the change over time: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2...

It's also adjusted for household size:

> In this report, “middle-income” households are defined as those with an income that is 67% to 200% (two-thirds to double) of the overall median household income, after incomes have been adjusted for household size.

The return of low-income artists and creatives to places like NYC and SF would be a welcome side-effect.

They are already there. They are just struggling. Their time isn't optimized for their relative benefit. They are spending too much of their time waiting tables and driving taxis instead of making art.

I feel similarly about Brexit.

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