> It’s an important distinction.
Is it? New York City grew from 60,000-ish to 3 million from 1800 to 1900 - did a person from Europe that move to New York city in 1816 or 1876 immigrate or settle? They were not getting 40 acre land grants!
Is it? New York City grew from 60,000-ish to 3 million from 1800 to 1900 - did a person from Europe that move to New York city in 1816 or 1876 immigrate or settle? They were not getting 40 acre land grants!
“Also in [their] midst is found a multitude of Europeans pushed daily by misfortune and loose behavior to the shores of the New World; these men bring to the United States our worst vices, and they have none of the interests that could combat the influence of those vices. Inhabiting the country without being citizens, they are ready to take advantage of all the passions that agitate the country; consequently we have for some time seen serious riots break out in Philadelphia and New York. Such disorders are unknown in the rest of the country, which is not worried about them, because until now the city population has not exercised any power or any influence on the rural population. I regard the large size of certain American cities and above all the nature of their inhabitants, however, as a genuine danger that threatens the future of the democratic republics of the New World, and I am not afraid to predict that it is there that they will perish[.]”
The America that de Tocqueville wrote about is America. At least, it’s the America that’s special and worthy of emulation. It’s a democratic America, where free, independent citizens engage in collective self-governance.
New York City is the antithesis of that—a place where elites leverage ethnic conflict to garner votes, to control a population that mostly doesn’t have the tools or traditions necessary for self-government.
It has contrived to survive Tammany Hall and Gritty (so far).
> New York City is .. a place where elites leverage ethnic conflict to garner votes
This is sort of an hilarious assertion at this moment in time.. I mean, elites didn't pick Eric Adams to be mayor of NYC.. they think he is a buffoon!