Matt Yglesias

NYC Population By Borough

I forget what I was trying to prove when I started working on this chart yesterday morning, but late yesterday afternoon I realized there was a 90 percent finished visual display of data on my computer so I figured I might as well finish it:

Brooklyn follows a pretty standard American city pattern here—growing until World War II then shrinking during the postwar suburbanization, then turning around more recently but remaining below peak. But Queens and the Bronx had only one down decade, the 1970s, and it came late. Nevertheless, the collapse in the Bronx was so dramatic that it’s still at below-peak levels. Queens and Staten Island are currently experiencing their peaks. Manhattan, meanwhile, reached its peak way back in 1910.

Bloomberg and Obama

Among political operatives there’s a lot of talk about the idea that in the wake of Michael Bloomberg’s surprisingly narrow re-election the White House blew an opportunity to intervene in the race on behalf of Democratic City Comptroller Bill Thompson and pick up a win. Ben Smith writes that the outcome is “a profound embarrassment for a Democratic establishment – from the White House on down — that abandoned his rival, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, as a hopeless loser.”

I think it’s at least worth considering the possibility that this tactics-tinged lens is the wrong way to look at things. What if Obama just preferred Bloomberg on the merits, but felt that political considerations compelled him to offer nominal support for the official Democratic nominee? After all, what are the issues on which Obama’s positions are more closely aligned with Thompson than with Bloomberg?

I can name a few on which Obama and Bloomberg are in sync. For starters, education. Obama and Arne Duncan are clearly in the “education reform” camp of the intra-Democratic split, pushing accountability and charter schools. Today Obama will be touting education reform in Madison, Wisconsin talking up the $4.35-billion Race to the Top (RTTT) fund that was included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is an agenda totally in line with what Bloomberg and Joel Klein have been doing in New York, and the general fear among reformers has been that absent Bloomberg NYC education policy will be made by the United Federation of Teachers. Similarly, on transportation Obama and Secretary Ray LaHood have been infuriating George Will by pushing transit, walking, and bicycles. You never find an “anti-transit” politician as such in New York, but the Bloomberg administration’s push for congestion pricing and spree of bike lane construction have turned Transportation Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan into a hero of transportation reform. Thompson, by contrast, ending his campaign rallying against Bus Rapid Transit.

Are there some clear examples of urban policy issues on which Obama is pushing an agenda that’s at odds with Bloomberg?

Constituencies Without Constituents

Two interesting posts by Robert Frank and Ryan Avent try to cope with the fact that there was a lot of opposition to the idea of congestion pricing in New York City from outer boroughs politicians, even though the population in the outer boroughs is mostly low-income and mostly takes transit into the city and would benefit substantially from charging drivers and using the money to improve transit service.

One point that I think often goes missing when talking about this subject is that you should expect politicians to responsive to the views and interests of the voters in their districts, not just the people who happen to live there. In Brooklyn 38 percent of the population is foreign-born. In Queens it’s 48 percent. In other words, some politicians probably represent districts (City Council, State Assembly, or State Senate) where most of the population are non-voting non-citizens. And more broadly, the electorate in those boroughs is probably substantially more prosperous than the population. That’s going to create a somewhat unusual dynamic. Add on top of that the fact that prosperous people tend to have more political clout anyway, and it’s not especially surprising to see that some elected officials from that part of the city are ill-serving the people who live there.

Stadium Deals

Here’s a little local news while I’m still in NYC from the always-appalling universe of stadium dealmaking:

The Bloomberg administration was so intent on obtaining a free luxury suite for its own use at the new Yankee Stadium, newly released e-mail messages show, that the mayor’s aides pushed for a larger suite and free food, and eventually gave the Yankees 250 additional parking spaces in exchange.

The parking spaces were given to the team for the private use of Yankees officials, players and others; the spaces were originally planned for public parking. The city also turned over the rights to three new billboards along the Major Deegan Expressway, and whatever revenue they generate, as part of the deal.

Bad stadium policy meets bad parking policy and a good time is had by all.

Jeanette Sadik-Khan

Do check out my friend Dana Goldstein excellent profile of Jeanette Sadik-Khan, New York City’s masterfully innovative Transportation Commissioner, hero of transportation reformers everywhere. In my dreams, she’ll be our next Transportation Secretary. In reality, I’d hope we can at least get someone who’s familiar with her name and not just the major Interstate routes.

The New Broadway

Incidentally, for a great example of what I was talking about in the post below about choosing how to allocate space on our streets, check out Streetsblog’s photos of the makeover Broadway’s getting in New York City — fewer traffic lanes, more of everything else. That kind of treatment isn’t right for every street or for every city, but it’s the kind of thing that should be considered much more widely and at least be in the mix. It’s crazy to dedicate so many resources to car transportation that everyone goes everywhere in cars, and then throw up our hands and decide that because everyone’s driving everywhere we have no choice but to dedicate more resources to cars.

NYC is a pedestrian town. If it apportions its streets accordingly, suburban commuters will find themselves more inclined to take commuter rail into town and suburban politicians will find that agitating for better commuter rail service — rather than for more highways — is their new transportation funding priority.