Tag: New York City

Is the Devil in the Density?

Intensification of the Covid-19 pandemic prompted politicians from all over the country to proclaim the obvious– the districts they represent are not New York. Usually, the denial was issued to justify weak social-distancing policies or moves to “reopen” their economies.

Kay Ivey, Governor of Alabama, defending her resistance to a statewide stay-at-home order, said “We’re not New York. We’re not even Louisiana.” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem defended her policies with “South Dakota is not New York City.” California’s Gavin Newsome observed, “We’re not New York…there are very different conditions in the state of California.”

Even New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy felt compelled to note that his state is not New York–it’s worse! Murphy: “You know, we’re not New York. Somebody reminded me yesterday that if you drove from New York City to the Canadian border, it’s a 10-hour drive. It’s hard to get more than a three-hour drive in New Jersey.”

Sometimes the not-New-York disclaimer has a moralistic tinge or political edge, but more often it seems to be an allusion to New York’s assumed higher risk profile, and more specifically, to its greater population density. Vita G., a beachgoer in Florida, observed “I think we’re doing the right thing and we’re not high risk. We’re not New York.” Matt Tompter, a brewer and restauranteur in Anchorage, offered “We’re not New York City….the reason Alaska is able to open right now is we are naturally socially distanced.” David Morgan, Sheriff of Escambia County, Florida, was even more explicit. “We’re not New York City. We don’t have the density of population they have there.” Even New York’s Governor Cuomo bought into the density argument: “Why New York? Why are we seeing this level of infection? It’s very simple: It’s about density.”

From Governors on down, people in other parts of the country seem to think that because their home states or towns have a lower population density than New York City, their risk of a coronavirus outbreak is lower. Is that so? And does the new age of pandemic abruptly end the era of Superstar Cities?

The initial outbreak of the pandemic, with its epicenter in New York City, certainly triggered an early rush to blame density as a principal risk factor. In March, The New York Times ran an article entitled “Density is New York City’s Big ‘Enemy’ in the Coronavirus Fight.” Joel Kotkin, in the Los Angeles Times, wrote “…employment and housing patterns and transit modes appear to be very significant, if not decisive, factors” behind the differing coronavirus death rates in LA and NYC, contending that the pandemic vindicates LA’s sprawl. In USA Today, Glenn Harlan Reynolds simply concluded that “density kills.”

Continue reading “Is the Devil in the Density?”

Time for an SUV Tax

There is no question that New York City is not viable as we know it without its mass transit system, so the snowballing problems of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should be of concern to everyone who lives or works in the city, whether or not they are regular users of the system.

Increased funding for NYC Transit (the subsidiary of the MTA that operates the subways and buses within NYC) may not be a sufficient step for improving the system but it is certainly a necessary one. Finding additional funding in an already heavily taxed city will not be easy, however, and already the Governor and Mayor are at war over whose responsibility it is. In addition to each arguing that the other already has money in their budget that can be used to help, Mayor de Blasio has proposed an income tax surcharge on tax filers earning in excess of $500,000, while Governor Cuomo is considering some version of the congestion pricing system originally proposed by Mayor Bloomberg.

When Bloomberg made his push for congestion pricing in 2007, I was working as the Chief Economist for New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson.  The Comptroller is an independently elected citywide official who frequently serves as the chief antagonist of the Mayor, and at that time Bloomberg was maneuvering to have the city’s term limits waived so he could run for a third term. Thompson, who was planning to run for Mayor in 2009 all along and now faced the prospect of opposing Bloomberg, was casting about for an alternative to Bloomberg’s proposal. As it happened, I already had drawn up an alternative as a think piece and Thompson was intrigued.  He eventually adopted it as the position of the Comptroller and as a plank in his 2009 and 2013 Mayoral campaigns.

Before describing my proposal I should note that residents of New York’s “outer boroughs” have a deep-seated suspicion of schemes to restrict access to Midtown Manhattan, whether they be in the form of tolls on the East River bridges or the more high-tech congestion pricing plan Bloomberg sought. I share their suspicion. There is, of course, a distributional effect, as a congestion pricing regime would disproportionately charge residents of the outer boroughs in order to improve a subway system that disproportionately serves Manhattan residents. But I think outer borough residents have a more visceral objection as well. Many of them work in Manhattan, study in Manhattan, play in Manhattan, and have family roots in Manhattan. They see Manhattan as the city’s commons, not as a separate borough to which its increasingly wealthy residents should have privileged access. It’s that possessiveness that all New York residents feel toward Manhattan that underlies their hostility to bridge tolls and congestion pricing. It was ultimately outer borough opposition that sunk Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal, and that Thompson was seeking to appease.

The proposal I devised for Thompson would impose a registration tax on motor vehicles registered in the five boroughs according to the curb weight of the vehicle. Thompson modified the proposal only by expanding it to all 12 counties of New York’s metropolitan commuter transportation district. Passenger vehicle registration fees in New York State average only about $20 per year and neither the State nor City imposes a personal property tax on vehicles as many states do. As proposed, a vehicle weighing up to 2,300 pounds (think Toyota Yaris) would pay an annual registration fee of $100, and the fee would increase by $.09 per pound above that weight, bringing the annual registration fee for, say, a Lincoln Navigator SUV to about $430.  The registration tax could generate about $350 million annually just from the 2 million automobiles and trucks registered in the city.  The revenue generated could be adjusted, of course, by adjusting the weight formula.  More precise estimates of the revenue could be made beforehand using data on the makes and models of vehicles registered, which we did not have access to at the time.

Continue reading “Time for an SUV Tax”