NY Mag-
In 2013, you ran on reducing income inequality. Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools?
What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.
I’ll give you an example. I was down one day on Varick Street, somewhere close to Canal, and there was a big sign out front of a new condo saying, “Units start at $2 million.” And that just drives people stark raving mad in this city, because that kind of development is clearly not for everyday people. It’s almost like it’s being flaunted. Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They’d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.
!snip!
This is communism being discussed in the wide open.
The strength of private property rights is the whole shebang in America. De Blasio hates it.
It used to be that thoughts like his were alien in America – only the uber rich and crazy dabbler in politics wanted life to mirror Animal Farm run by big brother.
Thomas Jefferson suggested (and I paraphrase liberally) that we need only enough government to make us slightly uncomfortable. Individuality suffers and originality ends in tyranny.
So, de Blowio IS reducing income equality…by making everyone “equally” poorer. Devil’s in the details, after all…!
Duh Lousy-O
In the face of all evidence idiots like him still persist in they’re marxist fantasies. You’d think they’d be drawn to immigrate to one of the countries they find so alluring. It appears they would rather labor away forcing it on all others. May they rot in hell.
Actually, what stands in the way of that is this thing we call the Constitution.
not for everyday people
Well, tampon sales aren’t for half the population, yet the other half isn’t exactly stark raving mad.
Stamp collecting probably applies to maybe 5% of the population, yet their advertisements to 100% of people don’t make the other 95% stark raving mad.
Things that aren’t for everyone don’t make people stark raving mad.
MORE people would be stark raving mad if advertisements for tampons, stamps, and $2 million dwellings did NOT exist. Because there would be no OPPORTUNITY to do these things.
@Organgrinder, they don’t move to Valenzuela, etc., because there they would be one of the masses but if they gain their idea of utopia here they would be one of their elite and not subject to the mediocrity they wish for the rest of us!
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
— Karl Marx, founder of modern Socialism
Hey deBlasio, if that’s the world you’d love to see, head on down to Venezuela, or Russia, or Cuba. Better yet, move there, enjoy your communist paradise, and leave the rest of us alone.
Reducing the majority down to the lowest level of Suck makes it easier for the Elites to spread the remaining wealth among themselves.
I wonder how many pieces of NY property he or his family own.
If De Blasio succeeded in his vision, even he would move out of New York because it would be a hell hole. That’s how these hypocrites roll.
“From each according to his ability, to the Mayor according to his need.”
FIFY, Karl.
The Mayor is a turd.