The Democrats' poorly run cities

 Douglas Murray:

As we draw closer to polling day, there is really only one question anyone needs to have in their head. Are things better or worse than when America last went to the polls?

The problem is that you can answer that differently state by state. A lot of people who fled California in the last couple of years, for instance, can say that their lives have improved by moving to Tennessee, Florida or Texas.

So let me narrow the question down a bit. Can anybody in any Democratic-run city honestly say that their lives — and city — have improved over the last couple of years?

That’s a slightly easier question. As New Yorkers go to the polls it is also a slightly devastating one to ask. Because it has a devastating answer.

I dare even the most die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool Democrat to say, “Oh, New York has never been better. In fact, it’s just getting better and better.” Does anyone really believe that? Is there a single person out there who can really say that with a straight face? As they survey the crime in our city, the homelessness, the waste and rats. And I’m not even talking about the incumbents of City Hall. Does anyone think that this great city has become greater in the last two years?

The stats in New York speak for themselves. Ignore the nightmare year of 2020, and just look at the increase in crime during the last year. Between July 2021 and July 2022 shooting incidents in New York increased by almost 14%. The number of murders increased by almost 35%.

Of course, most of us are lucky enough not to get shot. So it’s easy for some people to be lax in their judgments. But the same figures exist in almost every other area of crime. A 41% increase in grand larceny. A 37% increase in robberies. A 26% rise in burglaries. All just in the course of a year.

Though it’s not as if you need the statistics to tell you that. Walk almost anywhere in our city and you can see it for yourselves. There is the homelessness, the people shooting up in the street, the clearly insane people shouting around on the streets. Of course, it’s worse in the outer boroughs. But it is just as clear in the center of the city, too. A couple of weeks ago I was proudly showing some out-of-towners the delights of Midtown when we walked out of the building to find a homeless man shooting up in the street with a needle and then howling down the street as mothers and children hurried by.

Democrats pretend that this is a nationwide problem. But it isn’t. It’s a Democratic-run city problem. Occasionally Democrats like to play a nasty little game on this serious issue. They pretend, for instance, that crime stats like those to do with shootings are the same in red states and blue states. What they fail to note is that it is blue cities that are the problem. Even if they are in red states.

For instance, if you go down to Austin, Texas, you will find a city that is booming, for sure. But you will also find all of the same problems you find in New York. You will see all the same homelessness, the drug addiction, violence and lawlessness.

That is what is so strange about the experiment that Gavin Newsom and other Democrats have played on this country in recent years. It doesn’t matter whether it is San Francisco, New York, Austin or indeed the nation’s capital. Look at the state of Washington, DC, these days, with its homeless encampments greeting you from the moment you leave Union Station. You don’t have to wonder about the politics of the people who run this city. Of course, the Council of the District of Columbia is Democratic-majority. Because they have the same problems that every other Democratic city has.
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Democrats handling of crime and homelessness really sucks.  They put in place policies that make it impossible for the police to do their jobs.