Scenes from an urban hellscape

September 1, 2020

New York is looking pretty cheerful these days.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

Full disclosure: I’m one of those privileged New Yorkers who decamped to the suburbs during the worst of the pandemic. But I’ve been back in the city lately, and over the past few days I’ve been doing a lot of walking around.

All that walking, by the way, is normal. One of the seeming paradoxes of modern America is that urban life typically involves much more physical activity than life in suburbs or small towns. The population density of my neighborhood is about 60,000 per square mile, which means that parking is very scarce but a lot of things are in easy walking distance. So it’s generally just more convenient to get around on your own two feet than to use a car.

Anyway, my perambulations have given me a good view of life in the biggest of those “Democrat-run cities” President Trump insists have become dystopian hellscapes. Well, you could have fooled me.

The truth is that at the moment New York City looks pretty cheerful. There are many people out and about. Most stores are open, albeit with social distancing rules. Many restaurants have expanded onto sidewalks and into former parking lanes to provide outdoor seating. The parks are full of joggers and cyclists — in fact, I too have gone back to jogging in the park (yes, wearing a mask; it’s not so bad, really).

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True, I live in an affluent neighborhood that even pre-Covid felt fairly European. But I’ve been in other parts of New York a bit, and have heard a lot from friends around the city; they share my impression of a city that has pulled itself back together much better than you might think if you listened to the politicians.

And the city feels safe. Nor is that an illusion. True, there have been more murders in New York this year than over the corresponding period last year; homicides have risen all across the country during the pandemic, and nobody is sure why. But overall violent crime is down, and even the 2020 homicide rate is still well below what it was under … Rudy Giuliani.

Meanwhile, if you’re worried about Covid-19, at this point New York is one of the safest places in America. Almost everyone is wearing a mask. Daily deaths are in the low single digits, which even adjusting for population makes NYC an order of magnitude safer than, say, Florida.

So is everything fine in the Big Apple? No, of course not. The city’s economy is reeling, and both the state budget and the city’s finances are in desperate straits. Mass transit, the city’s lifeblood, is still a shadow of its former self; no, I have yet to ride the subway. The proliferation of sidewalk cafes will be tested when the weather gets colder. And many amenities, like live concerts and cheerful pubs, remain off limits; I don’t know when we’ll be able to return to what you might call the Urban Lifestyle Dream.

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The point, however, is that the reality of New York bears no resemblance to the nightmare vision peddled by Republicans. So the question becomes, who are you going to believe: Trump or your lying eyes?

I wish I was sure about the answer to that question. I’ve been shocked by discussions with well-educated people who haven’t been to New York lately and who actually believe that the city has been devastated by mobs of violent looters. So maybe Trump really can sell voters on the notion that this resilient city is actually a lawless nightmare.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go out for a sidewalk coffee and pastry.

Quick Hits

How much looting actually took place in New York?

New York has a very low positivity rate — that is, fraction of Covid-19 tests finding the virus. Florida is more than ten times worse.

But can the city really reopen schools?

President to NYC: drop dead.

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