No Deal, New York

The many problems with Maya Wiley’s $10 billion proposal  

Howard Husock May 25, 2021

New York’s mayoral candidates have advanced plenty of bad ideas, from proposed cuts to the police budget and bans on new fuel pipelines to Maya Wiley’s $10 billion “New Deal New York” plan. Past experience shows that ill-conceived ideas from fringe candidates can still exert some influence on the policies of the ultimate winner. Adopting Wiley’s plan, however—which risks New York’s economic recovery by misunderstanding how the city’s economy really works—would be a major mistake.

Wiley’s proposal borrows the New Deal’s name and cites the Works Progress Administration as its model, but it most resembles a local version of President Biden’s national infrastructure plan—and shares many of the same flaws. Financed by borrowing, the plan claims to “address the City’s critical infrastructure needs through investments that also put City residents back to work and stimulate the economy,” employing 100,000 New Yorkers in the process. No doubt investing in parks, roads, and pipes would be smarter than, say, spending money on yet more subsidized housing. But like Biden, Wiley would not only count child care as “infrastructure” but also insist that local residents do the work, in Central Harlem and the South Bronx, specifically. “Targeted hire policies are one of the most effective strategies for bringing good job opportunities to underinvested and overlooked communities and ensure that local residents receive local jobs,” the plan says...........To Read More....