A continuing push and pull over how to manage spaces that all New Yorkers use
Across the nation, fretful elected officials and the political press who follow them continue to put safety front and center. It seems like every political contest — from mayoral races in Chicago, Philadelphia, Akron and Denver to revisions of the criminal code in the country’s capital — is viewed as a litmus test on what posture to adopt.
In New York City, where at year’s end, grand larcenies and robberies were still trending upward but murders and shootings appeared to be ebbing, some of the most contested questions have been abouthow we share space and collectively manage it so everyone can thrive. “Our city’s public spaces are too important to fall through the cracks of bureaucracy,” Mayor Eric Adams said recently, as he appointed the city’s first chief public realm officer. But his approach has varied depending on what violation of collective norms he is confronting.
Adams has determined that restoring New Yorkers’ perception of safety means bringing more order to the city’s ever-dynamic public space — even when it means using force.
A Heavier Touch for People in Crisis
Adams has launched a number of high-profile initiatives to address crime, but above all seems to have determined that restoring New Yorkers’ perception of safety means bringing more order to the city’s ever-dynamic public space — even when it means using force.
No recent announcement garnered more attention than his November 2022 directive to involuntarily transport to hospitals people who appear in acute mental health crises, even if the only danger they seem to present is “an inability to meet their basic needs.” Hospitals typically discharge mentally ill patients after a few days, once their condition improves, but the city said it would direct the institutions to keep patients until there was a workable plan to connect them to ongoing care.
Adams pitched the policy as a civic responsibility to those subject to it. “If severe mental illness is causing someone to be unsheltered and a danger to themselves, we have a moral obligation to help them get the treatment that they need,” he said as he announced the initiative.
Opponents accused him of seeking to mollify voters by undercutting the rights of a stigmatized, vulnerable population. Councilmember Tiffany Cabán criticized the order, which would be carried out by police and FDNY emergency medical technicians, among others, as “deeply problematic” and underscored that health personnel should be involved, saying, “Consent is key.”
Within weeks, local mental health and disabilities advocates and civil rights organizations were also pushing back, with some observers questioning whether the policy would withstand legal challenges. Representatives of the New York City Bar Association testified to the City Council that the plan was unconstitutionally broad and would exacerbate racial bias.
That didn’t stop the city from moving ahead. By February, clinicians were being retrained on how to identify and engage with eligible people, although officials weren’t yet reporting data on the number of people they had committed.
No violation of public space seems to frustrate Adams more than vermin, but he appears to find some enjoyment in his personal crusade against the city’s furry mascot.
For Adams, the directive is of a piece with what he sees as a broader mandate to tame streets and public spaces using the state’s powers to employ force. For example, in October 2022, he and Governor Kathy Hochul launched a plan to surge more cops on subway platforms. The increased police presence, accompanied by frequent announcements of it over the trains’ public address systems, offered reassurance to some straphangers and provoked consternation in others.
Putting the Ganja Genie Back in the Bottle
The production, sale and consumption of cannabis — a realm where in recent years the city has significantly lightened its touch — has become something of a free-for-all, as red tape slows the emergence of a legalized industry. Just three licensed dispensaries had opened as of mid-March 2023, and unregulated operators thrive in their absence. A broad spectrum of city officials celebrated steps to further decriminalize marijuana under federal law, but they’ve had to find a finer balance with upward of 1,000 unlicensed shops, which reporters have shown are flourishing like, well, weeds. Vital City’s Josh Greenman toured the shops of Park Slope and found products priced to undercut their legal peers.
When it comes to marijuana, few want to see a return to the tactics of the war on drugs, so shutting down the illegal operators takes finesse. In February 2023, the city’s Law Department filed a handful of nuisance abatement cases against dispensaries in the East Village, though seemingly with little immediate effect on their operation. And Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Adams announced an initiative to crack down on landlords who harbor such businesses.
Clearing a path for more legal dispensaries to get to market could have impacts beyond the oversight of marijuana. Among the first 36 organizations awarded licenses were the nonprofits LIFE Camp, whose mission is to provide positive alternatives to violence for its staff and clients, and the Center for Community Alternatives, which offers alternative-to-incarceration services in Syracuse.
Rat Race
No violation of public space seems to frustrate Adams more than vermin, but he appears to find some enjoyment in his personal crusade against the city’s furry mascot.
“I hate rats,” he tweeted. Then, for emphasis: “There’s NOTHING I hate more than rats.” Also: “I’m not the weird one for hating rats.” He got personally involved in publicizing the Sanitation Department’s open position of rat czar (his cheerleading may have helped — there were reportedly 900 applicants).
He has also insisted on representing himself in the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings in a dispute over an infestation at a rental property he owns. After describing countermeasures he had taken, he beat one summons but was fined $300 for another.
In a recent flare-up over another kind of civic space, Adams released a budget proposal with more than $13 million cut from the city’s libraries and larger cuts in years to come.
Relatedly, city leaders are embroiled in a debate over what to do about outdoor dining, the lifeline thrown to restaurants mid-pandemic that, fairly or unfairly, has been blamed for a “Malthusian” surge in the rat population. But experts point out that surging 311 complaints about rats have been due to residential infestations, which aren’t likely related to whether people dine inside or out and which they say the city has never made sufficient effort to mitigate.
More Than Funny Square Objects
In a recent flare-up over another kind of civic space, Adams released a budget proposal with more than $13 million cut from the city’s libraries and larger cuts in years to come — significant enough that library leaders said they might “push us over the edge.” Always more than book lenders, libraries today are effectively classrooms and community centers, and on the front line of our collective crises of opioid overdose deaths and of homelessness.
NYU sociology professor Eric Klinenberg, who recently authored a book on “social infrastructure,” has called the cuts “shortsighted” and “destructive” and questioned the mayor’s priorities. Other detractors have seized on the obvious contrast between this and the NYPD’s rising spending, including an estimated $820 million in overtime this year. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who once served on the board of the Queens Public Library and just last August was touting an increase in library budgets, said she saw the city’s needs differently and wouldn’t be backing down. “The Council has a different vision for our city,” she said. “We’re prepared to fight.”