https://pavementpieces.com/on-the-front-line-of-the-heroin-e...
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/rockaway-beach-needles...
https://nypost.com/2021/09/25/nyc-drug-users-shoot-up-in-bro...
https://nypost.com/2021/08/07/new-records-reveal-rampant-dru...
http://bronxink.org/2019/09/19/28351-a-zone-of-neglect/
https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/these-are-nycs-poop...
I've lived in three neighborhoods for my entire life: Bloomingdale (now called "Manhattan Valley"), South Harlem, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. The only one that I regularly saw needles in was South Harlem, and that was only by one apartment where we had a guy dealing on the corner. That was a pretty unpleasant situation. I only saw needles once or twice in Bloomingdale, and I've yet to see them anywhere in my current parts of Brooklyn.
As for the poop: NYC has a big dog poop problem, which is what that article is about. I don't think anybody has ever contested that.
We have crime here. But this isn't a superhero comic; it's just not an overriding feature of life. I'm sorry if that's difficult for you to believe.
Here’s an example of me not being oblique. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31363040
I've said this in other threads: there is crime in NYC. It's a big city with a lot of people in it, and I am not pretending that it is a utopia. But it just isn't an overriding (or even pressing) feature of life here.
Then it’s an overriding and pressing feature of your life.
I've never seen drug addicts block a storefront here. The closest thing I've seen to that is someone (and I really do mean one individual) try to panhandle in a restaurant. They were kicked out.
Crime overall is up 11.2% in one year. That’s affecting a lot of people other than you. I find your dismissal of so many people’s misery to be callous at best.
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr1103/nypd-citywide-cri...
Both “stories”, as you put it, are true. In fact, I congratulated the person for building a sheltered world. I did the same for my wife and children. Nothing wrong with keeping your family out of the muck.
I have not been callous, in any ordinary sense of the word. When people are affected by crime (and indeed, they are in this city), I feel bad for them. What I have no space for is breathless accusations that my city is an unlivable hellhole, when I've seen with my own two eyes how much it's improved over the last two decades.
(If you want real callousness, read about the people who died in last year's flooding[1]. NYC has a flood control system that should have lessened the damage, but it didn't function because the city hasn't done regular street cleanings for the past two years. Why haven't they done street cleanings? Because car owners complained about having to move their cars during the pandemic.)
[1]: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-flooding-deadly-13-killed-basement-ap...
I assume that is a general statement and not based on something I said, because of course I made no such accusations.
I am however glad that you give your own two eyes credibility for reporting. Each of the articles I posted was a product of someone else’s two eyes and included pictures of what would be considered an alarming situation if one lived in those neighborhoods. Many of them are from a borough called “The Bronx”, which is north of you. It’s a big place with lots of problems, tons of amazing people, and a rich multicultural environment. You might be intrigued to visit it some time.
As far as the statistics I gave you, year over a year is obviously a much better sample then part of the year. It’s smooths out the curves. I could easily have chosen some statistics from the summer of 2020 that would make it look much worse. I did not.
Not sure why you threw in the drainage situation but I like that you did. Offhand the only city I know of that plans properly for this is Phoenix, Arizona. From what I can tell no other major city in the country comes even close to that kind of preparation.
I went to high school in the Bronx, and spent most of my adolescence walking around it (including the "scary" part, which is the South Bronx). It's not a hellhole either, "rich multicultural" dogwhistling aside.
Edit: This is going to be my last comment. I don't think you live here, which makes me think that the back-and-forth of "here's what it's like" versus "here's an eye-popping news story about a crime" isn't accomplishing much.
Where I live is a little hard to pin down because I own residences on multiple continents. I say Seattle because that’s where my farm is and I spend most of my time there.
New York City was the greatest city in the world until recently, but I’m equally interested in what’s going on in Shanghai, Beijing, and other places. But in my view it’s perfectly acceptable to talk about a place even if you haven’t lived there for a while. Or ever. I listen to lots of wonderful commentary about the USA from people in the United Kingdom, for example.
“Will” pay for itself? Spoken like someone who has never had to pay the bills to run a retail establishment.