[ClearCase_guy]

I hardly see NYC as a paradise. And I don’t think their recent Republican mayors have been good choices. But they haven’t has a Democrat in charge for quite a while. Now they do. I’ll check back in a few years and see if the city “improves” and rises to the level of, say, Detroit.

[Eagles6]

As I recall Bloomers was a dem until he lost a primary and registered as a an R so he could run.

[Lexinom]

New York City is a great place to live if A) you like daily interaction with people (it truly is Sesame Street writ large); B) don't mind sacrificing a little of your autonomy in exchange for conveniences like mass transit; C) are somehow titillated by the prospect of rubbing elbows with the rich and famous; and D) are at one or the other ends of the economic extremes.

When you live in a place like that, seeing representatives from every nook and cranny of humanity, you do feel the tug at your heartstrings and want to help the downtrodden in some meaningful way.

While I've lived in Brooklyn and LI and may be biased, NYC stands head and shoulders above Detroit, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. A normal person could buy a home - and cheaply - in one of those latter cesspools (I looked into it).

That they elected Republican, if not conservative, mayors who cleaned up crime and made some attempts to help businesses bought NYC some time.

That said, I knew it was just a matter of time before they returned to their socialistic roots. Their solution to the problems that plague not just their city but humanity involve very little personal activity and center entirely on notions of authority.

Your typical New Yorker is helpless, for example, face with a flat tire (if he's one of the minority who owns a car). Call the "tire guy." Everybody is trained for a specific task ala communism. There is very little Yankee ingenuity left. De Blasio's election reflects that.

It was fun while it lasted, but we can expect New York to return to the status of just about every other major northern city as a haven of indolence and gimme-ism.

[livius]

The Republican Giuliani was a great choice. Bloomberg was a “Republican” only for his first term, when he became the Republican candidate because he knew that no Dem could win. But then he switched to “Independent,” since his policies for the most part, except for policing, were not even vaguely acceptable to Republicans. So it’s not quite correct to say “recent Republican mayors.”

I think the GOP candidate in the most recent election, Lhota, would probably have been a good mayor.