Opinion: Mayoral Candidates—It’s Time for NYC’s Elite to Live for the People, Not off the People

“As the race for who will be the next mayor takes shape, the city lies at the intersection of vast private wealth and public squalor. We need to hear who among the candidates has a new vision and narrative for our city’s future.”

It was only five years ago, as COVID raged across New York City, that there was a glimmer of a new sense of community taking hold. Mutual aid groups sprang up in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. Many New Yorkers took part in a daily ritual of clanging pots to acknowledge the sacrifices of essential workers. But this spirit of community quickly faded; it was not just ephemeral but chimerical. 

Maybe it should not have been a surprise. As Adam Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker in May 2020, “Far from making us revise our fundamentals and reform our thoughts, major historical crisis, almost inevitably reinforce our previous beliefs and make us entrench deeper into our dogma.”

COVID affirmed the grip of self over community in our civic culture. In the wake of the pandemic, private wealth exploded and economic inequality grew. There are now 123 billionaires and 818 centimillionaires in our city, yet the rest of New York has struggled and experienced loss, hardship and financial insecurity. More than 2 million New Yorkers, including 420,000 children, are living in poverty and struggle to afford such basic necessities as food and housing. Of the more than 4.2 million residents who are employed, more than half earn less than $30,000. COVID affirmed and hardened our city’s already coarse culture and brought brutal economic harm. Today our city is grounded in exploitation.

As the pandemic receded, the primacy of our “blinkered” institutions—from Wall Street banks, developers, financiers, corporations and sports owners to foundations, well-endowed private universities, private hospitals, wealthy museums—and their dominance over the city’s political and social landscape grew. There were no consequences, or even expectations, that their accumulated wealth would be shared. Clearly, these institutions and their leadership have left the city bereft of a moral compass. The result: a glaring contrast in private wealth and public squalor, plagued by values where only power, self-interest, and growing wealth matters.

We need a new value proposition—for the many, not the few. Policies that move away from the donor class, ending their further enrichment. Five years into COVID, we are a city less about community and more about the individual.

As David Remnick of The New Yorker wrote, “The influence of money is hardly new.” But the grip of the monied elite—a grip they have held for decades—has tightened. The contrast of blinding wealth and public squalor has become the norm and core services are poorly and inadequately delivered. This is where we find ourselves today.

Compare it to another moment in our city’s history, when city government positioned itself to serve public needs in generous ways. Our public colleges were free and public housing was a national model, and the city built an expansive health and hospital network.

And in an earlier period in our city’s history, over 100 years ago, our past leaders, in and out of government, left us subways—opened in 1904—and the Parks Department as we know it opened in 1870, the nation’s first urban park system. Our public library system opened in 1895.

Our elders embraced the importance of public investment to leave a stronger city. Our elders not only built essential buildings and space, they embraced preventive maintenance to preserve investments, instead of subsidizing wealthy private development. Can we, as a city, be worthy custodians once again of the inheritance our past leaders left us? Will the next mayor understand our city’s history and end the begging for what the city needs, and end the ladling of billions in what the donor class wants? 

We need to end our current fixation on subsidizing shining objects, like the super-tall buildings and Hudson Yards—both playgrounds for the wealthy—and instead invest in our crumbling public infrastructure. we need a new value proposition, allocating massive public resources for public space and infrastructure needs. 

I spent more than a decade in city government, including as head of the Mayor’s Office of Operations under David Dinkins, as well as years at a major foundation, and a large non-profit organization. I’ve come to understand an arc since the 1960s, a shift in institutions from generosity to grifting, a shift in what is subsidized and who is being subsidized. A moral collapse undergirds too many of our city’s institutions and their leaders. 

Choosing to address this collapse is daunting: also, quite telling, about the city’s future. I’ve come to understand the failings of our major institutions and how they hold us back. These institutions, their lobbyists and the associated donor class, have fought hard to protect their power and wealth and erected obstacles that impair change.

We need a new governing narrative, one that emphasizes social and economic stability, forging systemic and structural changes for a fairer economy. We also need a well-managed government, where our finances are honestly presented and services are effectively delivered.

I’ve seen too many wrong turns that have hampered the city from bringing about a fair and just economy. A prime example is the delivery of basic safety net services. Staff shortages and an ossified bureaucracy have led to lengthy delays in processing food stamp applications, delays that have far exceeded the federal regulatory timeline of up to 30 days. The city has also been slow to process cash advances that can prevent evictions. These delays place increased demand on the city’s soup kitchens and food pantries that provide emergency food. Evictions can often lead to homelessness and the number of unhoused in our city has reached record numbers, including nearly 32,000 children.

Even as the number of unhoused New Yorkers has swelled, many apartments in our public housing sit vacant for months. When Mike Bloomberg left the mayor’s office, it took an average of 40 days for a vacated NYCHA apartment to be readied and reoccupied. At the end of the de Blasio administration, in the wake of COVID, it took 114 days. It now takes over a year—more than 420 days.  

The city’s efforts to provide supportive housing for people who have been chronically unhoused is also lagging. Last fiscal year, 9,600 people were deemed eligible for supportive housing, but only 2,400 were able to move into a permanent apartment.

 The city is failing not just the neediest among us. Public space and its buildings are in varying states of disrepair. Blight and squalor has become “an acceptable norm” in underserved neighborhoods. In fact, blight comes with a stiff social cost. Daily, residents are confronted with dilapidated playgrounds in our schools and public housing developments and too many of our parks are not well-maintained. And many of the city’s daycare, early childhood and senior centers, along with many of our libraries, museums, public hospitals and public housing developments need maintenance upgrades. 

Take vacant lots as one example. In fiscal year 2022, the city cleaned 1,652 of them, but by 2024 the number fell to 534. In the first four months of the current fiscal year, just 26 lots have been cleaned despite more than 1,400 requests for clean ups.  Similarly, a September 2024 City Council report found that out of 100 park bathrooms checked, two-thirds were either locked or had health or safety problems.

We need a new governing proposition, where public resources and invested in public space and infrastructure.

While deficient management can be blamed for some of these issues, a lack of funding is a major reason for the city’s tattered safety net and dilapidated public spaces. Yet the city forgoes hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue each year from the donor class—the elite institutions and individuals that call so many of the political shots at City Hall.  

Some of the wealthiest developers in the city benefit from substantial tax breaks on their properties. But as The City recently reported, that doesn’t stop them from seeking even more tax breaks for the same buildings. In one example cited, One Bryant Park, owned by the Durst Organization and Bank of America, reaped $296 million in property tax savings since 2010, yet in 2020 were granted a large reduction in the building’s assessment, saving an additional $21 million.

The billionaire owner of Madison Square Garden has an even better deal, paying no property tax for decades—a savings approaching $1 billion (in 2023 dollars), according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. Nor do the Mets, Nets or Yankees pay property taxes, saving the teams, and their wealthy owners, tens of millions of dollars annually.

Some of the wealthiest universities, museums and hospital networks also pay no property tax because they are non-profits, despite large endowments and extensive property holdings. A 2023 New York Times article by Matthew Haag and Meredith Kolodner detailed the history of the tax breaks, focusing on two major beneficiaries, Columbia and NYU. 

“The state’s tax breaks for non-profits date to 1799, long before Columbia and other higher education institution became vast enterprises with multi-million-dollar endowments,” it reads. Today, these non-profits have contributed little to the city’s property tax revenues, while amassing enormous land holdings. Salaries and benefits for their executives are approaching corporate wage packages. 

The Times article goes on to state, “In a city where land is more valuable than almost any anywhere in the nation, Columbia now owns more than 320 properties with a combined value of nearly $4 billion.” The authors continue, “But as Columbia has expanded its footprint, it has also become more of a drain on the city budget because a state law more than 200 years old that allows universities, museums and other non-profits to pay almost no property taxes. The law saves [Columbia] $182 million annually, according to an analysis by The New York Times.”

Today, as the race for who will be the next mayor takes shape, the city lies at the intersection of vast private wealth and public squalor. We need to hear who among the candidates has a new vision and narrative for our city’s future: someone who puts forward an honest assessment of where we are today and where we need to be going.

And we need to hear how values will inform choices that build toward a fairer economy and a government that focuses on what matters most in the daily lives of its residents. A vision that no longer accepts low-bar, cosmetic, expedient, half-measure changes. A vision that brings focus, discipline, decency and better results for the residents of our city. An ambitious and reimagined government that is willing to go big, and the courage to deliver change. And the strength to withstand fierce pushback from the donor class and its lobbyists when they bring their full arsenal to the table. 

Implementing changes based on such a vision would be hard in normal circumstances. But the Trump administration has assured us these are not normal times. We are already facing the threat of losing billions of dollars in federal aid for health care, housing, transportation and other critical needs. And that’s before adopting a governing vision for the city that couldn’t be more antithetical to the kleptocracy emanating from the White House. This can be more challenging if, as many economists predict, we see a recession.

Despite the threats from Washington, we need a mayor ready to commit to a major change in the relationship between the city and our local elite institutions and power players. A few antidotes to these dark times:

• To start with, we need to stop the deep subsidies to private, non-profit universities and hospitals and wealthy museums by negotiating payments in lieu of taxes from these institutions as a substitute for foregone property tax revenue. In 2024, the private hospitals and universities in the city saved $1.5 billion on property taxes, according to the Independent Budget Office. In Boston these hospitals and universities pay the equivalent of 25 percent of their forgone property tax. Likewise, the teams that play in our stadiums and arenas must also ante up and make payments in lieu of property taxes.

• We should divest from Wall Street banks and create a public bank in New York City. A broad coalition, led by New Economy Project, has been campaigning since 2018 for a public bank in New York City that would hold municipal deposits and reinvest locally:  to reclaim public money for the public good—serving the public interest, rather than to maximizing profits for shareholders and executives.
  
  Currently, New York City deposits billions of dollars in Wall Street banks—institutions notorious for exploiting low-income neighborhoods, perpetuating racial and economic disparities and fueling the climate crisis. In fact, the bulk of the city’s funds are concentrated in just three big banks—Bank of America, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase. By establishing a public bank, the city could channel its financial power toward long overdue investments in community needs.
  
  A public bank would better safeguard city deposits from federal overreach and ensure public dollars serve New Yorkers. A public bank would invest in affordable housing, small business growth, and sustainable infrastructure, often in partnership with local Community Development Financial Institutions and other responsible lenders. Divesting from Wall Street would put an end to the city subsidizing these rogue institutions. It would also put an end to this broken financial system and build something better: key to achieving transformational change in underserved neighborhoods.

• While we need to stop rampant subsidies for the city’s elite, we also need to craft honest budgets and commit to more effective management. This means being candid in projecting revenue forecasts so that resources are allocated accurately to meet core needs. It also means identifying service inefficiencies and addressing them in timely and systemic ways.
  
  Additionally, it means confronting another major institution in the city—the often sclerotic and self-interested municipal labor unions. This requires renegotiating work rules with municipal labor that are costly and sustain service provision inefficiencies. Examples of significant changes include expanding, where suitable, hybrid work schedules designed with the goal of increasing productivity, to meet agency performance targets, as well as increasing the work week to 37.5 hours, equivalent to the state’s work week. Such changes would improve productivity, reduce the work force by attrition, and help pay for future salary increases. Ending unlimited sick leave for cops, firefighters, sanitation and correction workers should also be on the table. 

These are just a few of the examples of how we can craft a robust government that delivers for those who depend on the city to thrive. Or, as Robert F. Kennedy (not junior) stated succinctly many decades ago, “The problem of power is how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.”

We can no longer continue to prop up private wealth through public subsidies. We can no longer base our fiscal decisions on austerity budgeting and our policy choices on neoliberal precepts.  We need to set an agenda that fits today’s moment, a fundamental rethinking of what kind of city we want and who the city commits to serve. We need a mayor who both embraces this vision and has the experience, courage and stamina to get it done.

Anand Giridharadas reminds us that the first Gilded Age eventually gave way to the New Deal, “…an era defined culturally by renewed public purpose and politically by the restoration of the state in areas where people are too powerless to solve problems on their own—defined by the use of shared institutions to solve shared problems.”

It’s time for a new social contract in the city, one that diminishes economic precarity. At the same time, we need an effectively managed government where the cornerstone of its work is to achieve a just city, where the principle of economic justice and fairness guides public choices.

The challenges are daunting. But it is the hand the new mayor must play at City Hall on Jan. 1, 2026.

Harvey Robins has worked in various positions in city government, non-profits, and foundations for more than 40 years. This includes: the NYC Human Resources Administration as first deputy administrator, the Board of Education as deputy chancellor for finance and administration, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Operations, the Children’s Aid Society as director of strategic planning, and the Edna McConnellClark Foundations as director of strategic planning and operations.