Mayor Michael Bloomberg: The Limits of Power

By Lynne A. Weikart

In Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lynne A. Weikart dives into the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg, offering an incisive analysis of Bloomberg's policies during his 2002–2014 tenure as mayor of New York and highlighting his impact on New York City politics.

Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York just four months after the 9/11 terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center and he lead the rebuilding of a physically and emotionally devastated city so well that within two years, the city had budget surpluses. Weikart reveals how state and federal governments constrained Bloomberg's efforts to set municipal policy and implement his strategic goals in the areas of homelessness, low-income housing, poverty, education, and crime. External powers of state and federal governments are strong currents and Bloomberg's navigation of these currents often determined the outcome of his efforts.

Weikart evaluates Michael Bloomberg's mayoral successes and failures in the face of various challenges: externally, the constraints of state government, and mandates imposed by federal and state courts; and, internally, the impasse between labor unions and Bloomberg. Weikart identifies and explores both the self-created restrictions of Mayor Bloomberg's own management style and the courage of Mike Bloomberg's leadership.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781501756382

Book preview

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

The Limits of Power

Lynne A. Weikart

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

For Nyah and Grace

City government cannot end a national recession—nor can we control the business cycle, but we can shape our own destiny, and we have.

Bloomberg, State of the City, 2011

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Bloomberg’s Place in Urban Theory and in the City’s History

2. Setting the Tone

3. Creating Long-Term Fiscal Health

4. Growing the City and Protecting the Environment

5. The Staggering Growth in Homelessness

6. The Lack of Low-Income Housing

7. Antipoverty Initiatives

8. Successes and Failures in Education Reform

9. Crime and Punishment

Conclusion

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Preface

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: The Limits of Power is filled with facts, but the facts merely illuminate and delineate the power struggle every New York City mayor faces. New York City mayors are blamed for the horrible condition of the subways, for spending too much on city employee pensions, for spending federal funds on shelters instead of permanent housing, and for a host of other failures, whether or not these mayors have the authority or control to effectuate solutions. It is a public authority reporting to the governor that controls the subways, the New York State legislature and governor often approve pension hikes, and the US government long ago froze the use of federal money to build more public housing units. Every mayor responds differently to the fragmented and limited nature of the city’s mayoral power. Edward Koch accepted the external controls scripted by the New York State Emergency Financial Control Board in the late 1970s and 1980s. David Dinkins became lost in a difficult financial crisis. Rudolph Giuliani took control of what was available and ignored those areas over which he had little control. Michael Bloomberg took a different tack, and that is what this book is about.

Michael Bloomberg, with no experience in government, would not know when he started governing just how limited his authority was. When he found out, he took control where he could, created a close relationship with Governor George Pataki to achieve his goals, and organized other New York State mayors to achieve statewide goals when possible. When he lost (and sometimes he lost big), he went on to the next goal and did not look back. Bloomberg remained strategic regardless of the obstacles he faced. He was comfortable in the private sector and sought to encourage public-private partnerships throughout city government. He sought to hire very good people and supported them when they were challenged. Sometimes his determination to protect his people led to mistakes, as when he defended their poor decisions. This became a serious problem when he failed to stop the loss of low-income housing units in the city and would not listen to those who advocated changes in policy. He invested heavily in improving the education system, but chose a chancellor who had little experience in education and Bloomberg refused to listen to those who were critical of his methods.

Two terms were not enough for Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg wrestled the city council to agree to allow a third term, creating an exception to the NYC term limit law (McNickle 2017, 258). He was voted in, but by his third term he was no longer seen as bringing people together; he took on the labor unions and insisted on cuts in pensions and health benefits—positions that made the unions furious. At the same time, he alienated many city residents who were increasingly worried over ever rising housing costs. Bloomberg failed to adequately address the rising costs of housing and the accompanying increase in the homeless population, as his economic development plans built thousands of new luxury apartment units across the five boroughs. While he struggled with these issues, New York State pulled the rug out from under Bloomberg by refusing to fund the city’s Advantage Program, which placed the homeless into permanent housing. The federal government reduced funding to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) every year, and the number of federal Section 8 vouchers for more permanent housing was reduced drastically (Bach and Waters 2014). Residents blamed the mayor; it was easier to do that than to look to Albany and Washington, DC, for answers that were not forthcoming. In his last term, Bloomberg lost even more support as he stubbornly clung to his notorious stop-and-frisk police policy.

Yet many city residents look back fondly on the Bloomberg years as an era of competency and stability. Bloomberg was at his best under the pressure of rebuilding the city after the terrorist attack of 9/11, when the media predicted the demise of the city. He became the leader of a revitalized city as he planned and implemented large building projects throughout the five boroughs. In his first term, he brought people together. He was instrumental in resolving issues at the World Trade Center site (Ground Zero). He defended immigrants. He was the first politician to take a stand against bigotry during the uproar over an Islamic cultural center to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero. The remarks he made then remain among the most important of his career; he asserted that if the city said no to the mosque, we would undercut the values and principle that so many heroes died protecting.… And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam.… Today we are not at war with Islam—we are at war with al-Qaeda and other extremists who hate freedom (Bloomberg 2010a). Certainly this was one of Bloomberg’s finest moments.

He did so much more. He tackled the environment, creating acres of public plazas, new parkland, 350 miles of bike lanes, planted a million trees (Bloomberg n.d.-a); built a booming job market; ensured that New Yorkers could at last enjoy the waterfront; created linkages between high schools, colleges, and high-tech corporations; and, in particular, developed a technology sector that now competes with those of Boston and Silicon Valley. He insisted on data-driven decision making and experimented with programs to systematically eliminate poverty. He did not reduce poverty, but he redefined it, proving that poverty rates were higher than the country wanted to admit. He succeeded in keeping poverty rates steady—even during the 2008 recession, when poverty rates rose nationally. The city opened more shelters, and fewer homeless people slept on sidewalks. He dramatically improved the public’s health: city residents literally live longer because of Bloomberg’s public health policies (Farley 2015). At times, Bloomberg’s mistakes may have overshadowed his accomplishments as residents struggled to find affordable housing. Yet, many New Yorkers remain grateful for his success in leading the city’s economic growth and the recovery from the devastation of 9/11, the 2008 recession, and Hurricane Sandy.

Acknowledgments

I have received wonderful advice and guidance from so many people. I am grateful for a wonderful team at Cornell University Press and Westchester Publishing Services: Michael McGandy, Senior Editor and Editorial Director of Three Hills; Clare Jones, Acquisitions; Mary Kate Murphy, Production Editor; Ange Romeo-Hall, Director of Manuscript Editing; and Brock E. Schnoke, Marketing Assistant. I am particularly indebted to Mary Gendron, Production Editor at Westchester Publishing Services, for her guidance, and Kate Mertes for indexing the book. I would like to thank Lilliam Barrios-Paoli; Nicholas Bloom, Greg Chan, Daniel Feldman, Paula L. Fleming of Fleming Editorial Services; Lizabeth Gewirtzman, Nancy Kolben, Mark Levitan, Eric Nadelstern, Wilbur C. Rich, and Samuel Stein. I benefited immeasurably from insights of my colleagues at the Marxe School of Public Affairs, Baruch College. I am indebted to Charles Blake in the Department of Political Science, James Madison University, for his encouragement, and am especially grateful to my colleagues at James Madison University, who have made my time there so welcoming. I would like to thank the two professors at Columbia University who supported my doctoral studies so many years ago: Dall Forsythe and Donna Shalala. Most of all, I would like to thank my good friend, Laura Gentile, Esq., without whom this book would have never been written.

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION

External and Internal Limitations on Mayoral Power

Though we must start by rebuilding lower Manhattan, that’s only a start. We must stimulate economic growth across the city. We must modernize the management of government. We must renew our waterfront. And, we must reform our school system. And, we must be ever-vigilant to make sure New York continues to be the safest large city in the nation.

—Michael R. Bloomberg, State of the City Address, 2002a

Every city in the United States has state-established legal boundaries—as well as state-established geographic boundaries—that circumscribe its powers.

—Frug and Barron, 2008

Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Rudolph Giuliani as mayor of New York City in 2002, four months after the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. New Yorkers elected this newcomer, who had no experience in governing, to lead the city at a time of great peril. Bloomberg, a billionaire who ran on the Republican Party ticket, was elected over the seasoned liberal Democratic Party candidate, Mark Green, the city’s public advocate. Bloomberg campaigned on a plan to revive the city after the traumatic consequences of 9/11 by implementing a strong economic development agenda, modernizing government, and keeping the city safe. He received crucial endorsements from both Democrats and Republicans, including former mayors Giuliani and Ed Koch and Governor George Pataki. He spent over $50 million to defeat Green in 2001, even though Democrats enjoyed a five-to-one advantage in the city (Hicks 2005). Mayor Bloomberg financed his own campaign and took office without financial or political debt. New Yorkers voted for someone who represented the establishment because, after 9/11, the New York electorate was playing it safe.

In Bloomberg’s first State of the City Address, the new mayor laid out his agenda to restore New York City to its premier world-class status, an agenda he faithfully pursued and often successfully executed over the next twelve years and three terms. In response to the devastation of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the mayor worked hard to rebuild his city by fulfilling the goals he outlined in that address. Bloomberg leveraged his political role with his background as a businessman to aid in rebuilding Ground Zero; he revitalized the city’s economic engine through a multitude of large-scale building projects from the Bronx to Brooklyn; he envisioned and created a booming technology sector, which grew by over 18 percent from 2004 to 2014 (NYC International Business 2014), he rebuilt the waterfront; he kept crime at bay, he renewed the city’s once shining role as the Big Apple and a tourist destination; he created the 311 call center and used the data collected to resolve New Yorkers’ complaints; and, most of all, he restored confidence that the city could still thrive after 9/11. Bloomberg gained national recognition for some of his accomplishments, such as a ban on smoking in restaurants, advocating mandatory sentences for those who carried illegal guns, a ban on trans fats in restaurant cooking, energy-efficiency rules for building owners, and a powerful commitment to sweeping environmental protections. His proposal for congestion pricing for automobiles driving into Lower Manhattan, much derided when he proposed it in 2008, was approved in the fiscal year 2019 New York State legislative session (Norimine 2019).

Bloomberg operated from two principles. The first was data-driven policymaking. He credited his success as the product of policy decisions based on data carefully collected and analyzed. A corollary to the first principle was his insistence that decision making can be objective and ideologically neutral. Bloomberg’s commitment to a scientific approach to decision making is rare in the history of urban management. Bloomberg’s second operating principle was an emphasis on economic growth The mayor fully welcomed, planned for, and expected the city to grow by a million people within a decade. He was determined that he would not be a caretaker mayor and would not watch the city further deteriorate after the 9/11 attack. At the same time, Bloomberg was challenged and limited by the boundaries of municipal power imposed by the external constraints of state government and the limits imposed by federal and state courts. He was also limited by his own shortcomings.

Unlike earlier mayors, Bloomberg opened all five boroughs to development by rezoning 40 percent of the city for mixed use and inviting developers to build both residential buildings and commercial settings (Doctoroff 2017, 75). Construction took off, and he turned his attention to city government to make it work as effectively and efficiently as possible to support this economic activity, including raising taxes to support government activity. He was impeded at times by his own management style of not holding managers accountable and not recognizing when their strategies were inadequate. Unfortunately, he did not anticipate all the consequences of economic growth. He responded tepidly to the spread of homelessness as a result of rising rental costs, and he ignored racial issues around stop-and-frisk police policies. Not dependent upon any interest groups for his reelection, Bloomberg did not accept outside advice as resistance grew.

This book examines the effect federal and state policies had on Bloomberg’s decision making in his major policies—pro-growth strategies, homelessness, housing, poverty, criminal justice, and education—within a political context of power constraints imposed by these higher authorities. In each of these arenas Bloomberg developed strategies for improvement but did not always succeed. He established a superior record in stabilizing the finances of the city, in environmental policies, and in public health, but did not broaden his successes into other key areas. This book explores these issues and explains urban decision making by accounting for the constraints on municipal power as well as Bloomberg’s leadership limits.

Mayoral Power Impeded by Federal and State Government

The first issue is that Bloomberg sometimes was impeded by federal and state government policies. Bloomberg faced powerful forces aligned against his agenda. The state rejected his bid for a sports stadium on the West Side of Manhattan. The state rejected his plan for congestion pricing (charging high fees for automobiles in certain parts of Manhattan). The state rejected his attempt to use state dollars to subsidize apartments for homeless people. The state recalibrated state education tests to make them harder, wiping out all the gains that the city had seen in annual state educational testing. The state even refused to increase the number of cameras on city streets (see chapters 4 and 8). The list of state rejections is quite long, but these never slowed Bloomberg’s ambitions or efforts.

Bloomberg responded in part by organizing, collaborating, networking, and strategizing. In the midst of the 2008 recession, he organized upstate mayors to pressure the New York State legislature to reduce future pension costs and they won (NYC Office of the Mayor 2012b). When Bloomberg wanted to increase taxes that required state approval, he lost; undeterred, he carefully crafted a strong relationship with Governor Pataki, who, time and again, provided support for Bloomberg’s budget. When Bloomberg was shut out of any meaningful role in rebuilding the World Trade Center by the state, he quietly pressured state officials to name him chair of the Memorial Foundation (Sagalyn 2016, 351). The families of those who died were in turmoil over how the memorial would be structured, and building could not continue until that turmoil was resolved; Bloomberg undertook countless meetings with the families. Lynne Sagalyn, who wrote an in-depth book on the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, has said of Bloomberg, The depth of his knowledge and respectful consideration of the issue, in concert with his personal influence and political power, resolved the issue (2016, 351). He sought to manage state interference and often succeeded. The role of such outside forces has long been underappreciated by those analyzing urban politics.

Mayor Bloomberg failed to solve one of the most pressing issues facing the city—the lack of low-income housing. Even though 165,000 affordable housing units were built during his twelve years as mayor, he still ended his mayoralty with less affordable income housing than when he started (Bach and Waters 2013). A significant part of the fault lay with the federal government, which stopped supporting the building of low-income housing. Unlike an earlier era, in which the federal government, beginning with President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45) and Senator Robert F. Wagner (1927–49), built or financed thousands of low-income housing units throughout the nation, since the administration of President Ronald Reagan the federal government had refused to contribute to new public housing units and persistently reduced its financial commitment to those units that remained despite the growing crisis of homelessness (Lusignan 2002, 36; Bloom 2008, 35). The federal government ended that powerful assistance when Reagan convinced a vast number of Americans that government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem (Reagan 1981). Traditional public functions were turned over to the private sector, which had (and has) little interest in low-income housing. Indeed, federal law (the Faircloth Amendment in 1999) capped the number of public housing units that could be built using federal funds, and this reflected the extreme abandonment in the building of public housing by the federal government since the 1980s (US HUD 2016b). Likewise, for years New York State refused to provide needed funds for more supportive housing, stopped funding the city’s public housing completely, and until 2019 insisted on vacancy decontrol in the rental housing market while failing its responsibility to enforce existing rent control laws (Bloom 2008, 251).¹

The rise in homelessness is closely related to the loss of low-income housing units. The mayor was condemned by housing advocates because he ended the policies of providing permanent apartments to the homeless through increasing numbers of federal Section 8 vouchers and public housing. But Section 8 vouchers were cut by the federal government. The mayor faced two serious recessions, in 2002 and 2008, in which he witnessed constant state and federal cuts. It is unrealistic to expect that Bloomberg could commit to increased funding of low-income housing units without the help of the federal and state governments. He was further condemned for eliminating his two programs—Housing Stability Plus and the Advantage Program—that had been created to take the place of federal Section 8 vouchers, but the state had withdrawn all state funds for those programs. And when the state funds were withdrawn, so were the federal funds (Secret 2011). In addition, Bloomberg was criticized for not moving more of the homeless population into New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing, which already had a lengthy waiting list (NYCHA 2019). It is time to acknowledge the destructive role of federal and state governments in failing to address the profound need for low-income housing for poor people in all of our cities. It is time for critics and organizers to focus attention on federal and state actors for solutions. The state played a major role in education that Bloomberg could not control. State test scores increased from 2002 to 2010 and then abruptly declined because the state had decided that the tests were too easy and changed the test norms. Throughout the state, scores plummeted (Haimson and Ravitch 2013). Bloomberg, who had bet the farm on increasing test scores, was defeated. Once again, the state reigned.

The Limits of Bloomberg’s Management Style

The second issue is that Bloomberg had a management problem. He did not know when to tell his key people no. For example, when his deputy mayor for economic development, Daniel Doctoroff, spent almost all of his time on vast economic development projects with little low-income housing, Bloomberg failed to rein him in. When Doctoroff ignored NYCHA housing deterioration, Bloomberg did not redirect him. When the Department of Homeless Services told religious organizations that they were no longer qualified to house the homeless, Bloomberg did not step in. When the Human Resources Administration threw welfare recipients off of its rolls and then lost most of the administrative hearings concerning these actions, he did not stop it. The mayor’s tendency to back his people remained flawed throughout his mayoralty and cost him both goodwill and good governance (Sadik-Khan, quoted in Holeywell 2013).

Building Coalitions

The third issue is Bloomberg’s focus on a strong partnership with the private sector, sometimes blinding him to the potential of other coalition partners to achieve his goals. He established an environmental coalition, an antipoverty coalition and a public health coalition, all of which were quite successful in implementing innovative public policies. But he did not create an expansive housing coalition to seriously examine and develop a plan for low-income housing. The housing plan Bloomberg did develop favored real estate developers, ignored disappearing affordable-income rentals, glossed over the crucial distinction between affordable housing and low-income housing, and failed to integrate low-income housing possibilities that many policy analysts advocated. Bloomberg’s lack of focus on NYCHA, the city’s largest landlord of low-income housing, left NYCHA’s problems on the periphery. His dearth of any emphasis on saving rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments perpetuated a continued loss of those apartments to market forces, and his rezoning efforts often ignored the critical need of low-income housing. Action on these fronts would not have eliminated the problem, but it would have ameliorated it.

Bloomberg faced similar limits in other public policy areas. In education he has been castigated for centralizing decision making under his own power and ignoring the petitions of parents. Yet the previous decentralization structure, with a board separate and almost immune to the mayor, had been a disaster for the city’s school system. Bloomberg was the first mayor in the city’s history to take responsibility for the school system rather than let it drift along as a major patronage mill for elected officials and interest groups, and in so doing exhibited more courage than any other New York City mayor in this area. He succeeded in improving graduation rates and improving student attendance (Bloomberg 2007b). He succeeded in improving the quality of the teaching force and limiting teacher attrition (Kelleher 2014, 42). He was the first New York City mayor to extend the school day and begin the school year earlier (Bloomberg 2005c). He succeeded in giving more power to principals, so that principals could choose their assistant principals and no longer had to choose the most senior teacher but could choose someone based on merit. Bloomberg wisely expanded the number of career and technical high schools. And, probably most important, he succeeded in paying educators a competitive wage so that fewer skilled teachers left for the more attractive salaries of the suburbs (Bloomberg 2005c). Yet he did not build a coalition with educators; he disdained educators and sought hires outside the world of education. He alienated teachers with his insistence on unreasonable accountability and supported using precious tax dollars for charter schools that had no accountability (see chapter 8).

Bloomberg’s Mixed Record on Race

There is a fourth issue that is less measurable but no less important, and it is an underappreciated but critical component in the successful delivery of the city’s public services: the effect of race. Bloomberg unflinchingly faced issues of race in his first term. As regards race matters, he was certainly far more successful in his first term than he was in his latter two terms, and part of his early success was in ameliorating the bitter and divisive aftermath from the Giuliani administration (1994–2002).

At the heart of Giuliani’s law enforcement policy, in case after case, was a lack of accountability for police misconduct. The most powerful example of his clash with people of color is a scary event that occurred before Giuliani even became mayor but set the tone for what was to come in his administration. In September 1992, ten thousand off-duty police officers marched on City Hall, blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. The police were angry that African American mayor David Dinkins had proposed removing police representatives from the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Uniformed police officers stood aside as the throng of off-duty police stormed City Hall, shouting Dinkins must go! Giuliani addressed the unruly crowd, and instead of calming the angry mob, he shouted out that Dinkins’s policies were bullshit. The police chanted Rudy, Rudy, Rudy (Ackerman, Beckett, and Lartey 2016). Upon taking office one year later, Mayor Giuliani refused to meet with African American officials. It was only after the NYPD shooting death of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo that he changed his mind, meeting with state comptroller H. Carl McCall and others. As Rudy Crew, the African American school chancellor under Giuliani, said, I find his policies to be so racist and class-biased.… I don’t even know how I lasted three years.… He was barren, completely emotionally barren, on the issue of race (Crew, quoted in Powell 2006). This was the tone of the mayor’s office when Bloomberg took over.

Mayor Bloomberg took a more refreshing and healing approach to leadership. As mayor he sought to be inclusive by embracing and adopting the goals and interests of communities of color. He talked to everyone, which meant that African Americans and other people of color, people of all faiths, and the LGBTQ community were welcome once more in City Hall. At the beginning of Bloomberg’s mayoralty, immigrants made up 35 percent of the city’s population (Foner, Rumbaut, and Gold 2000b, 15). Bloomberg attended religious services throughout the city, and he accepted speaking engagements from all ethnic and racial groups. He spoke up for Muslims, and was the first political figure in the nation to support Muslims who wished to build a community center near the World Trade Center site. Bloomberg built programs to help young Black and Latino men to get into college. He worked hard to move juvenile offenders (most of them children of color) from upstate closer to their families in the city. His emergent poverty programs clearly supported people of color, who were disproportionately represented in the city’s poor communities (McDaniel et al. 2014; Astone et al. 2016; NYC Office of the Mayor 2012d).

Unfortunately, his second and third terms were not as successful in race relations, largely because of the stop-and-frisk program of the NYPD, which was led by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Bloomberg supported the program of stopping, without reasonable suspicion, people at random on city streets to search for weapons and/or contraband. As Jennifer Fratello, Andres F. Rengifo, and Jennifer Trone noted, Most of those stopped were young men of color. Nearly 10 years of data on stops in New York City reveal a great deal but also raise important questions. In at least 50 percent of recorded stops annually—just over 286,000 in 2012, the most recent full year of data available—those stopped are young, between the ages of 13 and 25. During the vast majority of these stops, the officers discovered nothing illegal and took no further action (Fratello, Rengifo, and Trone 2013, 8). The community anger toward the stop-and-frisk program was one reason many people of color stopped supporting Bloomberg over time. Bloomberg remained unapologetic, however. He believed that stop-and-frisk made the streets safer for all, including young men of color, under the theory that the policy stopped young men from carrying guns on the streets. It was not until he ran for president that Bloomberg changed his mind and apologized to the Black community for the stop-and-frisk program (Cole and Alesci 2019). When he was sensitive to the ways his policies affected communities of color, and when he took the time to include the concerns of these communities in his decision making, the goodwill he generated fostered his governance goals. When he fell short, the resentment he accrued undermined his agenda across the board.

Expanding the Perspective of Pluralism versus Class Analysis

This book explores Mayor Bloomberg’s unique blend of economic and social reforms within the external constraints of state institutions and federal power, as well as the internal constraints of interest groups and Bloomberg’s own shortcomings. The book aspires to a broader and deeper perspective than former analyses using political economy as a guide. Clarence Stone has pointed out that the urban political arena is undergoing a profound shift. Urbanists have long placed themselves in a pluralist camp or a class analysis orientation, but Stone asks that we expand our thinking to understand urban policies within the context of intergovernmental challenges and issues of race. Both have enormous implications for how we approach urban problems. He maintains that the current theory of political economy does not go far enough in showing the way multiple parts of an urban polity converge and intertwine with one another in forming a whole (Stone 2019, 1544).

This book looks at these issues in depth. The introduction sets the themes of the book. Chapter 1 places the book in urban theory. Chapter 2 examines Bloomberg’s first term and his success in setting a tone of recovery. Chapter 3 analyzes the mayor’s financing strategies and tracks how they changed over time. When Bloomberg took office on January 1, 2002, he faced a $5 billion deficit, but twelve years later, he left the city a $1.9 billion surplus (Posillico 2014). Chapters 4–9 examine several public policy areas—pro-growth strategies, homelessness, low-income housing, antipoverty initiatives, the criminal justice and the public education system.

The analysis herein focuses on Bloomberg’s policy mix of economic and social investment and how urban theory helps explain how the mayor, who exemplified a strong leader with considerable skills, sometimes failed to meet his own objectives because of external constraints. Of course, his own limitations also accounted for some of his failures, as in his unfailing support of his commissioners: Bloomberg gave them wide latitude, and when they were inadequate to the task, his reluctance to step in caused problems.

Institutions matter. The institutions that limited Bloomberg time and time again were the federal and state governments—particularly the governorship, the state legislature, and the state courts. Powerful institutions were a major source of Bloomberg’s inability to realize his agenda. The best example of this can be found in a comparison of Bloomberg with his successor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. Bloomberg always contended with a divided state legislature, and it was thus difficult to get legislation passed that was favorable to New York City, while de Blasio enjoys a Democratic majority in both houses. In the first session of this new state legislature, the Democrats passed rent control reform, which eliminated vacancy rent decontrol in order to reduce the number of city residents evicted and thus reduce homelessness. Forty-three percent of the homeless come from rent regulated housing forced out by evictions (NYC Independent Budget Office 2014). This one change in state law corrected a major problem contributing to homelessness in the city, and the number of eviction cases in the city has plummeted (Barbanel 2019). New eviction cases against city tenants for nonpayment of rent are down by more than 35,000 since the law was signed on June 14, compared with the same period in 2018, a drop of 46%, according to The Wall Street Journal’s analysis (Barbanel 2019). But such an opportunity was unavailable to Bloomberg because of the divided state legislature. Changes at the state level can mean dramatic changes in the city.

Regardless of the power of state government, Bloomberg asserted the leadership required to bring the city to recovery from both 9/11 and the 2008 recession, and he led the city to a new era of growth. Other than Fiorello La Guardia during the Great Depression, no New York City mayor faced greater challenges or changed the city so fundamentally than did Mike Bloomberg. In protecting and growing the city’s fiscal, environmental, and public health resources, he remains unequalled. His successor enjoyed rich revenue streams gained from both tax increases and economic development that poured into the city because of Bloomberg’s pro-growth strategies. Unfortunately, Bloomberg failed in other crucial areas because of state and federal policies, his own management weaknesses, and his unwillingness to build broad coalitions in the crucial areas of low-income housing and education.

1

BLOOMBERG’S PLACE IN URBAN THEORY AND IN THE CITY’S HISTORY

Urban political theory provides an analytical perspective to view the leadership strategies and tactics of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The perspective of the history of mayors in New York City provides a gauge to measure Bloomberg’s successes and failures. The classic pluralist studies, Edward Banfield’s Political Influences (2007), Robert Dahl’s Who Governs (1961), and Wallace Sayre and Herbert Kaufman’s Governing New York City (1960), focus on interest group analysis. Pluralists argue there was no one elite that dominated urban decision making; rather, the bargaining among a multiplicity of groups defined the urban power structure (Mollenkopf 2010, 383). Opposing these pluralists are the structuralists, who emphasize the power of the state and the underlying socioeconomic system in shaping the political agenda, rejecting interest group competition (Mollenkopf 2010, 383). Structuralists focus on the power of corporate elites in urban policy making: Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz in Two Faces of Power (1962); John Logan and Harvey Molotch in Urban Fortunes (1987); and Clarence Stone in Regime Politics (1989).

Structuralists are divided into different camps. One camp relies on class analysis, a capitalist-centered class structure in which economic inequality was dominant and neoliberalism the hegemonic ideology (Stone 2019, 1536). In this camp, capitalism is the sole driver. The other camp thinks that a class analysis fails to fit in the evolving post industrialism in urban America (Mollenkopf 2010, 386). Stone leads the polity approach beginning with multiple structures that coexist through a variety of particular mechanisms (2019, 1537). He uses V. O. Key’s work on southern politics to explain a political order that encompasses a multi-element setting including race and intergovernmental politics (Stone 2019, 1536). Mollenkopf comes to a similar conclusion: Cities can no longer be taken as independent entities isolated from the larger economic and social forces that operate on them (2010, 386).

Michael Bloomberg’s policies fall within Stone’s analysis—the polity approach. Yes, Bloomberg is of a long line of pro-growth reformers (Logan and Molotch 1987). Growth policies are the efforts of local governments to improve their economies by attracting mobile wealth to invest in their cities. Logan and Molotch describe growth policies as intended to strengthen the tax base, create jobs, provide resources to solve existing social problems meet the housing needs caused by natural population growth and allow the market to serve public tastes in housing, neighborhoods and community development (1987, 202). This certainly describes Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, however, was not an economic determinist, such as Paul Peterson, who saw how external economic conditions shaped and constrain the urban political arena (Mollenkopf 2010, 386). Peterson went so far as to say that political variables no longer become relevant to the analysis (1981, 12). Rather, Bloomberg believed in the power of elected officials to improve citizens’ lives. As mayor of New York City (2002–14) he advocated economic growth achieved by local government working side by side with the private sector and with the state government when possible. Bloomberg went further than growth theorists.

Bloomberg’s mayoral decision making under Stone’s polity approach reveals a more complex view of power than that of growth theorists or other structuralists (Harding and Blokland 2014, 105). The polity approach emphasizes the role of politics over markets. Coalition, Stone says, emphasizes bringing together various elements of the community and the different institutional capacities they control (Stone 1989, 5). Stone called these urban regimes that work cooperatively. Bloomberg excelled in creating urban regimes. In addition to enlisting business people, Bloomberg created strong coalitions with cultural institutions, religious leaders, and officials in higher education. He also created a strong alliance with many Black leaders in the city who supported him throughout his mayoralty even in the midst of the stop-and-frisk controversy.

Stone has observed that cities had an identifiable urban regime, a set of arrangements by which a community is actually governed (Stone 1989, 6). An urban regime may thus be defined as the informal arrangements by which public bodies and private interests function together in order to be able to make and carry out governing decisions (1989, 6). Participants may come from government and business. Stone identified four types of regimes: caretaker or maintenance regimes that make no effort to introduce significant change; economic development or corporate regimes; middle-class progressive regimes (i.e., with liberal goals of environmental protection, historic preservation, affordable housing, etc.); and lower-class opportunity-expansion regimes (Stone 1993, 18). The dominant form of urban regimes is a corporate regime, notes Mirya Holman, where the coalition can tap into resources provided by private actors to pursue development policies (2014, 3). Pursuant to this typology, Bloomberg led a corporate regime for twelve years. But he had a far more comprehensive view of leadership than simply focusing on economic development. Stone lamented, in his case study of Atlanta, that the Atlanta corporate regime did not address the needs of the lower-income population in ways that would enhance their economic opportunities (1993, 205). It was Marion Orr and Valarie Johnson, writing about Stone’s contributions to urban theory, who pointed out that if Atlanta and other cities [had] pursued a broader economic redevelopment strategy of education and training, safe and affordable housing and other policies, it would have made for a socially healthier community (2008, 20). This broader umbrella distinguished Bloomberg, who created such an umbrella for a corporate regime of several coalitions. Another way of thinking about him was that he led both a corporate regime and a middle-class progressive regime.

An important consideration is that both pluralists and structuralists do not sufficiently take into consideration powerful state actors—the governor, the state legislature, and state courts. When Jeffrey L. Pressman wrote his groundbreaking essay, Preconditions of Mayoral Leadership, he observed that mayoral leadership depended to a large extent on the type of governmental and political system in which he operates (1972, 513). This is an arena on which Gerald Frug and David Barron focus: Every city in the United States has state-established legal boundaries—as well as state-established geographical boundaries—that circumscribe its powers (2008, xii). And it is the exertion of political power by New York State that handed Bloomberg his most difficult defeats. The state said no to the sports stadium on the West Side of Manhattan (Schragger 2016, 92). The state said no to congestion pricing (charging high fees for automobiles) in parts of Manhattan. The state said no to Bloomberg’s efforts to use state dollars to subsidize apartments for homeless people. The state recalibrated state education tests, making them harder, wiping out all the gains that the city had seen in annual state educational testing. And the list goes on. As Frug and Barron note, "Cities … only have power to the extent they are given