Residents of the “capital of the world” are rapidly leaving the metropolis, fleeing in the suburbs from the surge of violence.

New York has suppressed the coronavirus epidemic, but now a new problem has seized it: the metropolis is shaken by pogroms and a historic wave of murders and killings amid the economic crisis and the cuts in the police budget at the request of supporters of “racial justice”.

They put the city in the hands of criminals

The family sat around the grill by the playground. It was a sweltering night in Brooklyn, people ate and drank and laughed. Suddenly an SUV drove up, two unknown persons jumped out of it and opened fire. Three men were injured – as well as one-year-old Dewell Gardner, who was sleeping in a wheelchair. Three hours later, Dewell died in the hospital.

Dwell’s death on Monday night was the tragic outcome of a bloody weekend in New York: four people were shot and 49 others were injured. New York has survived the coronavirus crisis, but now it is rocked by a wave of violence, which has not happened for many decades.

In June, 205 shootings were recorded, which is 130 more than in the same month of 2019. The number of murder victims in June rose 30 per cent from the same month last year to 39.

Then came the holiday weekend of July 4, when everyone celebrates America’s Independence Day: 64 shootings, 11 casualties, with four in one day. 

“Tough summer,” said Terence Monahan, chief of staff for the New York City Police Department after the first weekend in July, which he called “one of the most brutal in modern history.”

This is not just about New York. Chicago, Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Houston: the number of cases of violence with the use of firearms is growing everywhere, and children are dying everywhere as a result.

US President Donald Trump, always looking for a new cultural struggle that will inspire his supporters, already saw this as an opportunity to impose strict measures to establish law and order.

“New York is out of control,” he said, and announced next week “impressive” measures against violence in his former homeland and other “crisis regions.”

Trump would like to send the military to all the cities in which the Black Lives Matter protests are taking place after the death of African American George Floyd, and a wave of violence could help him in this.

This is a lists several factors that have led New York to bloody statistics:

• More than 671,000 New Yorkers have lost their jobs, and in May, the last month studied, the city’s unemployment rate was 18.3 per cent. The last time such figures were during the 2008 global economic crisis.
• 2.5 thousand prisoners of the Rikers city prison were released early, as there was an outbreak of coronavirus. Many of them were accused of illegal possession of weapons.
• Thousands of law enforcement officers have been infected with the coronavirus. At times, there were more than seven thousand New York police officers on sick leave. The total number of employees is 38 thousand. Police also say protests distract their attention from crimes.

We also note that the New York authorities on June 30 cut funding for the Police Department by about one billion dollars or a sixth of the regular budget. 

The authorities also decided to cancel the planned recruitment of about 1,160 employees and stripped the police of such functions as monitoring illegal trade, homelessness on the streets and safety in schools.

Protesters called these measures “dust in the eyes”, believing that they were insufficient cuts in budget and powers.

However, the police and their professional associations believe that the mayor and the city council “handed over the city to the hands of criminals.”

“The mayor’s message to New Yorkers was unambiguous: there will be fewer police officers on the streets. Although the number of firearms in the city has doubled over the past week. The NYPD is already short of personnel,” said Pat Lynch, head of Police Benevolent Association, NYC’s largest police union.

Against this backdrop, residents are leaving New York at a faster rate than virtually any other city in the United States. This trend, however, is not new: the state’s population as a whole has been declining for the fourth year in a row.

In 2018, the New York Post, citing a census, reported that middle-class people are leaving New York on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. The publication called the situation “a great outcome.”

NYP attributes this to higher taxes, higher living costs and lower wages due to the implementation of various technological solutions.

In 2019, the state’s population declined by 76,000 – about 0.4 per cent – the largest decline of any state in the United States. To a large extent, these indicators were achieved due to migration from the metropolis. 

According to the Corcoran Group, property prices in Manhattan are already down 26 per cent from last year, the largest drop in several years.

At the same time, the demand for rental and purchase of housing in the suburbs has grown by 300 per cent since March 2020. 

White-collar workers, who used to show off apartments in the City within walking distance of their offices, can now work remotely from any city or even state without flinching at night from the sound of exploding firecrackers and gunfights.