A Changed City

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun
NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

Democratic Party stalwarts are fanning out across the press to comment on the absurdity of holding a Republican National Convention in New York City, which they regard as a resolutely left-wing town. New Yorkers, lest they be taken in by this line, might want to pay attention to a conference being held by the Manhattan Institute this morning.


The conference, “Compassionate Conservative Policies That Changed New York City,” purports to show that “New York is the perfect place for Republicans to convene “because “compassionate conservative policies – enacted by Republicans – have transformed the city, and made the streets safe and the economy prosper.”


The first panel, “Changed Expectations: Accountability and Raising Standards,” features Herman Badillo, who was a member of Congress as a Democrat from New York but who is now a Republican. Mr. Badillo told us that he planned to address the “question of standards” in New York City public education. When Mr. Badillo served as chairman of the board of trustees of the City University of New York, he raised academic standards and ended the university’s open admissions policy. But such higher education reforms only work, Mr. Badillo said, if “you eliminate social promotion at elementary and secondary schools.”


Eliminating social promotion was a point of agreement between Mr. Badillo and Mayor Bloomberg when the two men were campaigning for the Republican mayoral nomination. Last year, Mr. Badillo joined Mayor Koch at another Manhattan Institute event, “Ending Social Promotion in New York City.” According to Mr. Badillo, the event helped “push along Chancellor Klein to eliminate social promotion” for third-grade pupils in the city’s public schools. The reform represents one of those conservative ideas that is changing New York for the better. “Third-grade students have gotten summer instruction and now everybody understands that there are standards that have to be met,” Mr. Badillo said. “The Manhattan Institute and I, we are both interested in eliminating social promotion not just in third grade but in all grades.”


Also speaking at the first panel is Peter Cove, the founder of America Works, a private employment firm that has succeeded in moving welfare recipients into fulltime jobs. The America Works program trains clients in basic skills and insists on standards of personal responsibility.


One theme of the conference, according to Daniel Biederman, president of the 34th Street Partnership, is that “Republican ideas are being pursued outside of government by privatizers like me who provide public services with private funding and private techniques.” Mr. Biederman will speak about the privatization of Bryant Park and the success of Business Improvement Districts in the city. “We’re doing things that people in government just couldn’t have done,” he says, because they work within a “system that stops them from innovating.”


“Some of us who are Republicans who are outside of government,” Mr. Biederman said, pointing to himself and Mr. Cove, are using “private techniques to advance public goods.”


Mr. Biederman will appear on a panel, “Quality of Life: Reinventing New York’s Social Policy,” along with George Kelling, who, with James Q. Wilson, developed the “broken windows” theory of policing that has drastically reduced New York City crime. Mr. Kelling’s idea was that urban decay and general disorderly conduct created an environment that led to serious crime. By focusing on quality-of-life issues such as vandalism, police have seen crime rates plummet, and city residents have built healthier communities.


Mr. Kelling’s and Mr. Wilson’s original 1982 article was “a bolt from the blue,” says Mr. Biederman, who has run the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation for 25 years. “The reason we have absolutely no crime in Bryant Park and haven’t for years is partly Broken Windows. That’s the policing philosophy we use.”


The Manhattan Institute conference ends with a luncheon discussion on how President Bush’s tax cuts benefit New York. Mr. Bush’s tax reductions promise to save New York State households $89 billion over a 10-year period, according to a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon. “More than three-quarters of the savings will flow to taxpayers in New York City and the surrounding seven-county suburban region in the state,” Mr. McMahon has written.


When the Republicans convene here, New Yorkers have plenty of reasons to make nice. For all the talk about how leftwing New York is, few New Yorkers would want to return to the days of higher crime, lower standards in education, higher taxes, and more welfare recipients. That was the situation that obtained before New York implemented the policies that were nursed by a lot of the people who will be arriving at Madison Square Garden next week.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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