Twelve Years of Bloomberg as Mayor: A New Yorker’s Perspective (Part One)

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As I said in my recent “blog news” post, I hope to focus on issues that are either misunderstood or “under the radar” during this election season. 

One of those “under the radar” issues is the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg in New York City, especially since he is viewed as the “alternate to Bernie” (for those who are scared of Bernie Sanders). And, considering the fact that I lived in New York for nearly his entire tenure as mayor (with the exception of my freshman year and part of my sophomore year at college), I feel that I have something to offer on this under-the-radar issue. I feel it’s under the radar because, while certain elements of his past, such as stop-and-frisk, have been highlighted, many other elements of his time as mayor seem not to be discussed as much as they should be.

Some people may ask why these elements should be highlighted. After all, his tenure as mayor ended over six years ago. It’s relevant for three major reasons:

1. Since a mayor is a governmental executive, his time as mayor can give insights as to what sort of governmental executive he would be as President of the United States.
2. Many of the issues he faced as mayor, ranging from environmental issues to racism, are issues the country is grappling with right now.
3. Part of what he is running on, at least in his ads, is focused on his track record as mayor.

Since his record as mayor is relevant to the current presidential campaign, I will do a couple of blog posts on that over the next week: a post next Thursday (different from my usual schedule as I tend not to post new content except for blog news on a Thursday) and a post next Monday. This schedule is designed so that people are well-informed about Mayor Bloomberg before Super Tuesday on Tuesday, March 3^rd. The posts will be relevant to various topics of justice, and will particularly focus on the wide range of injustices that happened while he was mayor (wider than what the mainstream media is even covering). Note that none of the injustices will go much outside the purview of him as a mayor; despite his record as a businessman being well-deserving of scrutiny, I will not focus on that aspect of him in my next two posts.

I am hoping that my mini-series (which is NOT the series that is in the works, according to a recent blog post I wrote—this is actually a bit of an impromptu series) can raise awareness of how Bloomberg was and what he stood/stands for, from a New Yorker’s perspective. Albeit, a perspective of a New Yorker who did not face the brutal consequences of his policies that, say, my Muslim friends experienced. But a New Yorker nevertheless.