acroyear | on NYC's failure to meet its promises for plowing (Reply)

I Thought Technocratic 'Centrists' Were Supposed to Be Competent: The Mayor Bloomberg Edition : Mike the Mad Biologist:

It helps, when providing services, to think that government's primary role is to provide services, as opposed to being an opportunity to make 'good government' claims. No one cares about 'good government', unless said good government isn't plowing the streets.

And the result of this emphasis on "good government" over actually providing services?

DownWithTyranny!: DWT Team Snowstorm Coverage continues: How Cutbacks Work:

I’ve lived in New York for over 30 years, and I’ve always marveled at how quickly the city government can make huge amounts of snow, as much or more than we just got, disappear from the streets; not this time.

Looking back 20 years, the city once had 15,000 sanitation workers. It now has 5000. For a city as big as New York, that 5000 is nowhere near what is required. There are, no doubt, fewer salt trucks and plows to keep the streets safely cleared. Buses and fire trucks became stuck in snow. Even the vaunted subway system suffered service interruptions and shutdowns to its above-ground lines, despite ever-rising fares. The result of all of this was a fortune in lost work hours and wages. Small businesses especially suffered.

In an era when businesses and employees have little or no margin to absorb a loss of income, the storm is not the disaster. The city’s ability to respond to the snow is the disaster, and people have died because of it.

I'll leave the tragic details out, but suffice to say, EMT teams simply couldn't get anywhere.

Krugman originally apologized for calling the performance of Bloomberg and Goldsmith a "Brownie-you're-doing-a-heck-of-a-job" moment, given that people died in New Orleans but not NYC. Well, he can unapologize for it.

I Thought Technocratic 'Centrists' Were Supposed to Be Competent: The Mayor Bloomberg Edition : Mike the Mad Biologist: