Andrew Yang as Mayor Will Be a Disaster for New York
Andrew Yang presents himself as a pathbreaker with innovative solutions to social problems. But New York has already tried this kind of technocratic politics in the 1960s and ’70s, and it ended up leading to austerity and social disorder.
NYC mayoral candidate Andrew Yang speaks at a press conference in Manhattan on May 11, 2021. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
A candidate for mayor wants New York to be a “fun city” and thinks that by applying “modern management techniques” to municipal government, he can cut costs, improve efficiency, and deliver better services, from policing to garbage pickup and schools, for all New Yorkers. He is distrustful of public-school teachers and looks to private foundations for guidance on how to reform education and reduce racial disparities.
Who is this mayor? The description will fit Andrew Yang if he is elected. But it also describes John Lindsay, mayor of New York City from 1966 through 1973.
Lindsay came out of the now-extinct liberal wing of the Republican Party. He was a strong voice for civil rights and social spending, and against the Vietnam War, positioning himself to the left of almost all mainstream politicians in the city. But he was also an advocate of supposedly technocratic policies that changed municipal government for the worse.
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