From, where else, The New Yorker:
… the new meaning of “Manhattanization”: turning a city into a playground for the wealthiest inhabitants, even as it forgets about the poorest.
After twelve years of a billionaire mayor with a soft spot for Wall Street, it seems that Manhattan is better known for its “one-percenters” than for its gruff deli owners. In 2012, the wealthiest one per cent of Manhattan residents earned nearly thirty-nine per cent of all city income, up from twelve per cent in 1980, according to a report by the Fiscal Policy Institute. (“America’s most iconic city now has the same inequality index as Swaziland,” the report said.)
As cities on both coasts become more expensive, and less affordable for middle- and lower-class inhabitants, Manhattan is increasingly the reference point for what not to be.
The issue is very much front and centre in the upcoming New York mayoral election. It will inevitably become one here. And in San Francisco, which the article compares in approach – here.
