In a wide-ranging and candid interview with New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio casually noted that the “way our legal system is structured to favor private property” provokes his “anger, which is visceral.” The mayor elaborated on this point, insisting that “people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be.”
The mayor begs the question of who would build anything under these strict conditions. Developers plan and build housing to make a profit: if zoning regulations or income restrictions are too stringent, then there is no incentive to build. But it’s not clear that these are pertinent considerations for de Blasio, who appeals to the “socialistic impulse” that he finds among all New Yorkers.
The mayor, echoing the Communist Manifesto, told his interviewer that people “would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs.” In order to make and implement these plans, the socialists of New York City would “love to have a very, very powerful government,” explained the mayor, “including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.”
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