Are Blacks abandoning the Democratic Party in New York because their land use policies favour gentrification and displacement ?
In a rare and insightful probe into the state of Black power in New York, the New York Times revealed that Blacks are engaged in a migration out of New York due to the housing crisis and quality of life issues. The article postulated that, as a result, the Democratic Party faces a reckoning with the loss of, and the loss of confidence by, a key voting bloc, noting, in relevant part, that, “community leaders and residents alike say they have noticed real political and demographic shifts that stand to threaten the endurance of New York’s once-ironclad Democratic coalition . . . .” Indeed, the Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey, the senior pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, described the exodus as an erosion. The report highlighted that, even as Blacks are moving, it could be because they are being moved out : “the same trends that disproportionately harm Black Americans are also driving some of them out of New York.”
Setting aside quality of life issues, let’s focus on the housing crisis.
The Democrats’ answer to the housing crisis has been to approve non-stop luxury condominiums ; develop and implement an affordable housing lottery system, which has been called a scam ; and to seemingly collaborate with Republicans in the Project 2025 goal of ending public housing. Because the Democratic Party wants to make New York a playground for the rich, of course races, which have faced centuries of discrimination, are going to get squeezed out.
More luxury apartments have been built in New York City Council District 3 under Councilmembers Corey Johnson (D) and his successor, Erik Bottcher (D), than in any other City Council district. This was largely due to Hudson Yards, which was developed by MAGA billionaire and Trump White nationalism supporter-donor Stephen Ross and gentrification related to the construction of the High Line. The gentrification has ushered in a mega-new, wealthy White neighborhood : the Hudson Yards plantation.
The affordable housing lottery system is premised on providing tax benefits to wealthy real estate developers in exchange for a set-aside of apartments for at least some of the 99 per cent. However, it’s been shown that the affordable housing lottery doesn’t help the very New Yorkers, who can least afford private sector housing, no matter the tax abatements. In New York, up to 25 per cent. of Blacks live in poverty, at least eight per centage points higher than the National average in a City that serves as the power base of the Democratic Party and the financial capital of the World.
Since the Democratic Party enjoys super-majority control over New York Governments, it raises serious questions, when the private sector cannot construct low-cost housing for New Yorkers earning low-incomes, like, why are Democrats choosing to end Section 9 public housing through schemes known as Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT), and the Preservation Trust ? Approximately 90 per cent. of public housing residents living in New York are minorities. By shifting such a large bloc of vulnerable people, including senior citizens living on fixed-incomes, to the private sector, these New Yorkers will lose Civil Rights Act protections that treat housing as a human right. In place of those civil rights protections, these minorities will face private sector landlords known for violating anti-discrimination laws.
As a result, the leading candidate in the Democratic Party primary for New York City mayor cobbled his coälition . . . without Blacks !
When State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (DSA-Astoria) finished ahead in the first-round of ranked choice voting in the Democratic Party’s mayoral primary, he did so without Blacks coälescing behind his mayoral campaign. His presumptive win came without the support of the solidly-Black neighborhoods in New York, according to a report published by the New York Times. The lack of Black support flies in the face of the mayoral primary wins of Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, the Times found, adding that, nationally, the Black voting bloc carried the recent presidential nominations of Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
What this shows is that the White coälition that is powering Assemblymember Mamdani’s mayoral campaign has been willing to ditch Black power after making the political calculation that Black support was expendable in a City-wide mayor’s race.
Nowhere else can that be seen than in Assemblymember Mamdani’s support for the RAD/PACT and Preservation Trust sell-out of NYCHA public housing in New York. Returning to the Times‘ trend story of Democrats’ failed policies forcing Blacks to move-out of New York, two key issues facing Blacks are the housing crisis and the crisis of public housing. To maintain support amongst Whites and the Big Business community that are the sources of large, campaign donations, the support by Democrats, including Assemblymember Mamdani, to the sell-out of NYCHA could be the leading driver of Blacks being moved-out of New York.
The gentrification that beset Harlem and shattered that historic neighborhood’s focal point of Black power in New York is one example of how Democrats, who enjoy super-majority control over New York City Government and public policy, are complicit in a racist drive to break Black power in New York. They’ve learned to take their racist fight to break DEI to the ballot-box, and win, just like President Donald Trump (R).
The Democrats’ new model of White power politics, which is indifferent to Black issues and Black support, can also be witnessed in the transactional politics of Democratic Party powerbroker Allen Roskoff and in the obfuscation of District Leader Layla Law-Gisiko, who supports the privatisation and demolition of public housing in Chelsea and who uses an almost deliberate misreading of the law to excuse the unlawful disposition of City real property outside of the ULURP Process, respectively. The pattern of racial indifference is more than accidental, and its fingerprints can be seen in more than just the mayor’s race. Ask Councilmember Erik Bottcher (D-Chelsea).
