Of course no one is happy about cuts to vital services like the library. But people are also unhappy with a 3% minimum city income tax and a $5 billion budget shortfall.
NYC has a ton of people at the top of their fields in a really dense setting. I wonder what city services cause such a big shortfall! On paper it should be easier to finance NYC than any other big city, so I wonder where the money goes.
Or an I incorrect and the city is poorer than I think? Perhaps Long Island sucks more incomes away from the city than I thought?
Everything in NYC is expensive. We spend almost $40,000 per year on each public school student. Construction is hugely expensive. The Department of Corrections has 1.4 corrections officers for every person incarcerated.
Simple solution, imprison less people. NYC prisons are notorious for overcrowding for decades now [1] [2].
It's shocking for me as a German that this seems to have been a consistent fact of life that's just accepted by everyone and nothing is being done - no new prisons are built to offer more space for prisoners, and nothing is being done to reduce the amount of people heading towards prison.
NYC average daily jail population has been decreasing almost continuously for the last 30 years. Conditions at Riker's Island are much more to do with the problems between the civilian oversight function and the COs unions than they are to do with an actual excess of inmates with respect to cells etc.
Surely there are other cuts with less impact. I suspect many more users would rather they redirect the ample Private Foundation funds for "NYPL LIVE" stage events (December: "Lesbian Poetic Traditions") to staying open on Sundays.
But Library management wants to host cool friends AND generate angry voters.
I see this pattern often in government budget showdowns; the tiniest cuts produce outsized service impacts.
Firstly; that would be a Federal problem, not something that the City can do anything about. Secondly; even if they were illegal immigrants (which is undetermined at this point; most of them claim asylum and have had no determination made for their case) they would still have had the right to shelter under City law.
I'm saying that the arrival of a large number of people, who are legally unable to work, and who have no support system from families, and whom the City is legally obliged to house is a problem.
We lost net 10 of them costing hundreds of millions of dollars already.
Short term rentals were basically banned outright.
Not very many vacant real estate holdings, and how are you going to prove that they were sufficiently vacant -- going to roust them all at night?
City needs to actually get its act together to become more efficient.
Good thing that libraries also provide digital information services, including digital book rentals and digital records and academic publication searches.
As well as facilities to access those services if you do not have an adequate computer, internet connection, or subscription access to these resources at home.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.