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      Boston Mayoral Election Race Narrows, With Michelle Wu in the Lead

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      The city’s 91-year succession of Irish American and Italian American mayors has ended, with Michelle Wu earning one of two spots in the general election in November.BOSTON — Michelle Wu, an Asian American progressive who has built a campaign around climate change and housing policy, earned one of two spots in Boston’s preliminary mayoral election on Tuesday, setting the stage for change in a city that for nearly 200 years has elected only white men.As a front-runner, Ms. Wu, 36, marks a striking departure for this city, whose politics have long turned on neighborhoods and ethnic rivalries.The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she is not from Boston, and has built an ardent following as a city councilor by proposing sweeping structural changes, like making the city’s public transportation free, restoring a form of rent control, and introducing the country’s first city-level Green New Deal.The vote count moved slowly into Wednesday morning and The Associated Press did not immediately announce who had finished second behind Ms. Wu. But another city councilor, Annissa Essaibi George, announced that she had won the other spot in November’s general election, and her two closest competitors told supporters they had lost.Ms. Essaibi George, 47, has positioned herself as a moderate, winning endorsements from traditional power centers like the former police commissioner and the firefighters’ union.In a debate last week, she promised voters that if elected, “you won’t find me on a soapbox, you’ll find me in the neighborhoods, doing the work.”The Nov. 2 matchup is expected to test the consensus that emerged among many national Democrats after New York’s mayoral primaries: that moderate Black voters and older voters will tug the Democratic Party back toward its center, particularly around the issue of public safety.For weeks, polls showed two leading Black candidates — Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell — in a dead heat with Ms. Essaibi George for second place. But turnout in the nonpartisan preliminary election was low on Tuesday, and they appeared to fall short.The prospect of a general election with no Black candidate came as a bitter disappointment to many in Boston, which had seemed closer than ever before to electing a Black mayor.“Boston is a Northern city,” John Hallett, 62, who had supported Ms. Janey, said in frustration. “They have had Black mayors in Atlanta, in Mississippi, and other places down South. I think this is just ridiculous. Really, I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s going to take.”The winner of the election will take the helm of a swiftly changing city.Once a blue-collar industrial port, Boston has become a hub for biotechnology, education and medicine, attracting a stream of affluent, highly educated newcomers. The cost of housing has skyrocketed, forcing many working families to settle for substandard housing or to commute long distances.Annissa Essaibi George, a city councilor.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesMs. Wu, a Chicago native who moved here to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School, speaks to those new arrivals and their anxieties, acknowledging that her flagship proposals are “pushing the envelope.”“Others have described them, at times, as ‘pie in the sky’ because they are bold, reaching for that brightest version of our future,” she said. “So much of what we celebrate in Boston started as visions that might have seemed ‘pie in the sky’ initially, but were exactly what we needed and deserved. And people fought for them.”Throughout its history, she says, Boston has served as a laboratory for new ideas, like public education, and for movements like abolitionism, civil rights and marriage equality.“This is a city that knows how to fight for what is right,” said Ms. Wu, who credits Elizabeth Warren, her law professor, with helping to launch her in politics.But Boston’s most faithful voters are in predominantly white precincts, where many look askance at many of Ms. Wu’s policies, and at the calls for policing reforms that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Those voters have rallied around Ms. Essaibi George, who grew up in Dorchester, the daughter of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, and is the only candidate to oppose cuts to the police budget and favor increasing the number of officers on Boston streets.At a victory celebration that began shortly before midnight, Ms. Essaibi George, flanked by her teenage triplets, launched into a critique of Ms. Wu and her policy-wonk platform.“We need real change, and that doesn’t come with just ideas or an academic exercise, that comes with hard work,” she said. “I don’t just talk, I work. I do. I dig in and get to it. It’s how my parents raised me. It’s how this city made me.”She went on to poke holes in two of Ms. Wu’s signature platforms, to cheers from the crowd. “Let me be clear,” she said. “The mayor of Boston cannot make the T free. The mayor of Boston cannot mandate rent control. These are issues the state must address.”Ms. Essaibi George’s supporters, who gathered on a Dorchester street corner on the eve of the election, wearing her campaign’s trademark hot pink T-shirts, were mostly white, and named public safety as a top concern. Robert O’Shea, 58, recalled “Dirty Water,” the 1965 pop ode to the polluted Charles River and its “lovers, muggers and thieves.”“Well, when that was written, nobody wanted to be here,” he said. “Look what it is now. I’ve seen this city grow so much, I can’t afford to buy the house I live in.”Mr. O’Shea said he was not hostile to Ms. Wu, or what he called “all this progressive stuff.”“It’s all great, though the socialism aspect of it kind of scares me a little bit,” he said, noting that several of his relatives are Boston police officers. “But people need to be safe. People need to feel safe in their homes before they can save the world.”One reason Boston may prove more receptive to progressive candidates is that it is a very young city, with roughly one-third of its population between the ages of 20 and 37.Its manufacturing jobs have mostly vanished, making way for affluent, better-educated newcomers, “people who may read The Times but don’t necessarily go to church,” said Larry DiCara, 72, a former Boston city councilor. And it was not jolted by a rise in violent crime over the summer, something that probably shifted votes in New York toward Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee.Ms. Wu had no choice but to build her political base around a set of policies because she could not bank on ethnic or neighborhood affinities, said Jonathan Cohn, the chair of the Ward 4 Democratic Committee, which endorsed her.“There is a real way that politics is often done here, of ‘what church, what school, what neighborhood,’ and she is trying to shift it to a policy discussion,” he said.Clockwise from top left: Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell, Kim Janey and Annissa Essaibi George.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesWhen Ms. Wu entered the City Council in 2014, the body had largely concerned itself with constituent services, but over the next few years it became a platform for national-level policy, on climate change and police reform. The policies Ms. Wu zeroed in on, like fare-free transit and the Green New Deal, emerged as her mayoral platform.Some observers question whether Ms. Wu’s policy platform will be enough to carry her through the general election in November.“People just want the city to work for them, they don’t want nice policies,” said Kay Gibbs, 81, who worked as a political aide to Thomas Atkins, the city’s first Black city councilor, and to Representative Barney Frank. Boston’s next mayor, she said, will have her hands full with the basics, taking control of powerful forces within a sprawling city government.“The electorate is smarter than we think they are, and they have certain interests that don’t extend to all these dreamy ideas of free public transport and Green New Deal,” she said. “They are going to choose the person they think is most able.”Boston is growing swiftly, with rapid growth in its Asian and Hispanic populations. It has seen a shrinking percentage of non-Hispanic white residents, who now make up less than 45 percent of the population. And the percentage of Black residents is also dropping, falling to 19 percent of the population from about 22 percent in 2010.Ms. Janey, who was then the City Council president, became acting mayor in March after Martin J. Walsh became the country’s labor secretary, and many assumed she would cruise into the general election. But she was cautious in her new role, sticking largely to script in public appearances, and damaged by criticism from her rival Ms. Campbell, a Princeton-educated lawyer and vigorous campaigner.At a campaign stop on Monday, Ms. Janey said incumbency had not necessarily proved an advantage.“I certainly would say, if anything, it’s a double-edged sword,” she said.Municipal elections, especially preliminary ones, tend to draw a low turnout, whiter and older than the city as a whole. It is only in the last few years that change has begun to ripple through Massachusetts, which has seen a series of upsets for progressive women of color, said Steve Koczela, president of the MassInc Polling Group.“This is the culmination of a lot of flexing of new political muscle,” he said. More

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      Boston Preliminary Election Results

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      Four women of color lead a field of seven in the preliminary election to become mayor of Boston, a city that has, since its founding, only elected white men. The top two finishers will face each other in November. City Councilor Michelle Wu has led in polling, followed by acting Mayor Kim Janey, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George. Get full coverage here » More

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      Eric Adams Vows to ‘Welcome Business,’ Calling New York ‘Dysfunctional’

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      Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee, said that New York will “no longer be anti-business,” drawing a contrast with the current mayor, Bill de Blasio.After nearly eight years of a strained and periodically hostile relationship between the mayor of New York City and its business community, the city’s likely next mayor on Monday delivered a clear message: He wants a reset.“New York will no longer be anti-business,” declared Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee who is almost certain to win November’s election, in a speech at a business conference in Manhattan. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business and not turn into the dysfunctional city that we have been for so many years.”In many ways, Mr. Adams and Mayor Bill de Blasio have found political common ground, and Mr. de Blasio was thought to favor Mr. Adams during this year’s primary. But Mr. Adams’s brief remarks on Monday underscored what may be one of the most consequential differences between the de Blasio administration and an Adams mayoralty: a significant shift, in tone and approach, when it comes to dealing with the city’s big-business community.Mr. de Blasio has, at times, fostered close ties to the real estate sector, but he based his first mayoral campaign on addressing the city’s widening inequity, saying that New York had become a “tale of two cities.” He has also downplayed the need to bring back wealthy New Yorkers who fled during the pandemic.Mr. Adams also ran on a message of combating inequality and was embraced by key labor unions. But his main focus was on combating crime, which also happened to be a primary concern of the city’s business elite. He quickly adopted a far warmer approach to engaging the business community than Mr. de Blasio did, becoming a favorite of New York’s donor class — with whom he has spent much of the summer — while earning skepticism from the left. Publicly and privately, he has pledged to travel to Florida to bring erstwhile New Yorkers home. Mr. Adams’s advisers and allies see a shift in tone as a matter of policy at some levels: If he builds stronger relationships with business leaders, it might pave the way for more public-private partnerships. If he engages wary business leaders in discussions about what is needed to make the environment more hospitable to growth, they may then be more inclined to stay in the city, or to expand. In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Adams ticked through a list of priorities around improving quality of life, public safety and innovation in the city, while asking business leaders to be partners as New York pursues economic recovery amid the pandemic. Mr. Adams, who appears especially interested in boosting the life sciences, green jobs and start-ups, may mix more easily with business leaders than Mr. de Blasio has, in part because he shares a number of their key priorities. He has been more supportive of charter schools than several of his Democratic mayoral rivals, and more so than Mr. de Blasio; he also has close ties to real estate. And Mr. Adams has said that public safety must be at the center of the economic recovery efforts — echoing a theme that more than 150 business leaders underscored in a letter to Mr. de Blasio last fall, when they demanded that he take more decisive action to address crime and other quality-of-life issues that they said were jeopardizing the city’s economic recovery.Mr. Adams’s remarks came at the SALT Conference, held at the Javits Center and overseen by Anthony Scaramucci, the onetime Trump White House communications director. The schedule promised appearances from two hedge fund billionaires who were principal backers of a super PAC supporting Mr. Adams’s candidacy: Daniel S. Loeb, a prominent charter school supporter, and Steven A. Cohen, the owner of the Mets.Mr. Scaramucci, a Wall Street veteran, donated $2,000 to Mr. Adams’s mayoral campaign. Over the weekend, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who got on poorly with Mr. de Blasio, released a direct-to-camera video noting his support of Mr. Adams, who is facing off against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, in the general election.“As a candidate, Eric Adams has shown ambition and political courage,” Mr. Bloomberg said in the video.In his speech, Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, urged employers to collaborate with the city on a common job application, part of a suite of proposals aimed at boosting the city’s economy and combating unemployment and underemployment. Both the public and private sectors would be encouraged to participate.“I’m proposing an unprecedented partnership between city employers and the city itself to make those connections and create one common application, one job application, to field all of the jobs you have available in this city,” he said. “New York wants your jobs and we want to build them.”Mr. Adams, a former police captain, also reached for a slogan that powered his primary win — “the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety and justice” — as he argued that priorities like reducing gun violence are vital aspects of reviving the city’s economy.And he ticked through a list of other goals, from bolstering community health centers in underserved neighborhoods and efforts to be “the center of cybersecurity” and self-driving cars, to investments in green jobs, to improving childhood nutrition and offering more affordable child care.“Today, you choose New York,” Mr. Adams told the crowd. “And we want to choose you.”On Monday, Mr. de Blasio was asked about Mr. Adams’s contention that New York would no longer be anti-business and “dysfunctional.”“I’m not going to take a couple of lines out of context,” the mayor replied. “Obviously, this is a city that has done so much to work with our business community.”Later that day, at an appearance at a Brooklyn street corner where a 3-month-old baby was killed on Saturday after a wrong-way collision sent two vehicles onto the sidewalk, Mr. Adams contended that partnerships between the private sector and government could improve safety on New York City streets.He said New York City should accelerate the implementation of legislation that requires drivers with bad records — like the driver suspected of causing the 3-month-old’s death — to take a safety course or lose their vehicles. Funding for the bill was delayed a year by the Covid crisis.Mr. Adams, who was joined by the mother of another child killed by a driver in the same neighborhood, vowed to make city streets safer. His comments were not that dissimilar from those made by Mr. de Blasio at a news conference eight years ago, when he vowed to end all such fatalities by 2024, via his Vision Zero program.This year, however, the city is on track to have its highest number of traffic deaths since 2014, according to Transportation Alternatives, a group that advocates for safer streets.But even as Mr. Adams spoke of making streets safer, a parked Police Department cruiser was blocking a bike lane at the corner where the infant was killed, and a blue car zoomed past the news conference and made an illegal turn. Mr. Adams seemed reluctant to draw as clear a distinction between himself and Mr. de Blasio as he had earlier that day.“I’m going to be committed to resolving this issue, just as I believe when the mayor stood with those families, he was committed to do so at the same time,” Mr. Adams said, referring to Mr. de Blasio’s 2014 rollout of Vision Zero. “And that is my level of commitment.” More

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      Michael Bloomberg: Cómo la ciudad de Nueva York puede recuperarse de nuevo

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      El futuro de la ciudad de Nueva York está en duda. Los barrios perdieron habitantes que se han mudado a los suburbios. Se han cerrado negocios. La gente está preocupada por la seguridad pública. Las familias lloran la pérdida de sus seres queridos.Ese era el panorama en el otoño de 2001, después de que los terroristas destruyeron el World Trade Center y pusieron a la ciudad de rodillas. Y es el mismo panorama actual, con una pandemia que ha causado estragos y millones de personas que se preguntan una vez más si los días de gloria de esta ciudad son cosa del pasado.El desempleo sigue siendo de dos dígitos, la desocupación de comercios y oficinas se ha disparado y el sector turístico está en una situación desesperada, pero las adversidades económicas son más agudas para las familias de bajos ingresos. Sin embargo, tenemos buenas razones para albergar esperanza, porque lo que se hizo una vez puede volver a hacerse, y mejor, si se tienen en cuenta las lecciones del pasado.Durante los últimos ocho años, he tratado de cumplir mi promesa de no hacer comentarios sobre la gestión de mi sucesor. Los alcaldes no necesitan que sus predecesores intervengan desde la barrera y no tengo intención de empezar ahora. Pero creo que el éxito de la ciudad de Nueva York en la reconstrucción del Bajo Manhattan tras el 11 de septiembre y en la revitalización de los cinco distritos puede ayudar al próximo alcalde cuando tome posesión de su cargo en enero y se enfrente a los dos de los mismos retos generales a los que nos enfrentamos hace 20 años.El primero es urgente: mejorar los servicios vitales de los que dependen los neoyorquinos todos los días, como la vigilancia policial, el transporte, la salubridad y la educación. En los meses posteriores al 11 de septiembre, éramos muy conscientes de que los ciudadanos necesitaban tener confianza en que no permitiríamos que la ciudad entrara en una espiral descendente, como ocurrió en la década de 1970, por lo que nos concentramos de inmediato en mejorar la calidad de vida haciendo que los vecindarios fueran más seguros y limpios, recuperando las escuelas públicas y reduciendo la cantidad de indigentes.Para mantener a los residentes y a las empresas en la ciudad, el próximo gobierno debe implementar programas y políticas que refuercen esos mismos servicios básicos desde el inicio. Los fondos serán escasos, pero manejables; el déficit de ingresos al que nos enfrentamos era más de tres veces mayor, en términos de porcentaje del presupuesto, que el que se prevé que herede el próximo alcalde.El segundo gran reto es más difícil y de manera inevitable está en conflicto con el primero: centrarse en el futuro no inmediato de la ciudad. En última instancia, el alcalde será juzgado no por las noticias del día siguiente, sino por la próxima generación. Su trabajo consiste en mirar más allá de la luz al final del túnel y empezar a construir más vías, aun cuando sea impopular hacerlo.Me vienen a la mente dos ejemplos del Bajo Manhattan.Poco después de haber tomado pposesión como alcalde, cancelé un subsidio planeado para la nueva sede de la Bolsa de Nueva York a pesar de que ésta amenazaba con abandonar la ciudad. No me pareció que ese fuera un uso inteligente de los escasos recursos, pero la perspectiva de que la Bolsa abandonara Wall Street hizo temer que otras grandes instituciones financieras también se marcharan, más aún con gran parte del Bajo Manhattan en ruinas.Lo más fácil y políticamente seguro era no tocar el subsidio. Pero durante décadas, la ciudad había dependido en exceso de la industria bancaria y de servicios financieros. Se decía que cuando Wall Street se estornudaba, la ciudad se resfriaba. Así que en lugar de sobornar a las grandes empresas para que se quedaran en Manhattan, invertimos en proyectos en todos los distritos que atrajeran a nuevas compañías de diferentes sectores, como la biociencia, la tecnología y el cine y la televisión. Años después, estas y otras industrias —y los trabajos e ingresos que generaron— nos ayudaron a sortear la Gran Recesión mucho mejor que la mayoría de las ciudades.El próximo gobierno tal vez se enfrente a exigencias similares de subsidios de empresas que amenacen con abandonar la ciudad. Pero hay mejores formas de retener y crear puestos de trabajo que las dádivas, sobre todo si se invierte en infraestructura fundamental, empezando por el metro..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}En colaboración con el estado, el alcalde puede trabajar para que los trenes vuelvan a tener horarios completos, lo que ayudaría a los empresarios de todos los sectores a recuperar a sus trabajadores y a miles de pequeñas empresas y sus empleados a recuperar a sus clientes. Además, daría confianza a quienes estén pensando en abrir un negocio propio.Sea cual sea la política que adopte el próximo alcalde, la idea fundamental es que para que una ciudad se recupere económicamente es necesario algo más que ayudar a las empresas existentes. Es necesario crear las condiciones para que otros negocios abran y se expandan, a fin de diversificar aún más la economía.El segundo ejemplo del Bajo Manhattan tiene que ver con la vivienda. Tras los atentados, muchos querían convertir todo el World Trade Center en un monumento conmemorativo o simplemente reconstruir lo que había antes. Me pareció que ambas cosas serían un error y recibí fuertes críticas por sugerir que se construyeran viviendas en el lugar. Sin embargo, nuestro gobierno quería que el Bajo Manhattan dejara de ser un distrito comercial con movimiento solo de 9 a 5 y se convirtiera en un barrio diverso y abierto las 24 horas del día.Los líderes de la ciudad llevaban intentando hacerlo desde la década de 1950, pero habían centrado su atención en el desarrollo de edificios, incluido el World Trade Center original, en lugar de atraer a la gente. Nosotros le dimos la vuelta al guion al fomentar el desarrollo de nuevas viviendas y generar aquello que todos los residentes quieren: parques, escuelas y oportunidades culturales, incluido un centro de artes escénicas en el World Trade Center, cuya construcción está a punto de finalizar.A medida que nuestra visión tomaba forma, más familias y jóvenes se mudaron al centro, abrieron más negocios, se crearon más empleos y llegaron más visitantes. El último lugar de desarrollo del World Trade Center será una torre que tendrá más de mil unidades de vivienda.El próximo gobierno tendrá sus propias oportunidades no solo para recuperarse de la pandemia, sino para reimaginar zonas de la ciudad. Por supuesto, nunca es fácil enfrentarse a grupos ruidosos y poderosos que claman: “No en mi patio trasero”. Pero a lo largo y ancho de Nueva York hay estacionamientos, almacenes, playas de maniobras y otras propiedades que ofrecen al próximo alcalde oportunidades de crear viviendas para todos los ingresos y empleos para todos tipo de habilidades.Estos proyectos requieren ambición y valor político. Como candidato, Eric Adams ha demostrado ambas cosas. Por eso lo apoyo en las elecciones a la alcaldía de este otoño. Su pragmatismo y disposición a enfrentar asuntos difíciles, al igual que la comprensión de la importancia de la seguridad pública que le dio su experiencia como policía, le serán de gran utilidad en el Ayuntamiento. Y espero que Bloomberg Philanthropies tenga la oportunidad de apoyar su gobierno, porque este es un momento en el que todos tenemos que poner manos a la obra.En el gobierno, la colaboración es tan importante como la competencia, y la reconstrucción del World Trade Center, que incluyó la creación de un monumento nacional y museo en memoria del 11 de septiembre, demostró lo crucial que son las asociaciones sólidas para volver realidad una visión. El trabajo conjunto con nueve gobernadores de Nueva York y Nueva Jersey nos permitió construir el monumento y el museo para que fueran un poderoso tributo a los que perdimos y para enseñar a las generaciones futuras el extraordinario heroísmo y los sacrificios que inspiraron y unieron al mundo.Hubo tensiones y obstáculos, por supuesto. Pero es fundamental que haya una buena relación de trabajo entre el alcalde y el gobernador para que los grandes proyectos tengan éxito.Ahora, incluso antes de tomar posesión del cargo, Adams tiene la oportunidad de empezar a establecer una estrecha relación con la nueva gobernadora del estado, Kathy Hochul. No siempre estarán de acuerdo, pero necesitamos que trabajen juntos.Al caer la noche del 11 de septiembre de 2001, era difícil imaginar que la ciudad pudiera recuperarse con la rapidez y la fuerza con que lo hizo. Pero al unirnos, pensar con creatividad, planear con ambición y trabajar enfocados en una visión clara del futuro —fiel a los valores de nuestra ciudad, entre ellos acoger a los inmigrantes y refugiados—, dimos inicio a un periodo de renacimiento y renovación nunca antes visto en la historia.Ahora, podemos volver a hacerlo. Si tenemos en cuenta las lecciones del pasado, sé que lo lograremos.Michael R. Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) fue alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York de 2002 a 2013. Es presidente del Museo y Monumento Nacional del 11 de septiembre desde 2006. More

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      It’s a ‘Brawl in Beantown,’ as Progressive Allies Clash in the Boston Mayor’s Race

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      For years, they were “sisters in service,” taking on the old guard and boosting one another’s careers. A rare open mayoral seat changed that.BOSTON — Not so long ago, Boston’s leading progressives called themselves “sisters in service,” linking arms to take on this city’s overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male old guard.For a time, they headlined one another’s fund-raisers. They marched together at the head of parades. They even shared a campaign headquarters, unthinkable in the sharp-elbowed history of this city’s politics.But that time is over.Over the past month, Boston’s mayoral election has become a fierce competition between four women of color, any of whom would represent a departure from this city’s norm.With a preliminary election on Tuesday set to winnow the field to two, City Councilor Michelle Wu, a favorite of the city’s young left, appears poised to take one spot. The other is up for grabs, with sparks flying between the two Black front-runners, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and Kim Janey, the acting mayor.The spectacle has elated some — a historic shift in the city’s leadership now seems almost inevitable — and discouraged others. Denella Clark, a supporter of Ms. Janey’s, is upbeat about her candidate’s chances but said the battery of attacks had been draining.From left, members of the Boston City Council, Lydia Edwards, Michelle Wu, Annissa Essaibi-George, Andrea Campbell, Ayanna Pressley and Kim Janey after a meeting in January 2018. Ms. Pressley is now in Congress, and Ms. Janey is the acting mayor. Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via Getty Images“It’s been worse than I expected,” said Ms. Clark, president of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation. “It’s different because it’s rivals in the Black community and it’s women. I just really didn’t expect the women to be going after each other.”Alisa Drayton, who is supporting Ms. Campbell, said the close race was nerve-racking for many Black voters, who have waited decades for a chance to elect one of their own.The city she grew up in, during the busing crisis of the 1970s, was so blighted by racism that she could not safely walk through some of its white enclaves, she said. The election of a Black woman, she said, could finally free Boston of that old stain.“To see one of our own, born-and-raised Black women to go to that runoff, it’s important,” said Ms. Drayton, a financial services professional.The race was upended in January, when President Biden selected Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, as labor secretary, and he — the lone candidate representing the city’s white, working-class, pro-union tradition — bowed out of the race.That left the women. Two formidable progressives had already begun campaigns — Ms. Wu, 36, a Harvard-educated lawyer who has foregrounded policies on climate, transportation and housing; and Ms. Campbell, 39, a Princeton-educated lawyer who grew up in Roxbury, the historic center of Black Boston, and who has pledged to challenge the city’s police.Michelle Wu, a candidate, joined canvassers in Boston’s Copley Square in May.Philip Keith for The New York TimesThen Ms. Janey, 56, a longtime community activist and president of the City Council, was vaulted into a leading position as acting mayor, bathed in positive press coverage as the city’s first Black and female mayor. Another strong contender emerged in City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, the daughter of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, who has positioned herself as a moderate, promising more harmonious dealings with the police and developers.A fifth candidate, John Barros, who is the son of Cape Verdean immigrants and served as Mr. Walsh’s economic development chief, has struggled to get traction.From the outset, it promised to be a bruising race. The number of undecided voters was small, and the ideological differences between top candidates narrow, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.“If you’re a strategist, you can’t just convince the undecided, you have to knock down someone,” he said. “You’re going to have this elbowing that’s going to accelerate into a street fight.” As summer turns into fall, he said, “It’s going to be a brawl in Beantown.”‘The umbrella is gone’The glow of Ms. Janey’s swearing-in had barely faded when her City Council rivals began to jab her.Ms. Campbell was particularly aggressive, delivering a battery of crisp news conferences in which she urged Ms. Janey to release legal documents in a police scandal, make deeper cuts to the police budget and move faster to mandate vaccines for city employees.Ms. Janey’s City Council colleagues quickly cooled to their new mayor, complaining that she was imperious and unresponsive in her new role; in June they voted, 10-1, to give themselves the right to remove her as Council president, a largely symbolic step that showed they could remove her as mayor.As a relative newcomer to city politics, Ms. Janey may have been viewed as “skipping the line,” said Erin O’Brien, a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston.“She’s been under the umbrella of the Council, that sisterhood, and now the umbrella is gone,” she said.Ms. Janey has been cautious in her new role, sidestepping hot-button issues that could hurt her in the general election, and remaining largely scripted in public appearances.She was gaining ground this summer, outpacing her rivals in fund-raising, when she made a misstep: Asked about New York-style vaccine passports, she batted away the idea, comparing them to racist policies that required Black people to show their identification papers.Kim Janey was sworn in as the first female and first Black mayor of Boston by Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd at City Hall in March.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesMs. Campbell zeroed in on the comment. She held a news conference the next morning, saying Ms. Janey’s remarks “put people’s health at risk, plain and simple,” then highlighted the remark in a fund-raising letter, then made an appearance on MSNBC.Her energy and confidence impressed the editorial board of The Boston Globe, which endorsed her last week, praising her “restless impatience with the status quo and a willingness to charge headfirst into political risks.”Ben Allen, a Janey supporter, complained this week that a “relentless stream of criticism from other progressives” had clouded Ms. Janey’s achievements as acting mayor, which includes the introduction of a mental health crisis response force and quadrupling the assistance provided to first-time home buyers.“She’s not only doing a good job, she’s enacting a progressive agenda,” said Mr. Allen, 41, a mathematics professor.Poll results released on Tuesday by Suffolk University showed that Ms. Janey remained in second place but suggested her momentum was flagging; she had support from 20 percent of likely voters, a two-point drop since June. Ms. Essaibi George and Ms. Campbell have both gained support, rising to 19 and 18 percent.Ms. Wu, the only candidate not born in Boston, has built a commanding lead of 31 percent, cobbling together a coalition that underlines how swiftly this city has changed: She is dominating with Asian American voters, voters who have recently moved to Boston, highly educated voters, and voters who identify as left-leaning.“She lights up the board demographically,” Mr. Paleologos said.Boston is growing, according to recent census data, while its percentage of non-Hispanic white residents is declining, dipping from 47 percent in 2010 to less than 45 percent now. The city’s Black population is also declining, from about 22 percent in 2010 to 19 percent now. There is swift growth in its Asian and Hispanic communities.Although Ms. Wu has benefited from a young, energized base — elements of the “Markeyverse,” which fueled the surprise re-election of Senator Ed Markey, reunited into a “Wuniverse” — she could encounter headwinds in the general election because of her positions on housing and development, like her support of rent control.It is a departure, in itself, that so much of this race has centered on policy. Boston’s campaigns have long turned on ethnic rivalries, first between Anglo-Protestants and Irish Catholics, then drawing in racial minorities as those populations increased.Boston’s mayors relied so heavily on turnout from ethnic enclaves that they had no need to build a multiethnic coalition by presenting a bold vision, the way Fiorello La Guardia did in New York, said the historian Jason Sokol, author of “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn.”“They did not have to express any vision, nor did they end up governing with much vision,” he said.The results of Tuesday’s preliminary election could guide the city into very different matchups for a November general election, including one that pits Ms. Wu against Ms. Essaibi George, who draws her core support from white neighborhoods.Ms. Clark said she feared that the battle between the two Black candidates could lead in that direction, closing a rare window of opportunity for the city, whose Black population is gradually waning with the rising cost of housing.“I firmly believe, if Kim does not stay in there, we will not see a Black elected mayor in the city of Boston,” she said.Wilnelia Rivera, a political consultant who supports Ms. Wu but has also worked closely with Ms. Janey, said it had been difficult for many activists and campaign workers to make a choice.“I lost some friends along the way because of it,” she said. But she added that even those bruises were a marker of something positive: that the center of power in Boston had moved.“It is a triumph, and when I’m in calls now with colleagues in other parts of the country and talk about the Boston race, they’re flabbergasted,” she said. “The transformation that has happened here is very real, and it’s happening in real time.” More

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      Mike Bloomberg: New York City Can Recover

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      The future of New York City is being called into question. Neighborhoods have lost residents to the suburbs. Businesses have closed. People are on edge about public safety. And families are mourning the loss of loved ones.This was the situation in the fall of 2001, after hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center and brought the city to its knees. And it’s the same situation today, with a pandemic raging and millions of people once again wondering if this city’s best days are behind it.Unemployment remains in double digits, retail and office vacancies have soared, and the tourism industry is in dire straits, with the economic pain falling hardest on low-income families. Yet we have good reason to be hopeful, because what was done once can be done again — and better, by heeding the lessons of the past.Over the past eight years, I have been careful to stick to my pledge not to comment on my successor’s administration. Mayors don’t need their predecessors chiming in from the sidelines, and I don’t intend to start now. But I do believe New York City’s success in rebuilding Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11 and revitalizing all five boroughs can help the next mayor as he takes office in January and confronts the same two overarching challenges we faced 20 years ago.The first is urgent: improving vital services New Yorkers rely on every day, including policing, transportation, sanitation and education. In the months after Sept. 11, we were acutely aware the public needed confidence that we would not allow the city to enter a downward spiral, as it did in the 1970s, so we immediately focused on improving quality of life by making neighborhoods safer and cleaner, turning around public schools, and reducing street homelessness.To keep residents and businesses in the city, the next administration must come out of the gate with programs and policies to bolster those same essential services. Funding will be tight, but manageable; the revenue shortfall we faced was more than three times as large, as a percentage of the budget, as the one the next mayor is projected to inherit.The second broad challenge is more difficult, and inevitably in tension with the first: focusing on the city’s future years from now. Ultimately, the mayor will be judged not by the next day’s newspapers, but by the next generation. It’s his job to look beyond the light at the end of the tunnel and start building more tracks, even when it’s unpopular to do so.Two examples from Lower Manhattan come to mind.Not long after being sworn in, I canceled a planned subsidy for a new headquarters for the New York Stock Exchange, even though it was threatening to move out of the city. I didn’t think it was a smart use of scarce resources, but the prospect of the exchange leaving Wall Street raised fears that other large financial institutions might go, too, especially with much of Lower Manhattan in ruins.The easy and politically safe thing to do would have been to leave the subsidy in place. But for decades, the city had been overly reliant on the banking and financial services industry. When Wall Street caught a cold, the saying went, the city got sick. So instead of bribing large firms to stay in Manhattan, we invested in projects in all the boroughs that would attract new businesses in different industries, including bioscience, tech, and film and television. Years later, those and other industries — and the jobs and revenue they created — helped us weather the Great Recession far better than most cities did.The next administration may face similar demands for subsidies from companies that threaten to leave the city. But there are better ways to retain and create jobs than giveaways, especially by investing in critical infrastructure, starting with the subway.In partnership with the state, the mayor can work to get trains on a full schedule again, which would help employers in every industry bring back their workers. It would help thousands of small businesses and their employees reclaim their customers. And it would provide confidence to those who may be thinking about opening a business of their own.Whatever policies the next mayor pursues, the crucial idea is that putting a city back on its feet economically requires more than aiding existing businesses. It requires creating the conditions for new ones to open and expand, further diversifying the economy.The second example from Lower Manhattan concerns housing. In the wake of the attacks, many people wanted to turn the entire World Trade Center into a memorial — or simply to rebuild what was there. I thought both would be a mistake, and I was pilloried for suggesting that housing be constructed at the site. But our administration wanted to transform Lower Manhattan from a 9-to-5 business district into a diverse, 24/7 neighborhood.City leaders had been trying to do that since the 1950s, but their focus had been primarily on developing buildings, including the original World Trade Center, rather than attracting people. We flipped the script by encouraging new housing development and creating the things all residents want: parks, schools and cultural opportunities, including a performing arts center at the World Trade Center that is now nearing completion.As our vision took shape, more families and young people moved downtown, more businesses opened, more jobs were created, and more visitors arrived. The last development site of the World Trade Center will be a tower that includes more than a thousand units of housing.The next administration will have its own opportunities not only to recover from the pandemic, but to reimagine areas of the city. Of course, it’s never easy to take on vocal and powerful groups that say, “Not in my backyard.” But across New York, there are parking lots, warehouses, rail yards and other properties that offer the next mayor opportunities to create housing for all incomes and jobs for all skill levels.Such projects require ambition and political courage. As a candidate, Eric Adams has shown both. That’s why I’m supporting him in the mayoral election this fall. His pragmatism and willingness to take on tough issues — and his experience as a police officer who understands the importance of public safety — will serve him well in City Hall. And I hope that Bloomberg Philanthropies will have a chance to support his administration, because this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.In government, collaboration is as important as competence, and the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site — including the construction of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum — showed how crucial strong partnerships are to achieving a vision. Working with nine different governors of New York and New Jersey, we built the memorial and museum to serve as a powerful tribute to those we lost, and to teach future generations about the extraordinary heroism and sacrifices that inspired and united the world.There were tensions and obstacles, of course. But a healthy working relationship between the mayor and governor is crucial to the success of major projects.Now, even before he takes office, Mr. Adams has a chance to begin building a close relationship with the state’s new governor, Kathy Hochul. They will not always see eye-to-eye, but we need them to work hand-in-hand.As the sun set on Sept. 11, 2001, it was hard to imagine the city could rebound as quickly and strongly as it did. But by pulling together, thinking creatively, planning ambitiously, and working toward a clear vision of the future — one that is true to the values of our city, including our welcoming embrace of immigrants and refugees — we began a period of rebirth and renewal unlike any in history.Now, we can do it again. If we heed the lessons of the past, I know we will.Michael R. Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. He has been chair of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum since 2006.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Eric Adams, N.Y.C.'s Likely Next Mayor, Expresses Shock at Ida Damage

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      Currently serving his last months as Brooklyn borough president, Mr. Adams called the city’s devastation “a wake-up call” on climate change and spoke about the need for “new solutions.”Eric Adams, who as the Democratic nominee is the likely next mayor of New York City, expressed alarm over the devastation he saw in hard-struck areas from the remnants of Hurricane Ida. In television interviews late on Wednesday and on Thursday, he described his shock. Mr. Adams said he had witnessed flooding in Brooklyn that he hadn’t seen before, including flooding on a ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge.“I had to assist some of the motorists,” Mr. Adams said. He called on New Yorkers to help their neighbors and said, “It’s real that global warming is here.”Mr. Adams said that he normally expects flooding in coastal parts of Brooklyn, like Coney Island, but that he was getting reports of inundations in many other neighborhoods as well.“I have never witnessed something like this,” Mr. Adams said.On Twitter, he offered condolences to New Yorkers whose family members had died in the flooding.At one point in his televised appearances, Mr. Adams stressed that the devastation was “a real wake-up call to all of us how we must understand how this climate change is impacting us.” He spoke briefly about the need for improved infrastructure and “new solutions” and the need to “think differently” about how to respond to climate change.But his environmental platform has not been a focal point of his mayoral campaign. The Democratic primary he won was largely focused on how to deal with rising crime.Mr. Adams did release a plan on Earth Day to combat climate change by upgrading the electric grid to renewable energy and focusing on wind and solar projects that would help create jobs and help low income communities most affected by climate change.“Eric has called for significant changes to how we approach resiliency — including a comprehensive citywide process to determine where we need to invest in coordination with our state and federal partners and metrics for tracking the number of people at risk of injury from a flood,” said Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams.The near-certitude that he will be New York’s next mayor was evident. Just before midnight, Don Lemon, a CNN host, welcomed Mr. Adams as the mayor-elect before quickly correcting himself.“Excuse me. Mayor nominee,” Mr. Lemon said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”During a CNN appearance on Thursday, Mr. Adams was asked what people should do if they were trapped in the subway. Mr. Adams, a former transit police officer, told people to wait for help from emergency officials.His spokesman, Mr. Thies, said that Mr. Adams was speaking from his personal experience.“Eric’s a first responder, first and foremost,” he said. “In crises, he uses his training as a public safety officer, his resources as borough president, and his knowledge as a lifetime New Yorker to make sure people are getting the help they need and government is responding in real time.”Before the storm, Mr. Adams was scheduled to appear with Gov. Kathy C. Hochul in Brooklyn but the event was canceled as the governor planned a news conference with Mr. de Blasio.Mr. Adams appeared at the news conference with the governor and the mayor, but did not speak. More

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      The Census Said Detroit Kept Shrinking. The Mayor Begs to Differ.

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      DETROIT — Once again, the Census Bureau reported, Detroit has gotten smaller.For most Detroiters’ entire lives, census day has brought only bad news, a painful once-a-decade accounting of an exodus that has shrunk their city’s population by more than half since 1950 and left entire blocks abandoned.Mayor Mike Duggan pledged to stop that decline when he swept into office eight years ago, telling voters they could measure his success based on whether residents returned. But when the latest numbers were released this month, they showed the population had fallen more than 10 percent since 2010, to about 639,000 residents.In the ledger of the federal government, Mr. Duggan had failed to meet his goal, people were still leaving and Detroit now had fewer residents than Oklahoma City. In the mayor’s own view, he was succeeding, the city was coming back and the Census Bureau had just counted wrong.Hours after the census count was released, the mayor fired off an indignant statement accusing the bureau of undercounting Detroit residents by at least 10 percent. Mr. Duggan said municipal utility data backed up his claims, but his office declined to provide localized evidence to prove that. Census officials mostly declined to discuss the mayor’s complaints.Mayor Mike Duggan has told Detroiters they could measure his success based on whether residents returned to the city.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesOnce the country’s fourth-largest city, Detroit had more than 1.8 million residents at its peak in 1950. In the 2020 census, fewer than 640,000 people were counted.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesThe unusual squabble between City Hall and the Census Bureau was only the latest sign that, under Mr. Duggan, Detroit has become America’s ultimate Rorschach test. Does your attention go to the many challenges that persist — the crime, the trash piles, the people struggling to pay rent, and, yes, the census tally? Or do your eyes focus on what has clearly improved during the mayor’s tenure — the livelier downtown, the clean lots where blighted houses once stood, the N.B.A.’s Pistons moving back from the suburbs, the new Jeep factory?“People in Detroit know the difference,” said Mr. Duggan, a Democrat who is seeking a third term and who finished far ahead of his challengers in this month’s primary election. “If you came in from the outside, you would not go around saying how good this looks.”On the west side, where well-kept homes are situated next to others with busted windows or fire-scorched frames, Cynthia A. Johnson, a state representative, said her district “hasn’t changed a whole hell of a lot” since Mr. Duggan took office.The mayor is a smart guy and a talented politician, she said, but his policies have benefited newcomers to the city and business interests more than the longtime Detroiters in her part of town. She found his complaints about a census undercount unconvincing as she went through a mental list of neighbors who had recently left the city.The number of white Detroiters increased over the last decade after decades of flight, experts said, but the census counted tens of thousands fewer Black Detroiters than lived in the city in 2010. The city’s population of Asian and Hispanic residents also increased since 2010.The vast majority of Detroit residents are Black. Mr. Duggan is the city’s first white mayor in 40 years.“He has opened the door for gentrification — that is my belief,” Ms. Johnson, a fellow Democrat, said. “He has given companies contracts over the people.”Looking at the same evidence, though, some reach the opposite conclusion about Detroit’s trajectory. As Ms. Johnson walked through her neighborhood, pointing out city-owned lots with overgrown weeds and sidewalks littered with liquor bottles, Willie Wesley emerged from his home with a more upbeat view.Cynthia A. Johnson, a state representative, walks through her neighborhood in Detroit. She said her district “hasn’t changed a whole hell of a lot” since Mr. Duggan took office.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesWillie Wesley, who has has been living in the same neighborhood as Ms. Johnson for 21 years, said Detroit was on the upswing.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMr. Wesley, a retired U.P.S. worker who helps mow his neighbors’ lawns, said Detroit was on the upswing. His block felt safer. Some long-vacant homes had new buyers. New industrial sites offered the chance for neighbors to earn a good wage.“I like the mayor I have — I wouldn’t trade him for nothing right now,” Mr. Wesley said. “He’s bringing jobs back into the neighborhood.”Detroit is a city caught in transition. Its distant past as the world’s manufacturing center remains a source of pride. The struggles of recent decades, including the city’s unprecedented journey through municipal bankruptcy, are spoken of with pain. And a vision of its future, though blurry and contested, comes into clearer view with every boarded-up home that is razed, with every coffee shop that opens, with every U-Haul truck heading in or out.Once the country’s fourth-largest city, Detroit had more than 1.8 million residents at its peak in 1950. By the turn of the century, fewer than a million remained. And in the 2020 census, fewer than 640,000 people were counted and Detroit was barely among the country’s 30 most populous cities.Those declines are more than a blow to civic pride. They lead to less political power when new legislative districts are drawn and less federal funding.“I think that is the ultimate test of a city,” Mr. Duggan said. “Do more people want to move in or move out?”Detroit was far from the only city where the latest census showed a populace in atrophy. Cleveland, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Flint, Mich., were among several other industrial centers in the Midwest that saw their populations drop. In Michigan’s rural Upper Peninsula, almost every county lost residents.But unlike most local officials who received bad news, Mr. Duggan reacted by engaging in a public fight with the Census Bureau and suggesting he might sue. He said the bureau, under former President Donald J. Trump, did not give on-the-ground canvassers enough time to do their work last year. The change to an online questionnaire also disadvantaged the city, he said. The pandemic did not help.“The census is just factually inaccurate,” Mr. Duggan said in an interview, noting that he raised concerns about the process last fall, long before the numbers were published. “It was census malpractice and we’re going to get it reversed.”Census officials declined to discuss the mayor’s specific claims, but defended their work in an unsigned statement and said local officials who thought there were errors could appeal. Any corrections would not affect the data used for political redistricting, the bureau said.There is precedent in Detroit for census disputes paying off. After the 1990 count, Coleman A. Young, the mayor at the time, challenged the tally in court and got the bureau to acknowledge that it missed tens of thousands of residents.Still, the latest drop in the population provided a political opening for Anthony Adams, who finished a distant second to Mr. Duggan in the low-turnout mayoral primary and who will face his fellow Democrat again in the November general election.“We’re starting to lose our Black population in the city, and we’re losing it because the policies of this administration are harmful to the people who have been here through thick and thin,” said Mr. Adams, a lawyer who has focused his campaign on crime reduction, police reform and keeping longtime residents in the city.Even some of Mr. Duggan’s allies were unconvinced by his census rhetoric.Paul A. Garrison II, an urban planner and economic developer who leads the Osborn Business Association, credited Mr. Duggan with nurturing new businesses, addressing problems in neighborhoods and attracting educated newcomers to Detroit. He said he even had a Duggan campaign sign in his yard. But Mr. Garrison was not buying the claims of a massive population undercount.“No mayor,” Mr. Garrison said, “wants to admit that the population of their city is decreasing and people are leaving the city. That’s not good politics.”Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaking at the Farwell Recreation Center in Detroit during a news conference on crime reduction. Nick Hagen for The New York TimesKenneth Robinson and his wife had to leave their apartment after their unit flooded.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMr. Duggan is betting that Detroiters trust the direction he is steering the city. He says the city’s problems are on a smaller scale than when he took office in the throes of a bankruptcy and a crisis of city services.“Eight years ago, the problems Detroit was facing were just Detroit — no other city was talking about bankruptcy or streetlights,” Mr. Duggan said. “Today, the challenges that we’re dealing with, every other city has.”But the question of whether the census count ever officially goes up will be determined one resident, one circumstance at a time.Earlier this month, at a senior apartment complex that was swamped during this summer’s devastating floods, Kenneth Robinson grew emotional as his belongings were loaded into a moving truck.“It’s a horrible feeling,” he said. “I hate to even think about it. And I’ve got a sick wife with cancer.”Mr. Robinson, 72, a lifelong Detroiter, had been staying with his wife in a downtown hotel since their unit flooded. Mold and mildew made it unsafe to return home, and financial assistance to stay at the hotel was running out. There was talk about moving temporarily to an extended-stay motel in the suburbs.Mr. Robinson, who worked in the auto industry and as a janitor before retiring, wanted to eventually move back into his apartment. He wanted to stay in Detroit. But he did not know what would come next.The population in Detroit has dropped more than 10 percent in the last decade. Nick Hagen for The New York Times More