Our Advice to Voters in a Vexing Race for New York Mayor

Many longtime New Yorkers have had a sinking feeling at some point in the past decade. They have worried that their city was heading back to the bad old days of the 1970s and ’80s.

Subway trips can have a chaotic or even menacing quality. Nearly half of bus riders board without paying their fares. The number of felony assaults has jumped more than 40 percent over the past decade. The city’s fourth graders, after significantly outperforming their peers in other large cities during the early 2000s, have fallen back in math and reading. Housing has become even less affordable, and homelessness has risen. In the most basic measure of the city’s appeal, the population remains well below its pre-Covid peak.