Thank you Kanye very cool!

For sure, I’m not anti-capitalist, but if you’re black you’re a lot less likely to have the kind family money/property that makes living in these areas possible for people who aren’t necessarily making insane amounts of money.

I guess I’m mainly thinking of things like brownstones/townhouses on the upper west side or Brooklyn heights/park slope. Obviously there is a black upper and middle class and some of them do live in these places, and if you have enough money and don’t give a f what your neighbors think, then yea you can live where you want. But people might not be especially friendly, even if they’re not racist.

As a white and Asian couple, living in Harlem has been an interesting experience - it is a little stressful to live in a place where you’re not the majority. I’ve never experienced any crime or serious harassment, but def get strange looks and have a hard time making friends and connecting to the local community. Occasional get an unpleasant amount of attention from somebody looking for a reason to be upset when I’m chilling in the park. I imagine it would be similar but more intense for black people in majority white, old-money neighborhoods.

Yeah…but if you haven’t heard, wealth isn’t exactly evenly distributed among racial groups in the USA.

There is no way to defend BDB. His actions directly led to the preventable deaths of thousands of people.

Remember NYC wasn’t the worst city in the country. It wasn’t the worst outbreak in North America. It wasn’t even just the biggest outbreak in developed countries. It was the worst in the world and not by any small margin - no other city, many of them much more crowded with larger numbers of people using public transit and much lower hospital capacity - came even close to what happened in NYC. Our case levels were stratospheric.

BDB should be in prison. He wasn’t just incompetent. He lied, repeatedly, over and over and over. He lied about masks claiming they wouldn’t work. He lied about schools claiming children couldn’t spread the virus even after thousands of teachers were already sick.He lied about the risk of keeping businesses open. He lied about the risks of attending mass events and protests. He lied about providing emergency aid to hospitals.

Then he lied about how bad things were. He lied about how bad it was in hospitals. He lied about it not affecting young people. Repeatedly.

I say “lie” bc it wasn’t him being inaccurate or ignorant or misinformed. He knew things were dangerous and said they weren’t. He knew keeping the schools open was extremely risky but thought he would lose popularity by closing them, even when so many staff were sick that most chose to stop working rather than risk death. Science officials were begging him to close things. Education officials were begging him to close the schools. The state government had to put the first large testing facility in Westchester bc he wouldn’t allow one in the city (bc he knew what it would show). He actively prevented aid from the federal gov, state gov, healthcare experts, and charities from getting to sick people and hospitals. He did nothing to get extra healthcare resources.

Never once did he accurately convey the science. He has never (and will never) take any responsibility, bc he never cared about NYC or being mayor. He just needed a springboard for a presidential run and knew he couldn’t defeat Cuomo, bc he had no experience and no qualifications and no charisma.

I was a nursing student during Covid. I will never forget what I saw. It was like a portal to hell opened up. I couldn’t believe I was still in the USA. Nurses were going in with garbage and sandwich bags as PPE. Not that there wasn’t just enough biohazard gear - there wasn’t anything. No surgical masks, no 95s, no goggles or face shields, no gowns, no infection control procedures, no ventilators, absences of basic medications - there was a shortage of everything. Nurses were dying left and right. Then the doctors started dying too. People were re-using PPE for weeks. Nobody went home to their families if they had anyplace else to stay - we all knew we would get sick.

I’d say I’m proud that I didn’t run away but really I was too shocked and scared to even think about it. I just did what I was told, like most healthcare workers. I should have left - in retrospect I was at insane risk and had basically no ability to help people. Not that people wanted help anyways. They didn’t want to wear masks. They didn’t want to be tested for Covid. And god forbid De Blasio require those things - I mean, what if he lost voters? That would be the real horror.

The city’s inaction allowed people to act like monsters. My hospital’s director committed suicide a few weeks into the peak pandemic - I’m sure many others wanted to. The trauma that healthcare professionals faced was devastating and most still can’t talk about it. It’s like being exposed to a radiation by your government.

Biggest modeling study found that if he closed schools two weeks earlier (when the CDC and city health recommended, there were tens of thousands of cases, and most large cities had shut schools down) there would have been 500,000 fewer cases in the first wave and probably more 15,000 fewer deaths.

Even a week earlier (when he was the only person who wanted them to stay open and his advisors could not even understand his thought process) would have led to 300,000 fewer cases and almost 10,000 fewer deaths. Then think of how many fewer deaths if he had required patients to wear masks, or provided testing services, or given healthcare providers PPE. I will never forgive that man. He’s evil. The fact that he can live with himself shows that he has absolutely zero moral compass. The city won’t recover from what he did in our lifetimes.

Oh yeah and before that his wife stole like $30 million dollars intended to go to mental health clinics for the homeless. The money has never been found, probably bc it’s in the Cayman Islands or Cyprus or Switzerland. Nice little nest egg for their retirement.

Comparing him to Adams is insane. Adams has some corrupt friends and has proposed some controversial policies. De Blasio lied his ass off while the city burned around him and then tried to run for President and created a fake mental health initiative so that his wife could steal millions from a program meant for free mental health clinics - I guess she was tired of doing nothing and needed some work to keep her busy and supplement what he felt was unfair compensation for his job. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say he should be in prison. His wife should be as well.

Thousands of people and hundreds of businesses would still exist if he had not been a pathological liar whose only concern was his own popularity. I don’t see how Adams (or anyone) could possibly do a worse job. He is easily the worst mayor of any city in American history and was far more corrupt than Adams. But bc he’s a liberal Democrat and his wife is Black, he’ll never face any consequences and somehow is still seen as a decent guy.

True, but de Blasio certainly did nothing to help.

Picking a childish fight with Cuomo while the city was the global epicenter of the pandemic was…well, not great.

Cuomo shares blame, but at least he was communicating with the public. Seemed like BDB was in some unreachable bunker somewhere stewing over his grievances/worrying about how Covid would affect his dreams of being President. And yes I know Cuomo was lying at times but at least he acted like a leader.

BDB openly allowed the subways to become shelters for sick homeless people who couldn’t get into the shelters, which turned the subway into Covid Express and led to a massive (and unfortunately somewhat permanent) increase in car ownership and use.

He was late (and weak) on requiring masks. He closed schools wayyyyyyy too late which may have been the single largest factor in why NYC had such a uniquely bad outcome. Refused to admit that maybe mass protests weren’t the greatest idea in the midst of an extremely infectious pandemic. Did pretty much nothing to help hospitals and EMS…I could go on.

Realize this isn’t all subway-related, but he was truly a once-in-a-generation awful mayor.

Traffic deaths have increased, though some factors he couldn't control. Lots of people bought cars bc of Covid and the increased use of scooters and e-bikes has created a whole new source of danger for pedestrians - injuries tend to be less severe but you can't hear them coming and they often ignore traffic laws/act recklessly. Though he did let the subway go to shit which has encouraged people to keep the cars they bought during Covid.

Universal pre-K - forgot about that, worth mentioning for sure. Tho he also tried to force thru massive changes to the public schools' gifted programs (which tbh Adams also supported until the public turned against it). Fortunately he was too unpopular at that point to do anything. His last two years seem to have mainly been spent being driven to and from the Park Slope YMCA and trying to avoid encounters with the public as much as possible.

Ah so he doesn't even get credit for that then lol. So I guess only corrupt ferries, helping his wife embezzle millions of dollars of City money, and the worst Covid outbreak outside of China.

People hate on Adams (and he does seem very corrupt, that place he spends his time at and his two friends are super sketchy) but at least things are happening in NYC gov.

Under 12 years of Big Bird all we got were more ferries in rich neighborhoods (owned and operated by Hornblower, a company started by his long-time friend), a fake mental health initiative that allowed his wife unmonitored access to millions in city funds that got lost somewhere along the way and never reached mental health providers, and the worst Covid response/outbreak/recovery of any city in the world (except Wuhan I suppose)

About the only positive thing he did was end stop & frisk. Even if you hate Adams at least changes are being proposed and conversations are being started about the decline in quality of life and various crises that the city is facing.

Think it's a bit ridiculous to say NIMBYism is a not a major feature of NYC life.

There is not a single homeless shelter or methadone clinic anywhere in Manhattan except Harlem, Wash Heights, and a few remaining holdouts in recently gentrified parts of Chelsea and the LES.

Unsurprisingly, the only new one proposed by the city in recent times was right in the middle of Chinatown despite the fact that Asian New Yorkers are the most victimized people in the city.

You know why that's where they want to put it - it's the cheapest place available in lower Manhattan, and already seen as overly dense, dirty, and chaotic. There is also a shortage of bilingual lawyers who can represent Chinatown residents which has been a problem for a while.

First I didn't write the quote above - that was from OP.

I don't know why/when NYC zoning laws were written, but I do know that today they make residential construction much more difficult than it should be in a city with an extreme housing crisis, especially large apartment/condominium buildings that can actually add substantial housing stock.

Don't think anybody's arguing that residential zones should be opened up for factories. Also NYC doesn't have industrial revolution-like factories anymore - barely anywhere in the US does and it's ludicrous to suggest that manufacturing would take hold in Manhattan again with the cost of labor and land here. Most no longer exist in North America anymore lol.

Rich people abusing zoning is extremely common, probably the main reason these laws continue to exist, certainly not a rare byproduct. So many affluent blocks with single-family homes or townhouses should have multi-story developments.

People with money and government connections manipulate old laws and file frivolous lawsuits to protect an aesthetic that they like and artificially maintain low-density areas in a growing city with a massive shortage of housing and very limited land. Poorer neighborhoods meanwhile get almost all of the affordable/subsidized housing and other NIMBY but necessary things like homeless shelters, addiction treatment centers, massive parking facilities, industrial storage, etc. The result is racist even if the laws were well-intentioned.

I think comments like yours are just as dangerous. You raise unrealistic fears about "overcrowding, pollution, and squalor" which are often (not saying you intended this, but it's a fact) dog whistles for anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Semitism/racism, homelessness, and addiction. You pretentiously mention an artist who died in 1914 as a way to justify fear of changes in neighborhood density while virtue signaling to avoid the guilt that people would otherwise bear knowing that they are contributing to financial stress, poverty, and homelessness.

Also cities burning down? Seriously? Large parts of modern cities don't spontaneously burn down any more unless there's a direct cause like a massive forest fire or arson on a mass scale during a riot.

100%. It's just a way for rich homeowners to block anything that might impact them in any way and keep their neighborhoods frozen in time. And even if not explicitly racist, it obviously keeps desirable parts of the City majority white and affluent.

Yeah screw zoning. We need apartments. Wealthy people shouldn't be allowed to block/delay large housing developments just to keep the neighborhood exclusive and interfere with their view of the city.

Thank god. Glad to see that people aren't voraciously opposing this while also protesting against the homeless policy change. Almost everybody opposed to that says the cause of homelessness is housing shortage and cutting red tape for housing developments is the only way to directly address the severe housing shortage.

Going to Qatar is shady for anyone (unless you’re one of their ‘guest workers’ AKA slaves).

There is basically no reason to go there except for tax evasion, helping them suppress democracy and keep their indentured servants in line, or (if ethics aren’t a big deal to you) I guess soccer.

It’s like the Cayman Islands with worse beaches, less financial regulation, and an unbearable upper class that are some of the most spoiled, lazy, abusive nouveaux riche people on the planet. Even other Arabs find them to be unbearable narcissists.

If you’re a native Qatari you literally don’t need to do anything ever - government provides healthcare, education, food subsidies, free gasoline, and servants from the cradle to the grave.

Do you have any ability to pay out of pocket? Waiting lists to see psychiatric providers who take insurance (especially Medicaid) can be extremely long. If you are able to pay ~$100 you could see a psych nurse practitioner student through telehealth within a day or two who can evaluate your symptoms and severity and either prescribe medication or help you find a decent psychiatric ward. If so PM me and I can recommend a few services

You will not be hospitalized just for having occasional suicidal feelings/thoughts. Evaluation is more complicated than that. In most states you can only be involuntarily hospitalized if a provider feels that you are at serious risk of self-harm or suicide.

So it depends how often you feel this way, whether it's a desire to escape a tough situation vs. a true desire to die, how intense the feelings are, whether you have a history of acting impulsivity, any past self-harm or suicide attempts, whether you drink/use any substances, etc.

If you are at the point where you've started planning and thinking of methods and dates and notes to leave, then is best for you to be hospitalized. Better a short stay in the hospital, as scary as that sounds, than risking a suicide attempt which could traumatize your daughter and leave her without a parent forever.

If that does happen do you have any friend or family member she might stay with? If you choose to voluntarily self-admit you will likely be out within a week.

If you can't get in to see a provider the best way to do it IMO is drive yourself to a hospital with a psych ward and tell them you are thinking of killing yourself. Legally they can't just refuse to treat you if you, though if they're full they may transfer you to another facility. If you call 911 from home they will send an ambulance which will cost thousands of dollars for even a short ride.