New York

Shrinking California Still Dreams, but More Modestly

Published

1 year ago

August 27, 2023

Shrinking California Still Dreams, but More Modestly

California has long beckoned with its coastal beauty and bustle — the magnetic pull of Hollywood, the power of Silicon Valley.

That allure helped make it a cultural, economic and political force. For 170 years, growth was constant and expansion felt boundless. And it was easy to be drawn in by the lore.

“Everybody knew that there was no prejudice or discrimination of any kind, that the streets were paved with gold and anybody could be somebody — it was the land of the future,” recalled Adrian Dove, the longtime chairman of the Kingdom Day Parade in South Los Angeles.

By early 2020, California’s population had soared to nearly 40 million residents, with another 10 million expected in the coming decades.

Then, with the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath, the trend reversed: The state lost more people than it gained in each of the last three years and shrank to less than 39 million people. Recent data released by the state Finance Department now offers a stunning prediction: The population could stagnate for the next four decades.

Suddenly, the Golden State, so proudly aware of its popularity, finds itself having to rethink its identity.

When Mr. Dove moved as a child to Los Angeles from Dallas in 1945, he felt a sense of freedom when it came to his ambitions. Graduating from Compton High School, he went on to study at Harvard University. But now, at 88 years old, Mr. Dove acknowledges that similar trajectories can feel unattainable to many in a region that he believes has plenty of resources but struggles to spread the wealth.

“California is still the dream,” he said, “but there’s not enough for everybody.”

That feeling reverberates around the state as rents soar, the median sale price of a single family home hovers around $830,000 and homeless encampments proliferate. The promise of easy living in Mediterranean weather has faded in the shadow of a housing crisis.

“We’re witnessing the death of the thing that really made California great, which was its middle class,” said the writer Héctor Tobar, 60, whose novels have explored the economic divide in the state.

“What fueled the boom in population was the new subdivisions, it was people migrating here to get a taste of middle-class life. And today California is divided more than ever into rich and poor.”

Mr. Tobar’s own father was able to access that middle-class life, arriving from Guatemala with a sixth-grade education but managing to eventually obtain an associate degree and find work in the hotel industry. California living, he insisted, meant that his son would grow taller than him. “I guessed that we would grow up to be this race of giants,” Mr. Tobar said. “It was a place of plenty and opportunity.”

The reasons for the plateau are not surprising. Fertility rates have declined as couples wait longer to have children, focusing on education or establishing their careers. Which can often mean having fewer children or none. At the same time, the death rate is expected to rise as the baby boomer generation ages.

The most variable, and perhaps critical, component to the expected population is migration.

It is not a new phenomenon for people to leave the state to get a new job, find a lower cost of living or be closer to family. But when Covid-19 restrictions were in place, those factors were amplified. Workers were allowed to perform the same job remotely in another state while dramatically cutting their expenses. And immigration came to a standstill.

Eric McGhee, a senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, said those leaving make up about 1 or 2 percent of the total population, not the exodus some would believe. (“Tell me: Where are you going to go?” former Gov. Jerry Brown once mused as he dismissed the popular notion that Californians were headed elsewhere en masse.) But, Mr. McGhee noted, those departures send a disconcerting signal about the lifestyle available in California, that the state is less welcoming to lower-wage workers and younger generations.

“There is this kind of broader philosophical question that has to do with why are we losing people to other states?” he said. “Why is it that California, which has these very dynamic industries, can’t seem to accommodate the people who want to be here?”

Politically, California’s influence could shrink while other states like Texas and Florida grow. California already lost a congressional district for the first time in its history, after the 2020 census, and could eventually lose more.

A dearth of young people and immigrants also will mean less consumer spending, and a smaller labor force, threatening the dynamism that has fueled California’s growth for decades..

California is already in a constant state of bumping up against its boundaries: the dramatic swings between flood and drought. An intractable homeless crisis that has increased tension in many cities. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Even Hollywood has lost its luster as the ongoing strikes reveal deep problems for the movie industry in a digital era.

America has always had a frontier mentality, but perhaps that should be reimagined, said Chris Tilly, a professor of urban planning and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Maybe it’s time for us to grow up and realize we live in a world of limits,” he said. “That could be a level of maturity. If California is in a position to lead the country and come to terms with its limitations on growth, that could be a way California could still be in the lead. Which could really be an interesting twist.”

Of course, the population was never meant to grow infinitely. Leveling off can be a good thing when it comes to creating more sustainable approaches as climate change forces California to think differently. The increasing threat of catastrophic wildfire, for instance, has persuaded many leaders that the state cannot keep converting rural land into large suburbs.

And California remains the most populous state in the nation, with 10 million more residents than Texas, the second-largest state. Public agencies looking at the data to make planning decisions are using it to make projections, but not sounding an alarm.

“The momentum doesn’t shift for us,” said Kome Ajise, the executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, a joint powers authority that focuses on mobility, sustainability and livability.

“There is that mythical feel about California, but there is some substance to that draw that is more real,” Mr. Ajise said. “We have all the foundational industries, like entertainment and hospitality, and a big job market. The basic economic foundation of California is still in place.”

Natalia Molina, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, said the state’s path can be looked at “as a harbinger of what does it mean when you don’t have affordable housing, investment in social welfare, clear immigration policies.”

Yet, Ms. Molina notes that her grandmother left Mexico and arrived alone in California, then ran a successful restaurant that welcomed other immigrants. Threads of similar stories seemed apparent to her on a recent Saturday when she picked up a sandwich from a century-old restaurant started by a French immigrant in downtown Los Angeles, then drove through Chinatown, where both aguas frescas and boba can be found.

Communities have been forged here that still feel special and worth sticking around for, she said.

“As long as people are showing up and willing to do the work,” she said, “the California dream is alive and well, although a little more anemic these days.”

New York

Bethenny Frankel Uses ‘Dior Bags’ to Discuss Drones on TikTok

Published

7 hours ago

January 7, 2025

Press Room

Bethenny Frankel Uses ‘Dior Bags’ to Discuss Drones on TikTok

In the last few weeks, Bethenny Frankel has been talking a lot about Dior bags on TikTok. The subject itself isn’t unusual: As a reality TV star and entrepreneur, she frequently posts about fashion topics to her 2.4 million followers, including in a feature Ms. Frankel calls “Handbag University,” where she offers reviews and tutorials.

But the tone of Ms. Frankel’s posts about Dior is strikingly different than a typical conversation about luxury goods. Less Vogue and more Jason Bourne.

In a post on Monday, Ms. Frankel suggested there was a cover-up at play.

“I’ve received several Dior bag videos and messages about sightings which are obviously not being reported in the mainstream media,” she said.

The day before, Ms. Frankel said she had been talking to an unnamed source about the Dior bag situation, and that this person — the father of someone Ms. Frankel knows — had passed along top-secret intelligence.

“If our government tries to tell us that they’re from China, that these bags are from China, that we have an issue,” Ms. Frankel said, cryptically, repeating what she said her source had told her, “that would be very alarming.”

Confusion would be understandable to someone coming across just one of the videos, but watch enough of them and you will realize “Dior bags” aren’t always Dior bags. In this case, Ms. Frankel is using the term to refer to the drones that have been reported flying in the skies over the eastern United States and elsewhere.

Who but a fashion obsessive would use a French luxury label as a code word?

“It was in the moment — it wasn’t planned at all,” Ms. Frankel said in a phone interview. “I was just like, ‘The Dior bags are real, they’re in the closet, and management doesn’t want us to know about it.’”

Various governmental agencies have said the sightings, for the most part, are not drones, and a visual analysis by The New York Times indicated most of the sightings over New Jersey were of airplanes rather than drones.

That has not been enough to persuade Ms. Frankel.

She said she initially had only a peripheral interest in the story. Then someone she knows whose father has access to inside information of some sort — and whom she refers to only as “Waterhammer” — reached out to her with a theory explaining the drone sightings. Ms. Frankel posted about it on TikTok in the days before Christmas. But whereas her posts usually get millions of views, she said, the handful of posts in which she talked about drones “were getting 500 views.”

TikTok creators have long complained that the reach of videos has been restricted because they touched on topics the platform didn’t like — “shadow banning,” as the alleged practice has come to be known. It is hard to prove that TikTok is suppressing content, but Ms. Frankel started talking about Dior bags instead of drones in an attempt to get around algorithms and strict content moderation. Such a diversion technique is called “algospeak.”

Ms. Frankel’s fashionable way of talking in code has caught on. Indeed, the reality TV star, her followers and others who want to discuss the drone phenomenon and theorize on social media have created an alternative lexicon built around shopping terminology. “Store management,” to this group, is the U.S. government; Oscar de la Renta products are the shiny objects some have claimed to have observed in the sky; and Prada items are plasmoids, or structures made of plasma and magnetic fields.

Curiously, the largely male audience that listens to podcasters like Joe Rogan and Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL, has also adopted the term and used the hashtag #diorbags in their own videos.

“There were truckers with skull caps and guys on oil rigs talking about Dior bags,” laughed Ms. Frankel.

One group not talking about it apparently is Christian Dior SE, the French company behind the Dior brand. Its representatives did not return a request for comment.

Ms. Frankel hasn’t heard from Dior either, though she wouldn’t be surprised if that were to happen, given that the company may not want its name associated with an online community sharing wild theories about the drones.

“I can’t believe Dior corporate hasn’t called me at this point,” said Ms. Frankel. She clarified: “We’re not mad at Dior. This is just what I used.”

The conversation around “Dior bags” is happening just as another handbag discussion is dominating social media: the look-alike Birkin bag being sold at Walmart.

For anyone not in on algospeak, having a conversation about actual handbags can suddenly lead to confusion. The other day, Ms. Frankel posted about “why the Walmart Birkin is fascinating.” She was quick to clarify, “And this is legitimately about bags — it’s not code.”

New York

New York Crime Rate Falls, but Number of Felony Assaults Rises Again

Published

15 hours ago

January 6, 2025

Press Room

New York Crime Rate Falls, but Number of Felony Assaults Rises Again

The number of felony assaults and rapes in New York City rose last year even as the overall crime rate fell, Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, said on Monday.

Shootings fell 7 percent last year compared with 2023, to 903, and there were 377 homicides reported in 2024, the lowest number of killings since 2020, according to police figures. The number of burglaries, robberies, car thefts and larcenies also dropped in 2024, Commissioner Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams said during a news conference.

But two crime categories — sexual assaults and felony assaults, a major crime category defined as an attack in which a dangerous weapon is used or a serious injury results — continued to buck the trend. There were 29,417 felony assaults last year, the highest number in at least 24 years and a 5 percent increase from 2023.

For the mayor, the decline in several major crime categories was an opportunity to tout his policies at a time when he is trying to persuade New Yorkers to re-elect him, even as he faces criminal prosecution and a perception that the leadership of the Police Department descended into dysfunction under his watch.

“I was clear from Day 1, not only on the campaign trail, but when I became mayor, the prerequisite to our prosperity is public safety, and I was committed to driving down crime,” Mayor Adams said. “We’re the safest big city in America. The numbers are clear.”

The department said it had received 1,748 complaints of sexual assault, nearly half of which were connected to domestic violence incidents, Commissioner Tisch said.

The number of rapes was the highest since 2020, though it was slightly lower than in 2019, when the department received 1,771 complaints of sexual assault, according to department figures. About a quarter of the rapes reported last year occurred in the Bronx.

The announcement of a drop in crime comes as headlines have been dominated by terrifying incidents, such as the killing of Debrina Kawam, a 57-year-old woman who was burned to death on the F train three days before Christmas, and the shooting of 10 people outside a club in Queens on New Year’s Day. Mr. Adams acknowledged on Monday that reporting a drop in most crime categories may not comfort many New Yorkers who are fearful of being randomly attacked on the subway or on the street.

“These high-profile random acts of violence have overshadowed our success,” he said. “We have to deal with the perception.”

Commissioner Tisch, whom Mayor Adams appointed on Nov. 20, said she had issued an order for 200 officers to patrol the city’s trains. More officers will be deployed to subway platforms in the 50 highest-crime stations in the city, she said.

“We know that 78 percent of transit crime occurs on trains and on platforms, and that is quite obviously where our officers need to be,” Commissioner Tisch said. “This is just the beginning.”

Mayor Adams said that kind of presence “will allow New Yorkers to feel the omnipresence” of the police “and feel safe.”

The number of sexual assaults was down during the first part of 2024 but began to rise later in the year. Commissioner Tisch attributed that increase in part to a rise in the number of sexual assaults connected to domestic violence incidents and a change in state law in September that expanded the definition of what constitutes rape.

Under the law, the definition was expanded from strictly vaginal penetration by a penis to include acts of oral, anal and vaginal penetration.

Felony assaults have been persistently high since 2020, however.

Commissioner Tisch pointed to recidivism, citing police figures that showed a large increase in the number of people arrested three times for the same crime.

Mayor Adams cited mental health as a factor in many of these crimes. He has directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they did not pose a danger to others.

On Monday, he broached that issue again as he pointed to recent random acts of violence committed by people who appeared to have “severe mental health issues.”

“The many cases of people being pushed on the subway tracks, of women being punched in the face,” he said, “it’s the same profile.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul has called on state legislators to pass a law that would allow hospitals to force more people into mental health treatment. Mayor Adams supports that plan, though the New York Civil Liberties Union said it “threatens New Yorkers’ rights and liberties.”

Christopher Herrmann, an associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that while mental health is an important factor, other societal ills can drive felony assault numbers up.

“Is it housing insecurity? Are there food shortages? Is it the economy? We need to consider all of it,” he said.

Mr. Herrmann said crimes like assaults and robberies are the type “that really fuel public fear.”

“It’s just more of a reason we’ve got to get those numbers under control,” he said.

Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.

New York

Riding with a New York City cabdriver on the first day of congestion pricing.

Published

23 hours ago

January 6, 2025

Press Room

Riding with a New York City cabdriver on the first day of congestion pricing.

Wain Chin, a New York City taxi driver, felt unlucky on Sunday morning.

From 9 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., he cruised in his yellow cab up and down the avenues between 57th Street and Houston Street in Manhattan. Only one woman could be seen raising her hand to hail a taxi — and the driver in front of Mr. Chin picked her up.

“You’ve got to hustle,” Mr. Chin said.

But he also noticed something positive: The streets seemed less crowded than usual.

“It might be less traffic,” he said, steering through Times Square with his eyebrows raised.

It was the first day of New York’s congestion pricing program, which tolls drivers entering the busiest section of Manhattan in an effort to reduce gridlock. Taxi rides are also subject to tolls, which are tacked on to passengers’ fares. For the first time, paper receipts in Mr. Chin’s cab showed a 75-cent fee marked “CRZ,” for “congestion reduction zone.”

“I have no comprehension on how it’s going to turn out,” he said.

But Mr. Chin, 57, is worried about how the new tolls might affect his profession. When traffic resurged as the coronavirus pandemic waned, cab ridership didn’t. During the 12-hour shifts he works Monday through Saturday, he previously averaged 20 to 25 fares. Now it is 15 to 20. Worse, his rides tend to be shorter — blocks, not miles, with charges of $20 instead of $40.

New York City has begun adding a congestion surcharge to taxi riders’ fares in the busiest part of Manhattan. Some drivers are wary about the program.Credit…Dave Sanders for The New York Times

With an estimated 80 percent of his work in the tolling zone — below 60th Street — Mr. Chin worries that the additional fee will deter future riders, especially those going short distances.

Even marginal losses could be meaningful for Mr. Chin. A married father of three sons, he still owes about half a million dollars for the taxi medallion he inherited from his father. (He is trying to refinance.)

“We’re concerned for our survival,” said Mr. Chin, a Burmese immigrant who has driven a cab for nearly 30 years and is a member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Any time of day, he noted, riders south of 96th Street in Manhattan start out paying $7.75 — $4.75 in fees, $3 to the taxi driver. During evening weekday rush hours, the starting price jumps to $10.25. How much more, Mr. Chin wonders, will riders take?

“We don’t know how it’s going to affect us,” he said. “We’re going to find out in a few weeks.”

He is, however, sympathetic to the needs of the city’s public transit system, which is in dire need of repairs and upgrades that will be financed with revenue from congestion pricing tolls. Cruising past the heavily guarded Trump Tower, he mused on President-elect Donald J. Trump’s promise to end congestion pricing.

“It would be great for us,” he said. “But who’s going to pay for the subway then? The federal government?”