Ttulo alternativo: ¿Quién es el alcalde? ¿Ejecutivo o político?
The first chapter of Bloomberg’s New York gives a pretty detailed (like, really detailed) analytical, technical, political, socioeconomic, historical-like introduction to how New York City changed to allow for our current situation. The changes spoken about seemed pretty obvious in my opinion, especially with “The Bloodless Revolution” and of the favoring of big business in New York. We’ve already discussed in class the problems seen in 1970’s New York, and I look at the shift to corporations in the political sense as inevitable. In times of fiscal crisis, cities and individuals would look at One Direction. No, not Zayn, Harry, Louie, Niall and Liam. They’d be looking to and shifting towards the “big man,” or the corporate world, instead of the middle class, or common world. So for New York to have a mayor that came from this corporate, big business world seems like a natural step in our city’s politics.
But meow, for the topic of the CEO in office. As I said in the last paragraph, it’s part of the progression of New York becoming a corporate/big business background city. Bloomberg coming into politics without prior experience, but with a boatload of charisma and money was what won him office. I see no problem with this. A CEO is what represents a company, its face. The CEO is a person people will inherently use to judge the worth and personal value of a company socially, relationally, and politically. This was echoed in chapter 2, under “Performance and Class.” With that being said, the role of mayor can be seen as the same thing. In many ways, the CEO and politician parallel each other, and this can be seen with the success of Bloomberg. The mayor represents the people of New York, or at least, what many New Yorkers see as successful. And much like a CEO, the mayor has to have vision, or be driven to get to their executive position. (Rhyming!)
Treating the city as a business has both its good and bad sides. Chapter 3 showed the initiatives Mayor Bloomberg took to put the people best fit for the job in their respective positions. Under the “Performance, class, etc…” section, Bloomberg went to measure his effectiveness with governmental success, another corporate move. In a bunch of other ways, this can be seen as a great thing. But it’s far from Purrrrrrfect (Kitty claws.) The end of chapter 3 spoke of this corporate way of running the city as “a means to an end.” I can see this throughout the reading, because it was geared towards the effectiveness of the government. I see this as a critique by the author, showing Bloomberg as strictly a businessman, and less of a people’s politician. I’d be interested in seeing the public opinion on this corporate-political management, and how people were affected by it.
Deuces.
