Fox News Panel Bizarrely Decides ‘Filthy’ NYC is ‘More Dangerous Than Ever’, Ignoring Record Low Crime

As dumb cable news shows go, Fox News program Outnumbered is near the top for misinformed “truthiness” that opts for opinionated feelings from pundits over informed analysis from experts.

Case in point: Friday’s conversation about how New York City is the “worst that it’s ever been” now that Mayor Bill de Blasio is in City Hall.

This follows a similar Outnumbered segment on Thursday in which the ill-informed hosts prattled on about how New York City has returned to a lawless place with renegade squeegee men and subway platform muggers.

The message to viewers? Be afraid to visit New York because Harris Faulkner has heard from friends that the subway is now very dangerous (she admittedly has little personal experience on the subway herself.)

But here’s a message from one New Yorker to Outnumbered hosts: Get the hell outta here with this crap.

The news peg to Outnumbered’s ill-begotten political harangue is Mayor de Blasio’s recent pronouncement of plans to provide all New York City residents with health care coverage and offer two weeks paid vacation to all city employees. He followed that announcement by saying during his State of the City address, “there’s plenty of money in the world. There’s plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands.” The horror!

On Thursday’s show, the Outnumbered panel openly laughed at the idea that working-class employees deserve paid vacation, and instead took the position that this would be too burdensome a cost for the super wealthy who employ them. They then went on to lament what they see as the demise of New York City.

In the eyes of these well-paid television personalities, New York City has become something of a vacant shithole under Mayor de Blasio’s leadership. Their warning that New York City is “going down the drain” is, however, not based on any reality. Let’s start with our Fox pundits’ paralyzing fear of vacant storefronts.

Melissa Francis, who made a public stink about not getting a table at her country club this past summer, noted the increase in empty storefronts in New York City. “All you have to do is walk around the city and see the empty storefronts,” she said, adding “It’s everywhere. I walk around my neighborhood, I thought it was just there. It got — blocks and blocks of the first level is empty.”

She is correct to note this recent urban phenomenon. According to a study by Elliman, there is record vacancy (20 percent in 2018, compared to 7 percent in 2016). But the reason Francis provides for the empty storefronts — that landlords raise rents because of increased taxes — falls short of the mark.

There is little evidence that tax rates are the root of this problem, in a city with ever-increasing prosperity. First, the increase in consumers shopping online also has played a major role in this phenomenon.

But retail real estate experts also point to the consolidation of retail storefronts by massive mega-million dollar corporations like Vornado, SL Green and Tishman-Speyer (to name a few) who have the largesse to sit on an empty storefront until they get the high-level price per square footage rent they are seeking.

This is the reason that corporate chains, national banks, and drug stores are proliferating throughout the neighborhood streets of NYC and pushing out the mom and pop shops that made the city an old world jewel, standing out from the suburban sprawl that defines most of the nation. The empty storefronts are far more a result of corporate and mega-wealthy greediness than de Blasio’s policies.

On Thursday’s show, Francis claimed: “You can see the quality of life has gone down the drain. The streets are filthy. It’s more dangerous than ever. The squeegee men are back. The quality of life has gone down the drain.”

She repeated this claim on Friday, saying of New York City: “It’s a disaster. It’s going down the drain,” which echoed Faulkner’s dangerous muggers comments from Thursday’s show.

I’ve lived in New York City for 30 years and allow me to call bullshit.

I regrettably drive around the city regularly (mostly carting around boys to little league games, birthday parties, and visits to family) and I have not been accosted by a squeegee man in at least two decades.

More importantly? The notion that the city has gotten more dangerous under Mayor de Blasio is simply not true.

According to New York Citus’ Chief Crime Control Strategist Lori Pollack, 2018 set several record lows.

“We are at record lows for murder, shootings, robbery, burglary, GLA, and overall index crime. Overall crime is at a record low. For the first time in the CompStat era, we have recorded below 96,000 index crime.”

The murder rate in New York City in 1990? 2,245. In 2018, it was just 289 — significantly lower than other major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

That’s right. New York City has never been safer, and yet here we are, more than 1 million of us viewers, watching ill-informed hosts of an irresponsible opinion show share misinformed “feelings” that have little to no basis in truth.

Doesn’t matter if facts get in the way if you score cheap political points and mock Mayor de Blasio’s desire to give paid vacations and health care to New York City employees. It’s the classic Fox News bon mot: the trickle-down theory persists and the wealthy are the real victims here.

I will agree that New York City has changed over the past 10 to 15 years, but not because it’s more dangerous (it’s not) nor because it’s dirty (it’s always been, but at least now you can breathe in Times Square). The reason NYC is less enjoyable because people like Outnumbered hosts parachute in to complain about what makes it so unique.

As I said before, get the hell out of here with this crap. New York City ain’t for you.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.