Bill de Blasio
Juan González says de Blasio is “reclaiming” NYC
Photo by Jeff Coltin
After decades under conservative mayors, Juan González says Bill de Blasio is bringing New York City back to its progressive roots. González, a longtime columnist for the Daily News and author of the new book, “Reclaiming Gotham: Bill de Blasio and the Movement to End America’s Tale of Two Cities,” spoke with the Slant Podcast about how de Blasio represents a pivot away from the neoliberalism of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.
“Suddenly, here comes de Blasio, saying, no, you don’t raise the level of a city by merely providing the real estate and the banking elites tax breaks and incentivizing them to develop, but you raise the economic level of the people at the bottom,” González said. “He had a message that was well-crafted, but more importantly, he had a set of policies from the beginning.”
González is still quick to criticize the mayor, especially on his housing policies, although he says de Blasio doesn’t deserve all of the criticism he gets.
“We need a massive housing program, and unfortunately de Blasio is not visionary enough to figure out how to get it done on this stage,” he said. “But you’ve got to give him credit for at least trying.”
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