Before November, it was hoped that Lee Zeldin could defeat Governor Kathy Hochel.  That didn’t happen.  The hope had been that with Zeldin as Governor, something might be done about the conditions that have caused an exodus of industrious, higher income residents from that State for locales such as Florida, the Carolinas and western States.  The exodus was prompted by several factors, chief among them the crime in New York, the New York taxes, and the impediments to doing business in New York caused by oppressive regulations.  In 2021, some 3.57 million people moved out of New York.  The people leaving had incomes averaging $140,000.  Some 3.5 million of these people were replaced by lower income people.  Some of the 4 or 5 million illegal aliens let into the country by Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden come readily to mind.  In a nutshell, what’s happening in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and in other high-tax, high-crime Blue States is that hard-working, industrious residents are fleeing, to be replaced by less industrious, lower educated residents who are needier, and who require more financial support than their predecessors.  The exodus resulted in New York’s losing a seat in the House of Representatives.  While, on one level, that may be regarded as a positive development, it bodes ill for the future of New York State in general and New York City in particular.  It’s easy to blame the Wuhan plague for this problem, and that, of course, has contributed to the problem, but it’s not the sole cause.  It’s never been easy to live in this area.  The cost of living has always been higher in New York than in most other places in the country.  Add to that the constant traffic getting to and from the City, and it wouldn’t take much for many people to decide that life would be more pleasant elsewhere.  The attraction always was the fact that so many large corporations were based in New York, and the added attraction of the cultural advantages of Broadway, the restaurants, museums, etc.  The pandemic changed all that.  Many corporations which were paying exorbitant rents for office space discovered that they could do business with many employees working at home.  Why pay that overhead if you don’t have to?  Even with the pandemic behind us, many employees are reluctant to return to offices.  Some of them have grown too accustomed to working from home and don’t want to return to the daily grind.  But many of the companies have simply up and left the City for States that make it a lot easier to do business.  What this means is that the future for the commercial real estate market in New York, a market which thrived and provided so much of the City’s tax base looks bleak.  Add to this the exodus of makers, only to be replaced by more takers, and it’s hard to imagine where New York is going to get the revenue to keep the government going in the future.  New York’s budget is twice that of Florida, which has more residents.  This problem would be daunting enough if the powers that be in New York weren’t doing everything in their power to make conditions worse.  Crime is out of control.  People do not feel safe on the streets, even in neighborhoods once considered “safe.”  And it’s not, as New York Democrats have claimed, simply a Republican talking point, or merely an unfounded impression of danger.  Crime is up in almost every category.  And crime is up in almost every category principally because New York Democrats have decided that they won’t do anything to get crime under control.  The police are being prevented from doing their jobs, and are constantly hounded as extremists.  Even when they make an arrest, New York Democrats have instituted a “no cash bail” law that puts them right back on the street.  And Democrat prosecutors have decided not to enforce the laws on the books.  When people learn that they can rob, steal and commit violence without serious consequences, then what you get is more theft, robbery and violence.  Democrats who are actively trying to take guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens, but who will do nothing to take them away from criminals are simply compounding the problem.  And like the national Democrats, the New York Democrats are doing everything they can think of to make conditions even worse.  People don’t want to come into the City, and subway ridership is down 40%?  No problem, the Democrat “solution” is to impose commuter fess of $23 a day or more on cars coming into Manhattan, and raising the subway fares.  It’s madness.  If they would clean up the crime on the subways and elsewhere in the City, there would be more ridership.  If they would apprehend the fare-beaters (it’s been estimated that as many as 40% of those on the trains don’t pay the fares) then they wouldn’t have to raise them in the first place.  Moreover, since New York Democrats will need more and more revenue to feed their burgeoning welfare state, the last thing they intend to do is to reduce taxes and regulations to spur economic growth.  In short, they are headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.  The newly arrived poorly educated residents are best suited to work in the service economy.  However, with fewer workers in the City, and fewer companies to service, there are fewer service jobs to be done.  Hundreds of restaurants in the City have closed, never to be reopened.  In the event that the financial center based in New York ever moves off to someplace like Texas, New York City will collapse under its own weight, as the Wall Street people are paying the bulk of the taxes.  We had hoped that a Zeldin Administration might forestall this result, but to no avail.  And when the inevitable day arrives when the City is unable to support itself, the condition of the federal government will make it impossible for them to rely on money from Washington to bail them out.  The escape from New York will continue until New York officials smarten up and give people a reason to stay.