Ne York City has never been a paradise, but for 20 years previous to the election of Mayor Bill de Blasio, quality of life had risen dramatically as a result of what's known as "broken windows" policing - enforcing minor crimes to take people off the streets and prevent them from committing major offenses.

But now, with the far left wing mayor leading the charge, more and more minor crimes are not being enforced. Predictably, this has led to a surge in violent crime and an invasion by vagrants and homeless people that hasn't been seen since the pre-Guiliana days.

New York Post

This urinating vagrant turned a busy stretch of Broadway into his own private bathroom yesterday – an offense that would result in a mere summons if Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and her pals get their way.

Wrapped in rags and a Mets blanket the hobo wandered into traffic at around 10:30 a.m. and relieved himself as cabs, cars and buses whizzed by between West 83rd and 84th streets on the Upper West Side.

He finished his business at a nearby garbage bin, then strolled back to the front of a Victoria’s Secret store at Broadway and 85th Street, where he camped out for the rest of the day.

Mark-Viverito in April announced plans to decriminalize public urination along with five other low-level offenses: biking on the sidewalk, public consumption of alcohol, being in a park after dark, failure to obey a park sign and jumping subway turnstiles.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton — who in the early ’90s implemented a “broken windows” approach to policing to dramatically cut crime — is against the new plan, saying such offenses lead to more serious crimes.

Bill Caprese, 38, who lives on 82nd Street with his 6-year-old daughter, was appalled by the street urinator.

“It’s absolutely a failure of government. It’s a total abject failure,” he said. “The mayor could fix it. The governor could fix it. We need asylums.”

The transit hubs have become a haven once again for the homeless:

Transit hubs, including Penn Station, are plagued by surging numbers of homeless people who publicly masturbate, harass bystanders and demand free food as the city looks the other way, commuters complain.

“It reminds me of the pre-[Rudy] Giuliani era,” said Jim Hoover, 60, who has been commuting through Penn Station since 1986. “The police aren’t chasing them away anymore.”

Just outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a homeless man drunkenly knocked a woman to the floor while stumbling around the sidewalk.

The bum, who goes by “Monk,” was arrested by a cop at the scene and taken away by an FDNY ambulance.

“He’s going to get a hospital bed and a slap on the wrist,” said Timothy Arroyo, who was watching from a crowd that gathered.

“He’ll be back out here tomorrow.”

I wonder if the "squeegie men" will return to the streets, threatening you if you don't pay them for cleaning your windshield. It was horrifying to come to a stoplight and have these guys rush your car demanding payment. 

Quality of life is a subjective notion and is not entirely dependent on enforcing broken windows policing. But what about the infamous stop and frisk program that was pulled because it supposedly targeted minorities? Since the program ended, the murder rate has gone up. Coincidence? Or a harbinger of the future?a