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Eight years ago, I went to interview Michael Bloomberg when he was just the richest man in New York. Rumors were spreading about his political ambitions, but he had yet to announce he would run to be mayor of New York.
We met in the Park Avenue headquarters of Bloomberg L.P, the firm he founded in 1986 after being fired from Salomon Brothers. A shoe-shine
man had just finished polishing his tasseled loafers. Bloomberg rested his feet on a coffee table and riffed teasingly about his ambitions.
New Yorkers admired a self-made man, he said. Especially a stupendously rich one. The last thing the city needed was another party hack. After all, he explained, there was no Republican or Democratic way to pick up garbage.
He was disarmingly blunt for a man harbouring political ambitions, honest to the point of obnoxious about the rewards of being a billionaire, and quite improbable, I thought, as mayor. So much for my judgment.
Bloomberg has turned out to be a stunningly popular and successful mayor of New York City. And he has done so on his own terms. He has
refused to temper his acerbic personality or compromise his privacy.
He has used his fortune as a kind of nuclear arsenal, obliterating political opposition by outspending it. And early next month, barring
some unforeseen disaster, he will be elected to his third consecutive four year term.
Bloomberg's mayoralty has been a lesson in the rewards of idiosyncrasy in politics. It helps to be different, especially in a place like New
York, which admires non-conformity.
It is also a lesson which merits close study by Boris Johnson, an equally idiosyncratic figure, and his administration.
When the two men first met last year in London, Boris was still getting settled. Bloomberg presented him with a crystal apple from Tiffany.
Boris gave him a T-shirt showing a map of the London Underground. Bloomberg's main advice to Boris was to focus on assembling a top notch team. A couple of weeks ago, the two met again,
this time in New York. Speaking at Columbia University, Boris was his florid, bombastic self, talking up London, while Bloomberg remained
more aloof.
But behind the superficial differences, they share one important trait: neither conforms to any political template. Bloomberg remains
in character and at heart an ornery, Wall Street trader, foul-mouthed at times, a jerk in certain ways, but lethally effective.
In his office, he keeps a couple of embroidered cushions which read: Don't start with me. You will not win. And It's my world - deal
with it. When political aspirants ask him for advice, he has been known to reply: You know what you should do is, go out and make a billion dollars first, and then run for office.
Last week, he was assailed for taking a helicopter from Manhattan over the river to New Jersey to see a U2 concert. Bono is a friend.
Environmentalists and political opponents booed him for his hypocrisy in being a champion of environmentalism and then burning up fuel to
get to a rock concert.
I suppose you could say that, but you know, there's other ways to get around and... some are more energy efficient,'' Bloomberg said sarcastically. I could have walked and swum across the rivers as well. That would have used less.
This, after all, is a man who keeps two top of the line Dassault Falcon 900s on hand for his personal use, for business and to travel to his various homes in London, Palm Beach, Vail and Bermuda. In Manhattan, he owns a mansion on the Upper East Side. When he became mayor he passed up the official mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, on the grounds that his own house was nicer.
The mayor of New York has far broader powers than the mayor of London. Bloomberg is the emperor of his city. He controls the police
department, the schools, public transport, parks and has broad fiscal powers. His annual budget of $60 billion is roughly triple Boris'. Some of these powers he inherited, but some he seized, notably the education system.
For decades, New York's schools had been held prisoner by unions and higher levels of state government. In the first year of his first
term, Bloomberg demanded and won control of them. He introduced rigorous new testing standards, raised pay for teachers and promoted
the development of independently run charter schools. Test scores have risen, children are being better educated in nicer buildings and
parents no longer live in fear of sending their children to city-run schools.
The philosophy of Bloomberg-ism is to purchase political office, by spending profligately and treating the traditional two-party campaign
system with the utmost cynicism, and then to govern as a supra-political figure.
His management approach is that of a businessman. He sets daunting strategic goals and then works ferociously towards them. He is a
stickler for detail and data, demanding that everything the city does be measured so that needs and performance can be properly assessed.
The city is now run on Scorecard Cleanliness Ratings, NYCStat Stimulus Trackers, sustainability indicators and so on.
This is now Bloomberg's third mayoral campaign and he has compiled and condensed data about the city's voters to a degree that would embarrass Tesco's supply chain division. Each voter is assigned a bar code, as if they were a can of soup, which when scanned brings up their profile, their age, address, political affiliation and concerns.
While other campaigns must scrimp, Bloomberg can afford to hire DJ's to entertain volunteers as they make phone calls, lay on lavish event
at the city's bars and nightclubs, and translate his campaign materials into almost every language spoken in the city, from Yiddish to Tagalog.
One of his most popular measures was the introduction of a single telephone number for city services. In the past New Yorkers had to dig
through the phone book to find the number for each department. Now you just dial 311 and the operator directs you. It was a stroke of customer service genius, which had its roots in Bloomberg's business practices.
There have been problems of course. Many of Bloomberg's major development plans have stalled. He failed to win the Olympics for his
city. Property taxes have gone up 20% under his administration. Unions have been bought off rather than marginalized for the greater good of
reform, with the bill falling on taxpayers.
But since Bloomberg can fund his campaigns himself, he can justifiably claim to be free of any conflicts of interest. His wealth, estimated
between 16 and 20 billion dollars, means he cannot be bought.
While the city's media remain as fascinated as ever by Bloomberg's wealth, its voters and fellow politicians around the country focus on
his administrative record. He took office in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York, when many people wondered if the city would ever fully recover. He also succeeded Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose final months in office had been marked by an ominous spike in racial tensions.
From 2002 to 2008, however, Bloomberg's New York went on a dizzying run, in which the economy boomed, crime kept falling, racial tension
evaporated and schools improved. He implemented measures like the banning of smoking from public places and trans fats from food, which seemed nannyish to some but were welcomed by most. Boris' ban on drinking on the underground was in the same vein.
Bloomberg's success gave him a national platform, which he used to campaign against gun crime and for environmental initiatives. Other
mayors took to calling him Papa Smurf.
And all the while, he never stopped giving away his money. He is one of the largest philanthropic donors in the United States. His name adorns hospitals, schools and museums and during his mayoralty all kinds of groups have benefited from his financial largesse. His rivals
say the scale of his giving is unfair and tilts support in his favor, but the recipients of his generosity aren't complaining.
The nature of American politics is such that Bloomberg could never really envisage a run for the White House. He toyed with the idea last
year, but once Obama and McCain emerged as the main candidates, he dropped it. It would take extraordinary circumstances for Americans to
pick a liberal, divorced, Jewish billionaire as their president.
But the financial crisis provided him with the motivation to continue as mayor. He is said to be determined not to let New York return to
the dark days of the 1970s, when crime soared and the city lurched towards bankruptcy. He told The New Yorker: I didn't want anybody to
think that you walk away when the going gets tough.
To ensure this, he overturned a law limiting New York mayors to two terms in office so he could run a third time. Yet again, he demonstrated that the conventional laws of political gravity do not apply to him. Polls of New Yorkers suggest they would like a new mayor, but think Bloomberg remains the best man for the job. They
trust him to lead them out of this crisis.
He has certainly lost none of his zest for detail. This past week, he has been banging the drum for changes to how people pay parking
tickets.
I've always believed that one of government's core responsibilities is finding innovative new ways to cut bureaucratic red tape and make
it easier for people to get answers and results - quickly, he wrote in an op-ed. We want to make it easier to find a parking spot, easier
to avoid a ticket, and - if you do get a ticket - easier to pay it, by paying over the phone or on a wireless PDA device.
"How would you like to use your mobile device to see a map of available parking spaces in your neighborhood - and also use it to pay your meter? Or how about getting a text message as your meter is about to expire, so you can get back to your car before getting a ticket? We're going to begin studying and testing new technology that would allow us to do all of those things.
To hear a man as rich and powerful as Bloomberg waxing so enthusiastically about a revolution in parking is inspiring. It is Bloomberg's lesson to Boris that city life depends on details. While a mayor may be admired for building towers or hosting Olympics, as Boris will do in 2012, he will be loved, like Bloomberg, for making it
easier to park.
Reader views (5)
If Boris is so fascinated with New York then why does he not follow Mayor Guiliani in adopting a policy of zero tolerance of anti-social behaviour and minor crime?
We now have a police force that seems unable to stop people spitting in the street, getting involved in drunken brawls or cycling on the pavement even when they are doing it right in front of them. When people are allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour they become arrogant and lose respect for both the police and other people.
- Stella, London
Henry, people like you, incessant whingers, are an embarrassment to both our great city and our country as a whole.
The vast majority of New Yorkers are very welcome here - rather more welcome in my opinion than you I might add.
Yes, London is in many respects better than New York, but it's also true that in many respects New York is now better than London. This is precisely why Boris talking to and swapping ideas with with other mayors, especially proven successful ones like Bloomberg, is such a useful thing to do.
Greatness isn't just thinking you're the naturally best, as you seem to, but examining others and learning from their successes. Not necessarily to copy them verbatim, but to adapt for your, (or rather 'our', London's) benefit and improvement.
As 'St' said, I have high hopes for Boris to at least attempt some of the central themes of Bloomberg's tenure in New York: of returning accountability, value and service to Londoners. It may take a while, especially under the dying embers of this current government, who seem to resent and fight Boris at every step, but I hope he succeeds.
And I have to say to Philip: That was a very good and interesting article, thank you.
- John, London
I certainly don't expect Boris to replicate all of Mayor Bloomberg's ideas, but the central idea, that the office of mayor and the public services are there to, well, serve the public, is one which disappeared under Livingstone. I believe Boris will come back reinvigorated in his quest to do what is best for Londoners, rather than what is best for those who purport to be in charge.
- St, London
What does the commentator above mean by "civilised"? New York's crime rate has been dropping for decades, the streets are safer and livelier than London's. You've got a knife crime problem and drinking problem that's out of control. Before you step into the usual mindless reflexive rant against anything American, take a look at your own city. Take a look at the article today about the former head of the TfL claiming that Boris Johnson is about to bring chaos to London's transport system because his plans don't look at the bigger picture. As a New Yorker, I applaud Bloomberg's vision and his ability to cut across political lines. And by the way, Briton is filled with crooks and sleazebags. We've got no monopoly on that.
- Celeste, New York USA
Why is Boris so obsessed by New York? There are other cities in the world, every one of which is a million times more civilised than New York. I hope none of those New York crooks and sleazebags will be led into thinking they'll be welcome in London.
- Henry Gilbert, Wapping, UK
