Manhattan Institute

What did journalists know about terrorism before 9/11? How has national security reporting changed? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Judith Miller reflects on her long career covering global conflicts, terrorism, intelligence, and the Middle East. Watch the full episode: https://bit.ly/4apPYSH

New York City’s “Block by Block” housing plan points toward increased housing production, but leaves several core structural issues largely unresolved. In a new analysis, MI's Eric Kober argues that while the plan builds on recent zoning and permitting reforms and proposes additional steps to streamline approvals, expand transit-oriented development, and reduce construction costs through code reform, it still leaves major economic constraints in place. Key concerns include: • MIH and development economics: Mandatory Inclusionary Housing is unchanged, and continued reliance on tax exemptions like 485-x raises questions about long-term project feasibility and developer incentives. • Uneven viability: In lower-rent neighborhoods, even with subsidies, new construction may still not be economically viable, limiting the effectiveness of rezoning strategies. • Rent-stabilized housing: The plan offers modest supports, but does not resolve underlying financial pressures—especially if rent freezes continue. • NYCHA: Existing approaches (PACT, Preservation Trust, federal subsidies) remain partial solutions to a much larger capital backlog. Overall, the plan may increase housing output at the margins, but does not fully address the economic structure driving underinvestment across much of the city’s housing system. The result is continued tension between expanding supply, maintaining affordability mandates, and sustaining long-term financial viability. Read the entire piece on the Bigger Apple Substack: https://lnkd.in/et6XgyfN

Award-winning crime journalist Joe Marino joins Rafael Mangual for a candid, in-depth conversation on the realities of crime, policing, and public safety in New York City on this week's City Journal Podcast. Watch the entire episode and subscribe: https://lnkd.in/ehfvGuHc

Why do states subcontract Medicaid to private insurers when government funds it, sets coverage and prices, and often doesn’t competitively bid contracts? A new MI report by Chris Pope finds Medicaid Managed Care covers 77% of enrollees but shows little evidence of cost savings or better care. Instead, opaque contracting has enabled funding loopholes, including a $19B windfall in California over four years. It also finds higher denial rates than Medicare Advantage and weak payment transparency—raising serious questions about how the system is working in practice. Pope recommends closing funding loopholes, standardizing contracts nationally, requiring detailed spending disclosures, and allowing states to outsource claims administration directly to the federal government for greater accountability. Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/eKGXVv2U

New York is seeing historic lows in shootings—but record highs in assaults. In a new piece for "City Journal," Charles Fain Lehman highlights this split in the city’s crime trends, with murder and gun violence continuing to fall even as assaults move in the opposite direction. The city recorded 309 murders last year, according to NYPD statistics—the lowest since 2018 and down 36% from the 2021 peak. Shootings are also at their lowest level since consistent records began in 1993, with the city averaging at least one shooting-free day per week last year, according to Vital City. But assaults have moved in the opposite direction. Nearly 30,000 felony assaults were recorded last year—the highest since at least the turn of the millennium and up 44% from 2019. There were also just under 46,000 misdemeanor assaults, slightly down from 2024 but still up 8% from 2019. Governor Kathy Hochul’s office attributes the increase to assaults on public sector workers and domestic violence, which together account for a large share of incidents. The result is a mixed picture: New Yorkers can celebrate the drop in murders, but alarming signs persist in the city’s crime data. Casual violence may not often prove fatal, but its very casualness is demoralizing. Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/eeakb7hP

“What kids need, and this is very good research, it's been replicated hundreds of times, what kids need is rules. They need authority, and they need to be held to account if they break the rules. And we've known this. We stopped doing it, and part of the reason we stopped doing it is we shamed parents out of it." Abigal Shrier joins Rafael Mangual to talk about the role of parents, the values shaping modern families, and more. Watch the entire City Journal Podcast episode and subscribe: https://lnkd.in/eGuUYjJb

More than half of L.A.’s street homeless population are not from Los Angeles. In a new City Journal piece, Christopher F. Rufo and Kenneth Schrupp report that a majority of individuals experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles originated outside the city or county. In a street survey of more than 200 individuals across Hollywood, Venice, and Skid Row: • 64% said they were from outside the City of Los Angeles  • 53% said they were from outside Los Angeles County  • Nearly 40% said they were from other U.S. states  • 6% said they were from outside the United States These findings align with prior LAHSA and RAND datasets, which also found a significant share of unsheltered individuals were last housed outside the region. The implications of the survey are clear: simply building housing will not solve Los Angeles’s homelessness problem, and the wrong kind of housing program may even make it worse. Providing permanent housing with no conditions, the argument goes, simply encourages more nonresidents to come to Los Angeles.    The real solution, it concludes, is to reverse the polarity of the “magnet” by enforcing drug and camping laws, mandating treatment, and insisting on clean and orderly streets. Read the entire piece: https://lnkd.in/eJu5bCzv

New York shouldn’t ban itself from the future of transportation. In a new analysis, Liena Zagare examines the biggest objections to self-driving cars in NYC — from safety and congestion to labor displacement and corporate power — and argues the answer is preparation, not prohibition. Autonomous vehicles are already operating in cities across America, and even skeptics increasingly see their arrival in NYC as a matter of “when, not if.” The real question is whether the city will help shape the technology through testing and regulation — or fall behind as the rest of the country moves ahead. Read the full piece in the Bigger Apple Substack: https://lnkd.in/emm6ePMC

"The Newsom administration devoted a significant sum of money towards broad-based population prevention. Very few dollars were allocated for the kind of psychiatric residential treatment facilities that could help kids who repeatedly accessed emergency rooms for crisis. The result was a total mismatch between what was needed and what was offered to people." Christina Buttons discusses her City Journal report about how the equity agenda has consumed California's youth mental health crisis. Watch the entire new City Journal Podcast episode and subscribe: https://lnkd.in/exWmkMBE

"Modern schooling is systematically terrible at forming well-adjusted, curious, intellectually creative, entrepreneurial adults. Schools, even much better schools, cannot solve this. Here's the truth: Nobody loves your kids as much as you do." - The Honorable Ben Sasse at the 2026 Alexander Hamilton Awards.