What New Yorkers need most is cheaper rent.
If landlords could get their buildings repaired cheaper it would help a great deal.
I was in law school, taking a course on Soviet Constitutional and Legal History in the fall of 1991, as the subject matter was disappearing. In fact, during the week break between the end of the semester and the final exam (approx. December 20), the CCCP dissolved.
Near the end of the Soviet era, early in December, the NYT reported on the absurd disparities between black-market prices on the streets of Moscow and the official, centrally planned prices set by the state. Impossible to forget from that article was the fact that 6 quarts of black-market Finnish milk on the street in Moscow sold for the same price as the centrally planned price of an Aeroflot flight from the westernmost airport in the country to Vladivostok, 13 time zones to the east.