The billionaire exodus is no longer a whisper, it is an open discussion now. In 2025 alone, London lost a large chunk of the 16,500 millionaires, who carried $92 billion in liquid wealth out of the country, like suitcases on a private jet. Detroit, once the roaring engine of American industry and blue-collar prosperity, shed over 1.1 million residents since 1950. This has been about a 60% population plunge. And there is more: another 300,000 have left between 2000 and 2020 alone amid spiralling crime and economic collapse. And now, NYC has handed the keys to a Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who campaigned on rent freezes, free buses, and a 2% surtax on millionaires. The pattern is unmistakable: progressive utopias don’t retain wealth. They repel it; London and Detroit are evident proofs of the same, and NYC is the next domino.
London’s Lost Glory
London was once the undisputed playground of the global elite. Mayfair townhouses traded for £20 million without blinking. Today, “For Sale” signs hang like surrender flags. Labour’s tax blitz, comprising of abolishing non-dom status, hiking capital gains to 20%, and imposing 40% inheritance tax on estates over £325,000… they delivered the knockout punch.
The fallout was swift: 88 companies delisted from the London Stock Exchange in 2024, GDP growth limped to 0.1% in the final quarter, and inflation clung to 3.5% into 2025. The superyachts vanished. The art auctions thinned. The Michelin-starred openings stalled.
Where did the money go? To Dubai, Miami, Singapore. Havens like the UAE are expected to welcome 9,800 HNWIs in 2025 alone with zero income tax, zero capital gains tax, and zero drama. London didn’t just lose billionaires; it lost momentum, leaving behind a city of empty storefronts begging tourists to fill the void.
The Motor City Ground to a Halt
Detroit wrote the blueprint for blue-city collapse. The city that promised a future of innovation and union-powered equity, delivered instead, a masterclass in self-inflicted wounds. Domestic out-migration hit over a million since the 1950s, with hundreds of thousands of residents bolting for suburbs and Sunbelt states like Texas and Florida.
Auto giants like Ford, GM, and Chrysler were known the world over for their solid employment histories. They once employed hundreds of thousands of workers. But over the years, they decentralized production shuttering urban plants for suburban “greenfields”. This, to avoid unionism.
Under “progressive” mayor Coleman Young (1974–1994), the city began championing racial equity and social programs. And managed to alienate business with race-baiting rhetoric and tax hikes. Among other things was a voter-approved jump from 2% to 3% income tax. The exodus accelerated as a result. “The politics of Mayor Coleman Young drove out the white and black middle class…. On an August evening in 1976, several hundred gang members descended on a concert in Detroit’s Cobo Hall and rampaged through the crowd. The Detroit Police Department, whose ranks had been cut by 20% or nearly 1,000 officers by Mayor Coleman Young, took more than an hour to respond to the mini-riot while teens snatched purses and attacked concertgoers.”
Crime skyrocketed soon, and Detroit became the murder capital in the 1980s. Gangs like Young Boys Inc. began dominating the Detroit drug universe, and police response times began lagging amid budget strains. The city’s population dropped 35% by 1980, rebounding only on immigration inflows while staring down a shrinking tax base and $18 billion in debt by 2013, culminating in the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Detroit, once a hive of factories, now resembles a ghost town, with over 78,000 abandoned buildings and retail theft spiralling out of control. The voters who demanded equity got hollowed out services and skyrocketing homelessness and crime instead.
Now it is NYC’s Turn
Enter Mamdani’s New York. His victory speech promised to freeze rents, tax the rich, and fund the future. But we have seen this script. His 2% millionaire surtax, layered atop NYC’s 3.876% city tax, NYC State’s 10.9%, and federal rates, pushes top earners into a 54% marginal bracket.
The early tremors are already here: The city, which suffered major losses through the COVID is already seeing its top 1% exploring exits to Florida or Connecticut suburbs. Real estate brokers report $100 million-plus in Florida contracts from New York buyers in the fourth quarter of 2025 alone. Wall Street titans like Goldman Sachs, or JPMorgan, are probably quietly stress-testing remote operations. One hedge fund CEO that I got to interact through a batchmate of mine put it bluntly: “We’ll be out of here by 2027 if this budget passes.”
Mamdani is not calling to defund the police outright, but his “community-led safety” vision means slashing NYPD overtime and redirecting funds to social programs. London tried it; crime spiked. Detroit tried; the whole city vanished. History is rhyming.
The Hard Facts
Capital doesn’t vote with ideology; it votes with spreadsheets. The UAE offers zero income tax and Golden Visas in 30 days. Florida delivers zero state income tax, 4.1% office vacancy, and 11.4% tech job growth. Texas hosts Tesla, Samsung, and Apple’s $18 billion-plus in new fabs.
A $10 million earner keeps $3 million more in Miami than Manhattan over a decade. That is not greed; that is arithmetic. Progressive cities keep widening the tax wedge while havens narrow it. The lesson is that of nurture: wealth flows and grows where it is looked after and cared for.
London did not suddenly wake up and discover empty. Detroit did not collapse overnight. Both these places under the ignorance of their supreme leaders missed noticing early signals of spiking rates, rerouting business traffic, and relocation of funds.
However, NYC has one chance to break the cycle: the spring 2026 budget fight. If Mamdani rams through his full agenda of 11.5% corporate tax, BDS divestments, and equity audits, then you be rest assures that the exodus will begin immediately after that.
I don’t know what he’d do, but I understand a pattern when I see one. Progressive promises beget tax hikes, tax hikes beget capital flight, capital flight begets hollowed-out cities, and hollowed-out cities beget voter regret. And yes, I am going soft on those voters there.
