Why not ask all the nations shelters (especially the killing ones) to ship all their cats to nyc? Why is NYC above the age-old rat mitigation? Works for Istanbul.
Speaking of, the cars are the real problem - the rats proliferate on garbage, of course. So, to cut their food source, the garbage must be hidden from the rats until it is collected: This is axiomatic in my eyes. To hide the garbage, it makes the most sense to just place it inside a modular rat-proof container that is plopped onto a parking space. But it's politically very difficult in NYC to take away parking spaces, especially at a scale that would be required to house all the trash. It's also not possible to go underground like Europe does.
Thus, to truly solve this problem, NYC has to tackle the automobile problem head on and that hasn't been politically popular there for a long time. (Thanks, Robert Moses!) But I'm optimistic for change!
>It's also not possible to go underground like Europe does.
I belive you may be thinking of a couple of [well to do] places in The Netherlands, which despite being in Europe, does not represent it all (unfortunately).
Other European places would have the same problem as NYC regarding going underground...lotta wires and cables and pipes and tubes and tree roots down there.
One difference - cat corpses in the street probably make pretty good rat food.
Although, now that I think about it, the elevated risk of hitting cats in the street would probably make most drivers slow down in the city, which is aligned with my worldview.
Also, cute cats everywhere. I could pet them. It could be a form of utopia. Sorry birds. Although birds would probably do fine actually, they're extremely well adapted to take advantage of verticality in the city.
I'm in! Ship the cats from the kill shelters to New York so that I may pet all of them!
