New York City has a new mayor as of midnight December 31st, as Bill de Blasio was formally sworn in as a crowd watched and cheered.

He immediately began promising big changes to the city for 2014. He is the first Democrat in two decades and is expected to offer a more liberal and progressive organization in the nation’s largest city.

In one of his first mayoral addresses – he stated: “Our city is no stranger to big struggles–and no stranger to overcoming them. New York has faced fiscal collapse, a crime epidemic, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters. But now, in our time, we face a different crisis–an inequality crisis. It’s not often the stuff of banner headlines in our daily newspapers. It’s a quiet crisis, but one no less pernicious than those that have come before.”

Mayor de Blasio promised to take NYC in “a new progressive direction,” to a crowd of at least 5,000 people who were gathered Wednesday for his inauguration at City Hall: “We won’t wait. We’ll do it now.”

“We will require big developers to build more affordable housing. We’ll fight to stem of hospital closures,” he said.

“And we’ll expand community health center into neighborhoods in need, so that New Yorkers see our city not as the exclusive domain of the One Percent, but a place where everyday people can afford to live, work and raise a family,” he added.

Bill de Blasio makes the 109th mayor of the city of New York, and has promised to tax the wealthy, to fund full preschool and after school programs, and to make New York a place that people want to live.

“Those earning between $500,000 and one million dollars a year, for instance, would see their taxes increase by an average of $973 a year,” he said.

“That’s less than three bucks a day – about the cost of a small soy latter at your local Starbucks,” he added to the pleased crowd.

Former President Clinton, who administered the oath of office, said de Blasio represents, with his family, the future of our city and our country.”

New Yorkers welcome him not only in their votes, but in their aspirations for a better city.

Image via YouTube