This is not a permanent change to the law itself, and the next DA office holder in Manhattan can go back to the old ways (and if I'm not mistaken, DA Vance has already announced his intention to retire, so this is not a long wait to see what happens). The NY state legislature is the only body that can actually decriminalize this stuff, not the Manhattan DA.
Also, as for Minneapolis -- Can you really see Mike Freeman going out on a limb to say this same thing? He depends entirely on the suburbs to keep his job, since the residents of Minneapolis were already on record as not voting for him in the last election. He's going to still cater to the Minnetonka crowd, who are not likely clamoring for this kind of reform.
Upon reflection, the Nordic Model is "Idealist" - created in the hope that this would dampen prostitution to the point that it doesn't exist; however, it doesn't benefit anyone in actuality. I have to run out the door for a photo shoot but here's a quick run down...
The Nordic Model comes with a slew of issues and often times makes the lives of sex workers much more difficult and dangerous. In addition, the arguments that support the Nordic Model often contain a copious amount of flawed methodology along with misleading data analysis. The Nordic Model was introduced in 2009 and by 2011, "the number of sex workers working on the streets and behind closed doors rose by 28 percent compared to the previous year", an increase in the number of sex workers, predominately women, being more reliant on pimps, and and increase in human trafficking. In addition, research done in France showed that the Nordic Model brought out the worst type of clients: those that wanted to negotiate/low-ball, didn't want to screen, etc. This meant sex workers had to take more risks to remain Now understandably, the articles I am citing are from 2012; however, even recent data shows the Nordic Model isn't the way to go.
To this day, Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/07/why-sex-work-should-be-decriminalized#), the World Health Organization, and even camps within the United Nations believe the Nordic Model should be scrapped and we should move to full decriminalization because the Nordic Model hurts the people providing the service.
TLDR: The Nordic Model hurts sex workers and the "buyer ban" also has implications for clients. We should be taking a page from our friends in New Zealand - they seem to have got it right this go round with full decrim.
*Linked below is a pretty easy guide from the Global Network of Sex Work Projects if you want to read more. There's also a ton of books on the topic. If you'd like more resources or reading material, feel free to PM me and I'll drop some more resources when I have time.
