And now the schools are dealing with gentrification problems of sorts (New York: upper-class, transplants)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you move into the area why not integrate with whats there instead of separate and try to change what was in place already.
If it was an all white low income housing stock i wonder what the reaction would be?
Like I said earlier, replace the PJs with white trash trailer parks and you still wouldn't want to send your kids there. Its not about race except for the fact that people want to call others racist.
Exactly. And the newcomers expect "them" to just leave without complaint - the attitude that also grounds comments such as "people should live where they can afford to" and "hey, they are just priced out."
What's the alternative? Should we make areas "Black/Latino" only? Should we make areas "Poor" only?
I'm all for inclusive communities, but the reality is only so many people can fit into an area. Heck, all the upper class people who'd want to live in Manhattan can't, so it's not like the boom is all coming down on low-income people.
Second, creating all-poor communities is a proven social failure, and is in itself a legacy of racist and classist thinking.
Right, because PJs were really created for integration purposes. Actually quite the opposite happened.
The projects in dumbo were designed for Longshore men during post world war 2 period. The country and economy had changed. World war 2 and after brought in suburban expansion. Plenty of ethnic white moved to the burbs instead of living in affordable housing projects of the day. Also Brooklyn docks and piers could not handle container and bulk shipping. The port moved to Elizabeth NJ. This sealed dumbo fate along with industrial related industries. Housing projects of area began to house African Americans during the 2nd great migration.
Who would've thought: A zoning expansion to reduce school overcrowding is now morphing into a desegregation battle! Talk about classic "Law of unintended consequences"!
Indeed.
In the past, such a situation was characterized by a Governor holding a shotgun at school doorway. Or maybe someone hitting a black man with an American flag.
But now you get lots of meetings replete with PC doubletalk and Newspeak. These people do not drive pickups with Rebel Flags. Quite the contrary, they drive hybrids with Obama-Biden stickers and drink Bordeaux rather than JD.
They are the first ones to shout someone down and tag them as a racist.
But when they have the opportunity to practice what the preach, they do the same damn thing that those they disdain did in the past.
The projects in dumbo were designed for Longshore men during post world war 2 period. The country and economy had changed. World war 2 and after brought in suburban expansion. Plenty of ethnic white moved to the burbs instead of living in affordable housing projects of the day. Also Brooklyn docks and piers could not handle container and bulk shipping. The port moved to Elizabeth NJ. This sealed dumbo fate along with industrial related industries. Housing projects of area began to house African Americans during the 2nd great migration.
Doesn't really matter who the projects were initially intended to house. What matters is that they were intended to ringfence a certain demographic. Doesn't really matter what that demographic is.
What's the alternative? Should we make areas "Black/Latino" only? Should we make areas "Poor" only?
I'm all for inclusive communities, but the reality is only so many people can fit into an area. Heck, all the upper class people who'd want to live in Manhattan can't, so it's not like the boom is all coming down on low-income people.
Second, creating all-poor communities is a proven social failure, and is in itself a legacy of racist and classist thinking.
Avoid allowing New York to be turned into an object of consumption whose profits are funneled directly to a very small group of people. People are being displaced for this reason.
Avoid allowing New York to be turned into an object of consumption whose profits are funneled directly to a very small group of people. People are being displaced for this reason.
A pragmatic way to address this issue would be to do what NYC has always done best and tax said windfalls to help benefit affordable housing initiatives. I'm not sure which of the big papers published it, but there was something of an expose of the city's property tax system some months ago which clearly shows a deeply broken system of taxation which if rectified would help communites benefit greatly from gentrification across all corners of society.
Having said that, displacement is inevitable. It should also be noted that high levels of internal and external displacement occur in communities that do not have upward price pressure or in fact have downward pressure on real estate prices. Many NYers were literally burned out of their communities in the 1960s-1980s due to both circumstantial and purposeful disinvestment. Also, demographic change is a constant in NYC and to somehow heed to those uncomfortable with this facet of life here in many ways comes across as pandering to a strain of thought that would like us to return to a much darker age.
Quote:
Oh, wait. That would require global change.
Umm, no, it doesn't. What Tokyo, Nairobi, London or Kansas City do to manage their individual social challenges doesn't dictate the way communities in the five boroughs can reassess growth and change in their own neighborhoods. We can't necessarily alter larger macro-economic trendlines but can make real world policy decisions to deal with their affects.
Personally, I am unapologietic about the view that gentrification is a good thing if managed properly. Like I said before, you can go from the favelas of Rio to the banlieue of Paris to see how social segregation is a bigoted and failed model of community building. Upzone the city and build more 80/20 housing if you want to see real results. Creating communities that feature people of means will perhaps inspire more people in poorer communities to see brighter horizons past what the media and their immediate surrounds broadcast to them. And in the other direction, perhaps by having more poor and rich live side-by-side, you would inspire more of those who are in the decision-making echelon of society to take a more human and textured look at their views of those of lesser means.
Personally, I am unapologietic about the view that gentrification is a good thing if managed properly. Like I said before, you can go from the favelas of Rio to the banlieue of Paris to see how social segregation is a bigoted and failed model of community building. Upzone the city and build more 80/20 housing if you want to see real results. Creating communities that feature people of means will perhaps inspire more people in poorer communities to see brighter horizons past what the media and their immediate surrounds broadcast to them. And in the other direction, perhaps by having more poor and rich live side-by-side, you would inspire more of those who are in the decision-making echelon of society to take a more human and textured look at their views of those of lesser means.
But that's the point. This thread is precisely about the refusal of people to live alongside. The newcomers must, absolutely MUST, remake everything in sight to be identical to their own flawed and not-so-pretty image.
And few of them are even from New York, which makes the whole thing even less tolerable. New York is being made over into an image they saw on television and on the internet.
Wait, are you telling me that banning the confederate flag and stigmatizing 30+ year old TV shows where it was displayed didn't fix this problem? Dang, who'da thought?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
