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Thats very interesting. Does it tie in with LeCobusier's idea of making people noble by putting them in apartments in parks?
Really quite a dumb idea in my opinion though. This city would have been so much better off if they left up all of those old buildings.
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Originally Posted by Moth
I have read that the theory of poverty of that time stated that is was caused by substandard housing. The minds of the day felt that if you took a man out of the crumbling tenement and put him in a hyper modern building replete with plumbing and decent heat, he would emerge from poverty. Housing, not racism, lack of factory jobs, lack of education, whatever, was seen as the prime determinant of poverty.
Well, we all know how that turned out. It succeeded in simply changing the scenery. But that, and some other motivations, might help answer your question.
You also got to remember that "brand new" always holds an appeal in society. Examples abound. Post war Germany knocked down many damaged historical buildings that could have been saved. They were probably looking to break from the horrid past and embrace a better future. Or why else will someone wanting a drink usually choose a TGIG Fridays over a rustic dive if they are side by side?
you know what, i always hear from old timers that during the 50's and 60's, the projects were a great place to live and you could actually leave your doors open. i remember when i took my 5 hour driving class the teacher was from redfern and he said he grew up there, and as a teenager in the 60's, him and his friends could drink a beer on the benches and the cops wouldnt even say anything. it seems like the projects went bad in the 70s because the city ran out of money to keep them up.....maybe the residents of public housing still harbor resentments toward the city because of this, and this is why they do **** like **** in the elevators?
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Thats very interesting. Does it tie in with LeCobusier's idea of making people noble by putting them in apartments in parks?
Perhaps. Many such as he, Ebenezer Howard and even JRR Tolkein had similiar ideas and there is something to be said for them although they are not the ultimate determinant I wrote of. Even today, many places in the Bronx are packed liked sardines.
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Really quite a dumb idea in my opinion though. This city would have been so much better off if they left up all of those old buildings
Indeed. More than create asthetical horrors, it disrupted and destroyed the natural state of communities.
I have a question regarding projects. Why did they decide to center them in certain areas....and in such close proximity to each other. At first, I tought they were built in Harlem/South Bronx/Brooklyn because they had poor tenement conditions and burned down buildings. But seeing that they were built before all the decay hit them.
Brownsville has so many projects but Flatbush does not. Mott Haven, Melrose, Morrisania and Soundview combine to make up 70% of the Bronx's housing projects...but Uni heights, Fordham and Tremont combine for zero. Did they have neighborhoods in mind. I think it would have been better if they weren't so close to each other. Spreading them out is better. Look at E. Harlem as compared to W. Harlem.
Nothing wrong with the concept of public housing. It was the lack of management, lack of money, lowering of occupancy standards and drug epdemic(s) that led to the decline of public housing!
There are those who argue that Jacobs's ideals may have led to gentrification and hipsterism, with Park Slope and the Village as the prime models.
Park Slope had a rough stretch for about 20 years. I think that growing income inequality combined with a greater apprecation for an attractive urban environment have led to gentrification and hipsterism. Jacobs's ideals may have contributed to the renewed appreciation for cities in general. People with the means to move to the Village or Park Slope might not have moved there and pushed others out if the places had been bulldozed to build something that looked like Co-Op City. Those neighborhoods are popular because they are beautiful and offer the "good" side of Jacobs's urban density, as opposed to overcrowded Chinatown.
There was the thread on here about the city being better than the 70's, and I am torn on that because of the effect the gentrification has had on the middle class in the city. A relative of mine who finally gave up and moved to Philly said that in the old days you had to worry more about getting mugged, but if you got mugged it cost you $50. Every time he wrote a rent check in his own neighborhood it was costing him an extra $1000 under the new rules, so he said that other than the risk of actual violence, on pure economic terms, he was better of just getting mugged twice a year than paying $12000 more each year in rent.
For better or worse, the gentrification process has happened. But it seems that if we had continued down a path of more Co-Op City and Washington Square Village and less appreciation for brownstone blocks, none of that would have happened.
Nothing wrong with the concept of public housing. It was the lack of management, lack of money, lowering of occupancy standards and drug epdemic(s) that led to the decline of public housing!
Like many things, it is well intentioned. However, you could argue that it robs a person of their autonomy and individual freedom to some extent. Its like living in a dorm or with your parents for the rest of your life.
Thats very interesting. Does it tie in with LeCobusier's idea of making people noble by putting them in apartments in parks?
Really quite a dumb idea in my opinion though. This city would have been so much better off if they left up all of those old buildings.
I think that was pretty much the idea. In the 20's you saw the Garden City theory on the high end, with Forest Hills and parts of Yonkers being built with more green space, and they were going with that idea of more open space being conducive to health. It was a reaction to the Dickensian squalor of the LES in 1900, but they didn't do it right with some of the complexes in the city and it's got no aesthetic charm at all.
Someone else brought up the "brand new" fetish. I am on here and on the Boston boards and it blows my mind how many people moving from the midwest or whatever always want brand new construction, or built within the last 15 years. (Of course it's always brand new, 3,000 sq. ft., with a garage, a half acre or more, great schools, low property taxes, under 30 minutes to NYC, and for $350,000 or less. Dude, stay in Indiana!)
As of today, for the first time in my life, I'm living in a brand new building. Until this year I've never lived in anything built after 1920 and I've loved all my homes. My girlfriend lives in a 1905 2-family Victorian and I envy her house every single time I'm in it. She's got architectural details that nothing new ever has, and especially since the windows were replaced in 1999, the older place is of better construction quality, hands down. To me a lot of the new places are just not that attractive or interesting. I've traveled a lot around the US and feel that way about all the places out there with all this big new spread-out housing. It seems boring and I just would have no interest in living there. I feel exactly the opposite about Europe, where everything is old and sometimes cramped but it's so charming and beautiful that I'm enchanted. The very idea that something is rundown or garbage because it's more than 20 years old seems to me to reflect a lack of understanding of what New York's all about.
Of course, I'd rather go to the dive than the TGIF and that's why I live here. I was in the suburbs recently and there was a 2-hour wait on Sat. night for Applebees, where they give you a beeper to buzz when the table's ready. We went instead to the Main St. in the town, found a little Italian place run by an old couple, and had a great meal for the same price with no wait. But out there they're having trouble hanging on since the people would rather go to the big chains on the highway. Every time I have an experience like that I thank God I live here, where you can have anything from high end to a quick slice from a neighborhood place without ever setting foot in a pre-fab chain restaurant.
you know what, i always hear from old timers that during the 50's and 60's, the projects were a great place to live and you could actually leave your doors open. i remember when i took my 5 hour driving class the teacher was from redfern and he said he grew up there, and as a teenager in the 60's, him and his friends could drink a beer on the benches and the cops wouldnt even say anything. it seems like the projects went bad in the 70s because the city ran out of money to keep them up.....maybe the residents of public housing still harbor resentments toward the city because of this, and this is why they do **** like **** in the elevators?
this is true, the first projects in the bronx were filled with mostly poorer senior citizens who were moved out of dilapidated tenements and from the area where the cbe was being built. As they died off they were replaced by poor blacks and new arrivals from PR who were encouraged to move here as a source of cheap labor, unfortunately the unintended consequences were that the new comers chased away the old people and the pjs became almost 100% poor blacks and minorities and the high density caused other social problems. Also the opening of coop city drew many of the lower income workers away from the pjs, again leaving the pjs as 100% low/no income places.
the problems with the residents attitudes is that there is a culture of entitlement, not one of working hard to improve one's lot. Since now you have generations of people who call the pjs home, they don't know anything but pj living
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Dude, stay in Indiana!) 
