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Yup, I'm a habitual line crosser, I just can't help myself
Quote:
Originally Posted by DAS
I can't believe you went there with this post. Everyone knows that most of the people that are unable work for whatever reason after the 5 year limit just get shifted over Supplemental Security Income or some other program. If they can't manage that, they go into the shelter system which is still financed by taxpayers money. So don't kid yourself.
This has nothing to do with East NY being on the come up. Working poor in NYC is a broad definition anyway. What is needed to survive let alone really make it, is much more than what is necessary for some of the rest of the country. Therefore in terms of NYC for quite a large number of people the term "working poor" may apply.
SuperMario....the are PLENTY of areas where poor people can live...LOOK OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW. I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon. The reality is, they are INTEGRATING these communities and providing housing to those who otherwise cannot afford to stay here. Why would you choose to ONLY have the destitute in East NY..neighborhoods need to have mixed incomes to be healthy and stable..and not just the ultra-wealthy or the destitute. I think this is great news for East NY, and you should note that the majority of people buying into the community are those IN AND AROUND the community (with a few exceptions). What does this tell us? People WANT to stay and invest, but there are NO options other than extreme poverty/poor housing conditions. Why not offer better housing so people can STAY, INVEST, and MOVE UP the ladder IN NYC and NOT OUT of the city?
SuperWario..instead of letting emotions cloud your judgement, trying using basic logic and look at the improvement a range of incomes, people, and living options will provide to the area. I see this as a GREAT thing and long overdue.
Everyone espouses this dream of mixed income communites but the sad truth is that they don't exist organically for a reason. One thing that ties every ethnic, social, religous, racial, philspohical demographic that washes up on this city's shores together is the desire to do better. No one wants to be the one with the apartment next to the junkie/welfare mom/gangbanger. People of all colors and classes work with the dream of getting out of the slums and into that house/park ave penthouse. Forcing people back into that enviorment is evil, full stop. I do realize most poor people (especally the immigrants) are wonderful and hardworking, but sadly, there's the other half that makes places like Brownsville/South Bronx/Newark what it is, a hellhole.
In short, it's not even about race/class (before the howls of "OMG Klansman11!!!!11" start), it's about living in an area minus the elements that make areas like the Bronx what they are. Forcing people back into those enviorments is evil on a Hitler like scale. If that makes me a classist, then so be it.
Oh, and don't give me that whole "The Poor/Rich will change their ways" garbage. E 96st in Manhattan is a prime example of "One Block Away, A Whole World Apart" and has been for a century.
Most of the areas that I have lived in or been exposed to in New York have been mixed income areas. I am not referring to blocks as some neighborhoods in New York have your desirable blocks and your blocks that you don't want to live on but they are the same neighborhood. I can't speak for people that would be considered rich but poor people and middle class (lower and higher) have all shared the same neighborhood for many years without everyone who is doing "better" trying to leave. Bed-Stuy always had it's professional people who lived there and would not leave. Harlem is the same...people who are doing good financially living in the neighborhood with people who are not doing as well. From my understanding, East New York is the same except that you have large concentrations of people who are on the lower economic scale in the same areas of East New York instead of spread out. There is a big difference in the area of East New York where the Cypress Houses are at compared to where Starrett City is at.
As far as living next door to someone on welfare, that is something that most people, that I know, could care less about. In fact, I would not know who is on welfare and who isn't on welfare as I am not concerned with someone else's business in that manner. You have some very decent people who need government assistance at one time or another and just because they need it does not make them undesirable neighbors. Gangbangers and drug dealers are another story, but I doubt they would make me leave the neighborhood. In my building, if someone was doing those things the tenants would be very vocal in their displeasure to the landlord and would work to have the person removed. If that did not happen and a move was necessary, a lot of people would still remain in their neighborhood.
Basically, from my experience, nobody is concerned with whether you are poor or middle class. The only concern is if you are a good neighbor and money is not the factor in that. You have poor people that are some of the best neighbors you can have and someone with an upper middle class income that you would not want to be neighbors with. It's the people and not the income level. And I am one of those people that believe a healtlhy neighborhood is one that has different economic levels amongst the people that live there. When I lived in a building with only upper middle class people, it was not a very heart warming experience and I could not wait for my lease to be up so that I could get out. Even though there are those that embrace that lifestyle, is was not for me and I'm sure that there are more people like me out there.
Last edited by drkman; 04-20-2008 at 09:30 AM..
Reason: restructuring of a sentence for clarity
Yeah my area is mixed income. I don't think there are any REALLY wealthy people in my corner of the Bronx, but everyone else from low-income to upper-middle class is represented in my neighborhood.
In the city I think Manhattan below 96th street is really the exception to the rule. Most areas that I know of are pretty mixed income with a few outliers here and there.
I personally feel that the pattern of development pursued in most suburban areas of this country for the past 50 years has been a pretty big mistake. The idea of separating neighborhoods and housing based upon wealth seems somewhat unhealthy for society.
Instead of worrying about places for the poor to live, shouldn't we work to break the cycle of poverty instead?
Agreed
The working class get thrown under the bus in this city with gentrification, but people forget they were the ones that have stuck it out through the 70s. Some of these jobs are the backbone of the city and are completely necessary, whether its the minimum wage job at the fast food joint, the job as the doorman, parking lot attendant. The jobs nobody pays attention to. When living costs rise and gentrification continues the Manhattan sprawl, people dont give a rats a** if these people commute from Poughkeepsie, Scranton or Vineland, because Harlem or Bed Stuy have been "cleaned up". But its really not cleaning, its more like ethnic/racial/economic cleansing. Fixing the problem would be helping current residents get jobs, educating the youth, helping disband gangs and putting criminals in jails to minimize the crime, whether the neighborhood is black, white, orange or mixed. It takes collective efforts from everyone from the paid policemen to people with the heart to volunteer. Fixing the poverty and crime would be a real accomplishment.
The only poor you hear about are the artists that get priced out of fringe neighborhoods. This seems to be an obsession with the newspapers about where the pioneering artists get priced out of and have to move next. But fact is most of this crowd choose to have this life (not trying to be a d*** here but its the truth). Whereas people dont choose to be born into living in a rough spot and having to survive making minimum wage working the bodega graveyard shift. This is a tough life and nobody deserves to live that way.
The working class get thrown under the bus in this city with gentrification, but people forget they were the ones that have stuck it out through the 70s. Some of these jobs are the backbone of the city and are completely necessary, whether its the minimum wage job at the fast food joint, the job as the doorman, parking lot attendant. The jobs nobody pays attention to. When living costs rise and gentrification continues the Manhattan sprawl, people dont give a rats a** if these people commute from Poughkeepsie, Scranton or Vineland, because Harlem or Bed Stuy have been "cleaned up". But its really not cleaning, its more like ethnic/racial/economic cleansing. Fixing the problem would be helping current residents get jobs, educating the youth, helping disband gangs and putting criminals in jails to minimize the crime, whether the neighborhood is black, white, orange or mixed. It takes collective efforts from everyone from the paid policemen to people with the heart to volunteer. Fixing the poverty and crime would be a real accomplishment.
The only poor you hear about are the artists that get priced out of fringe neighborhoods. This seems to be an obsession with the newspapers about where the pioneering artists get priced out of and have to move next. But fact is most of this crowd choose to have this life (not trying to be a d*** here but its the truth). Whereas people dont choose to be born into living in a rough spot and having to survive making minimum wage working the bodega graveyard shift. This is a tough life and nobody deserves to live that way.
Very true and I think that the working class is becoming invisible when conversations about neighborhoods are being discussed. If the "invisible" workers were not in the city, the city could not survive.
One of the saddest things is the starting salary of policemen in New York City. For the service that they do, the starting salary is not enough to live in the city that they are sworn to protect. Even as the salary increases, it still would be hard to live a decent life in New York especially in the areas that have gone through "gentrification".
One person that I have to give kudos too is the councilwoman in Harlem. She fought to make sure that if they were going to build on 125th street and make more apartments that a good percentage would be going to the people that live in the area that were not financially well off. Building new apartments is not the issue but if you are going to build, make sure that people in the area can afford to live there and not be displaced from the community.
I think a lot of the American-born working poor are only working because of that 5 year time limit on welfare.
Your statement is way off the mark. Most working poor have never been on welfare and are working low income jobs while going to school or just to exist here in our wonderful city.
And if you were really honest with yourself, in this city, anyone making under 150k is in fact the working poor. So I guess that includes yourself.
Can somebody please tell me why must this happen? I dont know if I am missing something but I cant help but to feel slighted. I mean NYC is for everyone right? Then why do they insist on marketing areas to wealthier people knowing that displacement is going to occur? Can the leave any area to the poor? Where are they going to go? Im so mad right now but I am trying to keep my cool. I have a sick feeling that the city is not going to stop on till every inch of NYC is middle class on up.
The blatant lies in that article are also wrong. They make East NY out to be a paradise. It's funny to me because I have not heard of improvements in the area from anywhere else. You're always hearing about Harlem improving, but why never East NY if things are what this guy says? I think he is hyping up the area a good deal. The sad part is, if ENY as bad as it is is being marketed then the Bronx most definitely is next.
I will move before I get kicked out, that's for sure.
Piece of **** realtors.
They can move to Newark.
I can't wait for the day that New York gets rid of all the projects.
Newark is still at only about 50% of what its peak population was in the 1940s/1950s, so there definitely is plenty of room. I was looking at real estate ads in NJ about 5 years ago and I remember being struck by seeing houses (regular houses with 3/4 brs) for sale in the Central Ward (horrible neighborhood) for only $150k.
However the vast majority of the PJs aren't going anywhere. In my opinion the city definitely should sell off some PJs which are in very wealthy neighborhoods, however if the city ever did that they would just take the money and re-invest it into building even more PJs in places like Brooklyn or the Bronx. So the cycle would just continue.
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