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Secondly, the massive affordable housing being built is AFFORDABLE, and a reprieve from the ridiculous taxes of the suburbs. The middle class oftentimes do better LEAVING the metropolitan area, NOT moving to suburbs within the area....those days are over. Leaving Queens to move to a house in Long Island for a "better quality of life" happened 20+ years ago..but no longer..because it is now MORE unaffordable to be there overall than to stay in the city. Furthermore, NYC is/has spent tens of billions rebuilding its housing stock + private owners/large landlords have done the same, making housing in NYC MUCH better than even 20 years ago....and MUCH better than 30 years ago. But hey don't take my word for it..move to Long Island/Westchester/NJ or anywhere within a 1 hour commute...and tell me how "affordable" it is for the middle/working class. The city is the best bet..and Bloomberg is positioning it so that it continues to be the premiere choice by creating a massive afforable housing program, providing mainstream retailers that you find in the suburbs like Target/Home Depot/Best Buy etc, creating substantial parkland, bike trails, tree plantings, waterfront districts that are BETTER than suburbs, and expanding/investing in public transportation that DOES NOT EXIST in suburbs. That's real!
This thread got a little off topic but some of the arguments/rationales about NYC have already been proven false. Firstly..who says so much of the city is unattractive to the middle class and can't compete with suburbia? In case anyone missed it, people are FLEEING suburbia, and the giant McMansions that require a 45 minutes commute, gas, tolls, car repairs/payments, maintenance, heating/cooling 3,000 sf, cleaning and furnishing 3,000 sf...and being HIGHLY taxed for the priviledge no less! NYC is addressing these concerns by building a HUGE number of middle/working class housing that is BETTER than the suburbs, including brand new buildings with all the comforts of suburbia like parking, hardwood floors, a/c, etc, all within WALKING DISTANCE to CHEAP transportation, WALING DISTANCE to stores, retail, shopping, friends/neighbors, entertainment, etc. Suburbias appeal was that "it is not the city"...but the reality is people dont like the isolation, the expense, and the cultural emptiness that pervades these communities.
...To say nothing of the fact that New York has always had a sizeable middle class. Yeah, everyone likes to say that the middle class fled, and there was some of that going on, but large numbers remained. If not, then New York probably would have turned into Newark, as Woozle says. (The hipster/yuppie part of the population has never been truly significant; there are always people who come and go depending on what's "cool.")
When you get right down to it, New York City has just never become what its detractors wish it would.
affordable housing? where? i don't have to pay rent (as i own my house), but housing around here goes for about $700/br. thats alot, especially for the 'hood. i guarantee, that in a few years, you'll be lucky to find a 1 bedroom for under a $1000. just to live in a dump right beside the projects.
the only place i think their making housing affordable is the bronx.
When people on this forum complain about the departure of the middle class, what they really mean is the white, native-born middle class. 1.4 million people left the NYC metro area between 2000-2006. That's a LOT of people, probably mostly middle-class and native-born, so there is a substantial amount of out-migration from both the city and the suburbs.
However, immigrants and people of color are the new middle class. The middle class is still here, it just isn't uniformly white or English-speaking. It is laughable and naive to think that all immigrants are low-paid laborers at the bottom of the economic ladder. Middle-class immigrant-filled communities like Sheepshead Bay and Flushing are proof.
Foreign immigration is actually NYC's saving grace. Without immigration, NYC would be suffering extreme population loss, and would truly would have lost a large portion of its middle class.
Firstly..who says so much of the city is unattractive to the middle class and can't compete with suburbia? In case anyone missed it, people are FLEEING suburbia, and the giant McMansions...
I'm afraid there's not a shred of statistics to back that claim up. America has grown MORE suburban, not less, in the 2000's, with the "exurbs" growing at a faster pace than just about any other part of the country's metro areas. The jobs, for the most part, are following. NYC is unique in one way: the city had a spectacular boom in the 90's and 2000's as Wall Street profits exploded all out of proportion to the rest of the economy (unfortunately, most of the profit growth in 2002-2007 came from the derivatives market, i.e. gambling). Now that the game's over it's time to get back to the national statistics and become a bit more sober. The middle class, nationwide, is *NOT* returning to the cities.
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Leaving Queens to move to a house in Long Island for a "better quality of life" happened 20+ years ago..but no longer..because it is now MORE unaffordable to be there overall than to stay in the city.
Well, as UpstaterInBklyn pointed out, it's the entire NYC metro area that is now unattractive to American-born middle and working classes. They're not moving from Queens to LI, they're moving from the metro area to North Carolina/Georgia/etc. NYC metro area is LOSING its American population at an incredible pace.
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Secondly, the massive affordable housing being built is AFFORDABLE, and a reprieve from the ridiculous taxes of the suburbs.
The relatively high property taxes in Westchester county buy their residents excellent public schools, and they have no local income taxes (NYC is unique in having its own income taxation).
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To say nothing of the fact that New York has always had a sizeable middle class. Yeah, everyone likes to say that the middle class fled, and there was some of that going on, but large numbers remained.
Around 60% of the population of the city are immigrants and children of immigrants. The share of non-Hispanic whites in the city declined from close to 90% in the late 40's to around 35% in the late 90's (it has increased by around 20-30 thousand since, I think). Those that didn't leave the city either moved to Staten Island, or are old, or are rich or religiously conservative enough to send their children to private schools or yeshivas (only about 15% of the city's public school students are non-Hispanic white - again, down from close to 90%).
So yes, I'd say pretty much the entire middle class with school-aged children left NYC over the second half of the 20th century. They were replaced by immigrants, many of whom joined the middle class and some became wildly successful.
Which, of course, is what NYC has always been about. It's a place people dream of leaving once they're "American" enough.
Lower taxes (meaning far lower 'social' spending and a far smaller bureaucracy), and better schools in middle class neighborhoods (which means much smaller school districts). There ARE parts of the outer boroughs that can be attractive to net taxpayers but are now inhabited by net tax recipients. Perhaps then today's middle class will not leave as hurriedly as yesterday's middle class.
Woozle..America has become more suburban because 90% of it IS suburban/exurbs/vast expanses of land....what has changed however is the unnattractiveness of living in the city....it is now more appealing to live in the city than any other time in the last 40 years...and people ARE moving back/staying in the city of ALL demographics versus just a continual outflow of people. The sober reality is affording a 3,000 sf house, with 3,000 sf to heat/cool/repair/clean, cars to pay for/insure/repair/gas/tolls, commuting times and costs, and the isolation that comes with suburbia...all of which are UNAPPEALING. ALthough I would tend to agree that the American born working/middle class populationa re leaving the metro-area for greener pastures...I say SO WHAT! They are being replaced by other working/middle class people of all colors, ages, demographics...so what' the difference? This migration pattern of people leaving the city is nothing new or unique....NYC has always been the entry point of people who populated the rest of the country.
Thirdly, the high property taxes afford good public schools, so the issue becomes a singular one: unless you have school age kids, which people are having less of, westchester is just an expensive high-tax enclave, like Long Island and a significant bulk of NJ. If you don't have kids..what is the appeal of exorbitant taxes and living in these areas? Long commutes? Expensive housing? Driving? Tolls? Traffic? Sounds like you just have a gripe with "American" middle class people leaving and being replaced with immigrants who have taken their place and climbed the laddder. SO what is the middle class now in NYC are mostly people of color...the crime rates are at record lows, so from where I sit...all those whites left and dwindled the white population to about 40%, yet crime is lower than it has been for 40+ years (when they were the majority). So this shift seems to be creating a better, safer NYC...
whats shocking is how NYC has a greater number of out migration than any other city in the country (including detroit). for instance, in 2006 nyc lost 150,000 middle class residents. thats more than in 1993. Facing Crunch, NYC's Middle Class Flees - CBS News
the link doesn't show it, but from 2000 to 2008 three of the 5 boroughs declined in population. Brooklyn declined by 4.7%, the Bronx declined by 1.3% and Queens declined by 4%. while manhattan increased by 4% and Staten island increased by 1.8%. the most likely reason for this is because of the cost of the city. for instace, making $125,000 in nyc, is the equivalent of making $50,000 in Houston, TX. but, people don't seem to notice that.
With all the hype of the middle class "fleeing" since the 50s, you would think there is no more middle class..I mean really..if we believed these articles, after 40 years there should be NO middle class left...yet there is still a substantial middle class..how is this possible? Simple, those middle class people who are leaving are being REPLACED with new working/middle class people, usually of color. I do not doubt that there was a decline of population during the past 8 years, because everyone was aware of the skyrocketing housing prices that forced ALL types of people out of NYC. But the game has changed, prices are deflating, opportunities outside of the metropolitan area have declined, and many people, for better or worse, are either staying put OR are moving to NYC as it is one of the few places that has weathered the storm thusfar.
With all the hype of the middle class "fleeing" since the 50s, you would think there is no more middle class..
they have STATS. their not just guessing or predicting random numbers and theres no hype involved. 150,000 middle class residents left in 2006. why is that so hard for you to grasp?
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.I mean really..if we believed these articles, after 40 years there should be NO middle class left...yet there is still a substantial middle class..
where is your proof that NYC "still" has a "substantial" middle class? a link would be nice.
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those middle class people who are leaving are being REPLACED with new working/middle class people, usually of color.
you don't understand do you? in laymans terms, THE CITY HAS A GREATER OUT MIGRATION THAN AN IN MIGRATION. the only reason this city isn't declining overall is because of birth rates and immigrants (but we are not getting 150,000 immigrants a year, like the amount of middle class we are losing).
Last edited by GDK94; 06-02-2009 at 12:24 PM..
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