Atlanta getting rid of all its public housing...think it will happen in NYC? (New York: real estate, apartment)

[NooYowkur81]

Originally Posted by Infamous92

Not a lot of people have enough money to just get up and move, as soon as people start getting money they'll up and move to places like Atlanta and Jacksonville. I live in the hood and there are no good supermarkets here, and lot of people are heavy because most cheaper food is unhealthy with high fat and sugar contents.

A lot of fast food these days isn't cheaper than fruit and vegetables. Bad eating habits are just that bad habits and they can be hard to break, especially if they have been done for years.

[NooYowkur81]

Originally Posted by trustfundhipster

Do you see large swaths of ugly commie block style housing in San Diego? San Francisco? Dallas? Los Angeles? Houston?

Don't the poor live in those cities too? There are too many very poor people in NYC anyway and most of them of them should leave. It's an expensive and they waste too much resources with their welfare programs. San Francisco does well without the massive amounts of welfare residents and ugly commie block housing. I support mixed income affordable housing (away from Manhattan, although) but I do not support the projects.

Poor people being supported by the government have no business living in Manhattan anyway. There are more affordable areas of the country (like Newark or San Antonio).

San Fran is a pretty bad example, they have a huge homeless problem.

But going back to public housing the main problem a lot of people have with it is that a lot of people never leave public housing. Someone mentioned a lot of immigrants go into public housing, but I don't find that is really the case. People never leave so it's pretty hard for new immigrants to get in there. Also a lot of places throughout the country have varied forms of section 8 or public housing that does not look like the typical nyc project building or section 8 apartment building, but just because it doesn't look like our structures does not mean it's not there.

[ShayLove]

Trustfundhipster fails to realize that not all poor people live in NYC housing. Let me give you an example of the people I know who living in housing. A cop, fireman, a lawyer, a therapist, government workers, state workers, city workers. I know an athlete’s mother, who lived in the housing, even while her son was in the NBA. Grocery store owners, cab drivers my list can go on and on. You also fail to realize that a lot of people in NYCHA apts have been passed on for generations. You think these people just said "Hey, I'm going to live in the PJ's" cause it sure doesn't work like that. You also fail to realize that these apts are income based (meaning people work). What has happened with housing is that it has a cap of rent they can charge for certain apts. (another reason why people don't leave). What they are trying to do is release the ceiling so that no matter what you make, you will be charged accordingly.

[SeventhFloor]

Originally Posted by trustfundhipster

Do you see large swaths of ugly commie block style housing in San Diego? San Francisco? Dallas? Los Angeles? Houston?

with the exception of maybe san francisco, the other cities have the land area to build outwards instead of up. also, compare new york city's population in the late 1930s to those other cities. new york city was already pretty dense in population at the time, so space was limited even 70 years ago.

[SeventhFloor]

atlantagreg, thanks for your contribution to this thread

[gradstudent77]

Atlanta is undergoing the same process that virtually every city in America, except NYC, is undergoing with regards to their housing projects. High-rise, tower in the park, housing projects are being knocked down everywhere from Chitown to Newark to ATL to new orleans. This is because of a new attitude in HUD which encourages knocking down the failures they helped finance between the late 20's and the mid 60's and replacing them with lower-density townhouse style development. Atlanta isn't getting rid of public housing, it is changing its built form.

Critcism of the program centers on the fact that no one builds as much housing as they destroy, so more people get pushed into Section 8. If you want to see the program in action, go to Newark, they're almost done getting rid of all the high-rise projects and they have already built quite a few townhouse style developments. Jersey City has also gotten rid of their three projects where the most crime used to happen. The former residents have been dispersed throughout the city and many residents have been upset about their new neighbors.

[gradstudent77]

Originally Posted by BKTony

Who are you to say people belong in Manhattan or NYC in general? I got news for you gentrifying hipsters. Most of the people in the NYCHA projects have roots way deeper in NYC than any of you yuppies. Many of the African American and Puerto Rican community in Manhattan have been there for 60 or more years. So why do you think they don't belong here. The people who live in NYCHA projects were in these neighborhoods like the LES, Harlem, Clinton Hill, Red Hook, and Williamsburg many years before the hipsters, huge rent increases, and trendy shops were in those neighborhoods. Mod cut: personal attack

So what if a person has roots in the city? NYC is expensive, so if one cannot afford it, they should move. Moreover, the programs we have in place to keep the poor in the city make it more difficult for everyone who does not benefit from the programs to afford to live here.

Imo, relocation is the best program for the poorest residents in NYC. The lowest market rents you could find in this metro would pay for wonderful housing in other parts of the country. If some family is not going to work because they have no skills or drug issues or whatever, its cheaper to house them in an apartment in Virginia or Kansas then it is to house them in a housing project in the Bronx. For example, in the apartment complex in VA that I'm moving to in a few days, there was no income verification. NYC should just pay the rent for some project families to move into a place like this- a 2BR with a den (1,100 sq ft.) goes for $995/month. And, there are a lot of cheaper options out there.

[Infamous92]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

I'll chime in since I was passing through....

A while back, the City of Atlanta got a hair up it's butt and decided it didn't like the projects being so close to Centennial Park (the area around the Georgia Dome, where many of the 1996 Olympic venues were to be held). So before 1996 actually, they started a process to clear away many of these areas, literally so Olympic visitors and would-be corporate people who might one day relocate here would not see the blighted areas. It started in that area pre-Olympics, and continued in other areas after the games. There is a large rift between the well-to-do Black community in Atlanta and the lower income Black community in Atlanta (which is substantial in size), and many theories still fly around today about how Atlanta's "Black-elite" City leaders simply used this as a method to rid the inner city areas of the lower income, spread them throughout the suburbs (see below), and then use the land for $money making$ contracts and under the table payouts.

Their theory (at least what was told to the public) was to integrate various income levels into "mixed-use" developments; a combination of retail space, high, mid, and lower income housing, all mixed together in one development. I'm not sure what the actual percentage was, but something went on the books saying that X-percentage of each of these developments had to be of the "affordable housing" nature, while the rest could be overpriced. The affordable housing percentage was kept as low as they could though, and still get the special ordinances passed. The remaining residents of the projects who did not want to live there or could not officially qualify, or they didn't have room for, received special vouchers or assistance programs that allowed them to rent apartments or homes in the suburbs for a fraction of what they were worth - with the programs paying the landlords directly while the participants paid the program their share. With Atlanta's lower income population being extremely large in comparison to some other areas, many went to the burbs instead of being able to find room in these mixed-use developments.

There still ARE "projects" technically in Atlanta, but they're far fewer in number now than they were a few years ago. There's a HUGE controversy here over the voucher programs that allowed the people to move to the burbs, though. Some communities have tried to pass ordinances that forbid home owners who rent their homes to accept vouchers. Official subdivisioned neighborhoods in some cases have put complete bans on home owners being able to rent out homes they own in the community at all in their HOA rules. I'm aware of one suburban County that had a developer who wanted to build a lower-mixed income housing area there, and they removed an entire section of their public transit bus route from that whole zone so the area would no longer be served by transit, making it inaccessible except by car - so the developer would scrap the idea, not being able to get buyers who would need to rely on transit.

So to sum up - Yes, they did away with a lot of the projects. No, people weren't tossed out on the street. Yes, people were "scattered" as a result. And yes, it's still a very controversial subject locally.

Thanks for explaining what happened in Atlanta, I'm starting to think its a good idea to break the cycle of poverty and crime.

[Infamous92]

Originally Posted by NooYowkur81

A lot of fast food these days isn't cheaper than fruit and vegetables. Bad eating habits are just that bad habits and they can be hard to break, especially if they have been done for years.

Not a lot of people can always afford to buy fast food, and I know but a lot of stores that don't have fresh fruits and vegetables, I remember not too long ago they had a huge protest and strike outside of an Associated supermarket in my neighborhood because a lot of the food in there was old and moldy and expired and was still on the shelves. The Key Food in my neighborhood is okay but there's not a lot of healthy selections. When I went to a Stop & Shop in I think Forest Hills I was shocked at how fresh and clean everything was and it had a wide selection.

[vitalove]

I don't think they will demolish the project buiildings in NYC. The fact is, those buildings are some of the best built buildings around. A simple fact. They were made much stronger than a lot of these modern construction buildings.

I do think that they will return them to their proper intentions which was for the working and middle classes. Yes, there are a lot of working people in the projects now, but they are forced to live under bad conditions and sometimes with less-desirable neighbors. This has given the projects a bad reputation in general.

I think a mixed income housing effect would be best and is most ideal. It is what makes NYC unique. Until recently most neighborhoods had mixed incomes with the posh areas and poorest areas being the extremes of both. Non-natives cannot seem to accept this about the city and want it to be as divided economically as the places that they come from. But it is this uniqueness that has attracted them to begin with.

So the issue isn't about Manhattan getting rid of all of its poor people for instance, it's more of it getting rid of its self-entitled residents. If you want to live with only the rich, you must be rich and live on Park Avenue (south of 96th Street) or some place like that. This is just reality.