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Manhattan is enough of a tourist attraction all by itself without the need to now gentrify the other 4 boroughs destroying their unique history. Boroughs like Brooklyn where I was born and raised have their own unique vibe that in my opinion has now been compromised in the name of greedy real estate developers running to build high rises in downtown Brooklyn catering to the onslaught of Manhattanites who can no longer afford to live there so now they are running across the water. Don't get me wrong people have to live where they can afford....if Manhattan has become outrageous with the prices then of course those who want to stay in NYC must look for other areas around the city to live. However the problem that I have with gentrification is that the nature of it's existence is elitism......some people are allowed to live well because they have money at the expense of the poor!
There is always going to be rich people, poor people and the in between people and there has to be a balance where everyone has a place to live. The way the gentrification has gone in this city it is not only pushing people out of neighborhoods where they have lived for years but it is sending the message to the poor that they don't have a right to breath and should just fall off the face of the earth if they do not have money. Why is it that everytime a real estate developer decides to build something it is only million dollar condos.....why can't an equal amount of affordable housing for the middle class and poor be built right alongside the million dollar condos that go up in this city??
Cannot have a city where ONLY RICH PEOPLE LIVE....
Last edited by NewYorkBorn; 01-18-2010 at 03:48 PM..
Manhattan is enough of a tourist attraction all by itself without the need to now gentrify the other 4 boroughs destroying their unique history. Boroughs like Brooklyn where I was born and raised have their own unique vibe that in my opinion has now been compromised in the name of greedy real estate developers running to build high rises in downtown Brooklyn catering to the onslaught of Manhattanites who can no longer afford to live there so now they are running across the water. Don't get me wrong people have to live where they can afford....if Manhattan has become outrageous with the prices then of course those who want to stay in NYC must look for other areas around the city to live. However the problem that I have with gentrification is that the nature of it's existence is elitist in nature. There is always going to be rich people, poor people and the in between people and there has to be a balance where everyone has a place to live. The way the gentrification has gone in this city it is not only pushing people out of neighborhoods where they have lived for years but it is sending the message to the poor that they don't have a right to breath and should just fall off the face of the earth if they do not have money. Why is it that everytime a real estate developer decides to build something it is only million dollar condos.....why can't an equal amount of affordable housing for the middle class and poor be built right alongside the million dollar condos that go up in this city??
Cannot have a city where ONLY RICH PEOPLE LIVE....
Thank you NewYorkBorn, gentrification is just a step down from fascism and is a very elitist way to transform a city. People may think drug dealers are heartless, but I say the there are some realtors who are just as cold-hearted as any drug dealer or gangster.
Take Harlem as a prime example. Pre-gentrification, it was a crime infested, nasty and filthy slum. You couldn't pay someone to live around those.
Fast forward to the present, though still a work in progress, Harlem has seen a huge reduction in crime and Harlem's landscape is being beautified with new construction which attracts nice, educated and more affluent people WHO ACTUALLY HAVE RESPECT FOR THEIR PROPERTY AND VALUE IT as oppose to the previous residents who didn't care and destroyed it. Gentrification has helped Harlem take away that "gritty" or ghetto look Harlem was known for.
Yeah some residents get displaced in the process but the majority of those displaced were of the "undesirable" type that made Harlem "gritty" in the first place so they're expendable.
Yeah you also have a small percentage of good residents that were also displaced but hey, thats what happens when you allow bad apples to define, dominate and takeover a town...the good ones get sucked in and pay the price for the bad ones and become "causalities of war".
However, the end result is all worth it... A safer HARLEM!
Take Harlem as a prime example. Pre-gentrification, it was a crime infested, nasty and filthy slum. You couldn't pay someone to live around those.
Fast forward to the present, though still a work in progress, Harlem has seen a huge reduction in crime and Harlem's landscape is being beautified with new construction which attracts nice, educated and more affluent people WHO ACTUALLY HAVE RESPECT FOR THEIR PROPERTY AND VALUE IT as oppose to the previous residents who didn't care and destroyed it. Gentrification has helped Harlem take away that "gritty" or ghetto look Harlem was known for.
Yeah some residents get displaced in the process but the majority of those displaced were of the "undesirable" type that made Harlem "gritty" in the first place so they're expendable.
Yeah you also have a small percentage of good residents that were also displaced but hey, thats what happens when you allow bad apples to define, dominate and takeover a town...the good ones get sucked in and pay the price for the bad ones and become "causalities of war".
However, the end result is all worth it... A safer HARLEM!
The "majority" of Harlem residents were "undesirable" and there was only a "small percentage" of good residents? "Casualties of War"? I'm assuming you amassed this intricate data from some thorough analysis done on the demography of Harlem. Moderator cut: Rude...You know what would really be great? Suprise us and present us with some data, you know like the ratio of felons to law abiding citizens? The percentage of "ghettoized" people who actually work and pay taxes vs. the social parasites. You know, all that boring math stuff people bring up, in order to support their arguments Moderator cut: Not necessary
Last edited by bmwguydc; 01-19-2010 at 12:20 AM..
Reason: Rude
Take Harlem as a prime example. Pre-gentrification, it was a crime infested, nasty and filthy slum. You couldn't pay someone to live around those.
Fast forward to the present, though still a work in progress, Harlem has seen a huge reduction in crime and Harlem's landscape is being beautified with new construction which attracts nice, educated and more affluent people WHO ACTUALLY HAVE RESPECT FOR THEIR PROPERTY AND VALUE IT as oppose to the previous residents who didn't care and destroyed it. Gentrification has helped Harlem take away that "gritty" or ghetto look Harlem was known for.
Yeah some residents get displaced in the process but the majority of those displaced were of the "undesirable" type that made Harlem "gritty" in the first place so they're expendable.
Yeah you also have a small percentage of good residents that were also displaced but hey, thats what happens when you allow bad apples to define, dominate and takeover a town...the good ones get sucked in and pay the price for the bad ones and become "causalities of war".
However, the end result is all worth it... A safer HARLEM!
On the surface it seems like a simple answer to solve a problem that has existed for years......oh we'll just push out lifelong residents and replace them with those who have money.......after all they are just casualties of war right?? Until the tables turn and it happens to you!
Yeah Harlem was gritty for years but let's dig deeper for the reason. Recipe: 1 cup of economically diasdvantaged people, 1 1/2 cups of segregating those people to live piled up in one location together, 2 cups of frustrated people, 3 cups of years that wealthy mayor Bloomberg has been in office and only caring about the interests of fellow rich people just like mayors before him, 4 cups of city government not caring how bad Harlem became, then all of a sudden now middle class and upper middle class people cannot afford their usual midtown and lower Manhattan residences = a situation where no one cared about how the poor lived in Harlem until they needed to use Harlem for it's cheap rents!
Again gentrification sends the horrible message to the poor that because they do not have money that they must live in squalid conditions until those with money decide to show up on the scene and supposedly beautify their neighborhood! Why was it again that this beautification of Harlem did not take place BEFORE when it was a mostly black and Latino area?? Because people with money don't care about anything but themselves!
I will not deny that there has been improvements in Harlem but the improvements took place for the wrong GREEDY reasons.
/\ Low income NYers write their own horror stories. In a city that recieves tens of thousands of immigrants every year, there's simply no way most of the type of poor who live in Harlem, Brooklyn, et al, can compete on the job front. No one will hire someone from the projects at minimum wage when a Chinese or Dominican immigrant will do it much better at under-the-table prices.
And the middle class jobs are dominiated by the unions, which shut out alot of potential jobs since union pay scales cause construction sites to try and minimalize staff.
In answer to someone's earlier question as to "weed smoking" being disrespectful, why don't you head down to Juarez and see the dead bodies that are courtesy of the drug trade? And as for Graffiti and Litter not being serious, it's those types of things that give the ripe enviorment for other types of crimes.
Why was it again that this beautification of Harlem did not take place BEFORE when it was a mostly black and Latino area?? Because people with money don't care about anything but themselves!
Why? Because any attempts to beautify Harlem was vandalized and destroyed by the animals who use to live there. One good example... GRAFFITI tagging. So why continue to waste money for it to be destroyed again because these animals don't value anything? This is the same reason why PROJECTS are built with solid concrete and not sheetrock. The proper way to go about it is to remove the community cancer and then beautify so it wouldn't be vandalized again.
Instead of blaming others for their short comings, they need to take a good look at the mirror and realize that they're their own worse enemy. It's NOT because the "system" keeps you down or "my great grandmama's mama was a slave 300 hundred years ago so this is why I smoke crack now and on welfare". Mod cut So how are some Mod cut able to become successful and productive people of society while others become undesirable and a nuisance to the community? As a result, the undesirables in the community get DEALT with and rightfully so. Now that a lot of them have been removed, Harlem is a more pleasant place to live and visit.
Last edited by Viralmd; 01-19-2010 at 07:46 AM..
Reason: Racist
Why? Because any attempts to beautify Harlem was vandalized and destroyed by the animals who use to live there. One good example... GRAFFITI tagging. So why continue to waste money for it to be destroyed again because these animals don't value anything? This is the same reason why PROJECTS are built with solid concrete and not sheetrock. The proper way to go about it is to remove the community cancer and then beautify so it wouldn't be vandalized again.
Instead of blaming others for their short comings, they need to take a good look at the mirror and realize that they're their own worse enemy. It's NOT because the "system" keeps you down or "my great grandmama's mama was a slave 300 hundred years ago so this is why I smoke crack now and on welfare". Mod cut So how are some Mod cut able to become successful and productive people of society while others become undesirable and a nuisance to the community? As a result, the undesirables in the community get DEALT with and rightfully so. Now that a lot of them have been removed, Harlem is a more pleasant place to live and visit.
Well that was rude, lol.
Here is an interesting article for all you pro-gentrifiers. I hope you see how these working and middle class families are suffering while you sit in your million dollar condo saying gentrification beautifies neighborhoods.
Here is an interesting article for all you pro-gentrifiers. I hope you see how these working and middle class families are suffering while you sit in your million dollar condo saying gentrification beautifies neighborhoods.
Rep point coming your way, thank you!
The assumption that everyone who lives in an undesirable neighborhood is an animal is so far from the truth. There are good decent people who work everday and many with pretty good paying jobs who live in bad neighborhoods because this city is so expensive that they cannot afford to live anywhere else.
Victorfox's argument sounds familar. Why?? Because it is the same tired argument that was repeated over and over again when the native American's land was stolen supposedly in the name of progress or when Africans were kidnapped from their homes only to find themselves in the bondage's of slavery as the so called master proclaimed that what he was doing was right because he was bringing Christianity to heathens.
The gentrification issue isn't really about Bloomberg, unions, etc. or even New York. It is much bigger than that. To equate gentrification to fascism would by laughable if were not so disturbing to think that it might be taken seriously.
Urban gentrification is a socio-economic mega-trend that has been going on for more than 20 years in every city in the country. It isn't the result of a government action or policy, but by the individual decisions of millions of people.
The roots of the trend are in the desire for educated and affluent professionals to live in cities. From the 50s through the 70s, middle and upper-middle class people almost universally fled cites, and a generation of them (baby boomers) came of age in the suburbs. Around the mid-eighties this trend reversed and many of the Baby boomers returned to cities by reclaiming formerly dilapidated and often industrial neighborhoods, leading to the establishment of the "urban loft" apartment and the term "Yuppie".
That trend has continued and accelerated to the present day, where the desire for urban living is shared by many types of people, from young professionals to empty-nesters in their 50s and 60s and now families.
Perhaps the first neighborhood to gentrify in NYC in the 80s was SoHo, a formerly industrial area, which provided the prototype for the gentrification process. Today every city in the US has its own SoHo equivalent (or imitator). Even sprawled-out sunbelt cities like Houston and Atlanta have growing affluent urban cores that are typically the most desirable and expensive places to live. Those cities are also having gentrification debates.
To argue that this is the result of recent government actions or could be reversed through some form of government intervention simply ignores the reality of huge social, cultural and economic trends. Arguing government actions and invoking class warfare rhetoric does nothing to reverse this trend.
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