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Many People in the Non-europeanized world generally have a very good view of the United States. Asian kids can't get enough of our culture. I was riding the bus along Northern Blvd not too long ago and a couple of Asian kids came on totally decked in Bling and yankess gear and talking ebonics mess. I call them Chiggers.
Anyway, even Latin Americans and Africans don't get it.
Not me though, I don't enjoy others misfortune. While it's all a big game to some (BULD MORE! MORE STORES! MORE GENTRIFICATION!), the reality for others is struggle. Nothing gets better for these people.
Scatman, you don't use your head. You yell, "WOW A NICE STORE IN BED-STUY" but you don't think of teh consequences. As an area improves those who can't afford it get pushed out. It goes from a Black hood with a lot of history to getting the mat pulled out from under our feet. In other words, White and expensive. GOOD JOB.
1) A choice between now (revitalized) and back then (crack epidemic), I take now! You'd be surprised at how many people in the hood (even lower income folk) take now over back then!
2) When talking about gentrification, people grossly underestimate and ignore the existence and power of the Black gentry! In other words, there are people of color benefitting from this, too!!!!!!!!
3) And a lot of people of color who have owned property for years (some decades!), went through the hell during the crack era, and are now able to cash in due to gentrification.
I suggested it before.....Lance Freeman, There Goes The Hood: Gentrification from the Ground Up. Talks about the first two points, and then some!
1) A choice between now (revitalized) and back then (crack epidemic), I take now! You'd be surprised at how many people in the hood (even lower income folk) take now over back then!
2) When talking about gentrification, people grossly underestimate and ignore the existence and power of the Black gentry! In other words, there are people of color benefitting from this, too!!!!!!!!
3) And a lot of people of color who have owned property for years (some decades!), went through the hell during the crack era, and are now able to cash in due to gentrification.
I suggested it before.....Lance Freeman, There Goes The Hood: Gentrification from the Ground Up. Talks about the first two points, and then some!
The crack epidemic was blown out of proportion. There was a lot of violence but it was mostly between criminals (same as today). However there was always a real chance of being the victim of a crime. But even now there is a real chance of being a victim. So not much has really changed. America is violent, you just deal with it.
I think a lot of the fear came from crimes going down in areas unfamiliar with ghetto crime. More of the city was considered a high crime area. Poverty was much more widespread. Now since crime is "contained" in the Black/Latino communities it is not seen as a problem.
Personally growing up through the peak as a teenager, it wasn't all that bad to me. Just life. I see the same things today among the youth. So not much has changed at all.
Yeah they rehabed a bunch of buildings. Have you been inside them, they are becoming dumps. They might not be borded up anymore but now they are full of poor. Which was the reason why many were abandoned in the first place.
In the end though, gentrification will sweep through some areas. Areas previously seen as undesireable. Those who live there now (Black and Latino) will be displaced. Then the cycle will repeat itself. The Lower East Side is a perfect example. The poor have been restricted to the housing projects along the East River where it is still a crime ridden ghetto.
I'm not saying ^^ gentrification is all bad. We do need to clean up the nabs that have been poorly treated for decades (mostly as a result of racial policies, but that is another story) But when it gets to a point that is actually destroy a nab all in the name of the almighty $$$, then don't you think the person who built the Starbucks is just a guilty as putting a nab in danger as much as the dealer and lookouts on the block? These nabs do need jobs, but wtf is Starbucks going to do if most of the people living there can't even afford to pay rent. Or live paycheck-to-paycheck. Look at it this way:
Someone owns a store on 125th for the past 40 years. He have lived in Harlem all of his life. He has seen it all. From poverty in the 60's, to crime in the 70's, to crack in the 80's, to AIDS in the 90's. However, starting in the late 1990's Harlem has starting seeing it's Real Estate starting to jack-up all becuase the nab is the "new hot market" People who once said Harlem is dead, is now moving past 125th in numbers. Though Crime went down and it's safer, he can't manage to live Uptown and keep paying for rent for his biz all because the nab is now "gentrified".
I know what Hustla is talking about. Long time locals are feeling like "Damn! We lived here all this time and we got some hipster from the city coming into our areas and jacking up the cost of living." But I guess that's life.
I'm not saying ^^ gentrification is all bad. We do need to clean up the nabs that have been poorly treated for decades (mostly as a result of racial policies, but that is another story) But when it gets to a point that is actually destroy a nab all in the name of the almighty $$$, then don't you think the person who built the Starbucks is just a guilty as putting a nab in danger as much as the dealer and lookouts on the block? These nabs do need jobs, but wtf is Starbucks going to do if most of the people living there can't even afford to pay rent. Or live paycheck-to-paycheck. Look at it this way:
Someone owns a store on 125th for the past 40 years. He have lived in Harlem all of his life. He has seen it all. From poverty in the 60's, to crime in the 70's, to crack in the 80's, to AIDS in the 90's. However, starting in the late 1990's Harlem has starting seeing it's Real Estate starting to jack-up all becuase the nab is the "new hot market" People who once said Harlem is dead, is now moving past 125th in numbers. Though Crime went down and it's safer, he can't manage to live Uptown and keep paying for rent for his biz all because the nab is now "gentrified".
I know what Hustla is talking about. Long time locals are feeling like "Damn! We lived here all this time and we got some hipster from the city coming into our areas and jacking up the cost of living." But I guess that's life.
That's why I want to leave the city. It's a rip off.
Look at Harlem. Crime didn't go down in Harlem. That place is still the ghetto as hell for most people. People get killed and shot all the time, drug addiction is rampid, poverty everywhere. However for others who live in a bubble, inside some new luxury construction Harlem is the greatest. Subway nearby to Midtown. Cheaper rent. Old post war buildings (restored on the outside, **** inside).
Eventually this is an example of what will happen:
Lower West Harlem, Columbia University wants to buy more blocks. They will buy out blocks around the university in West Harlem and all those people will get the boot. Most of these poor struggling families, many headed by a single mother. These buildings will recieve real renovations. Then they will be rented out to students. For those Blacks and Latins displaced, things didn't get better, they just got shifted out their neighborhood. Now they are newcomers to another low income NYC hood. Where there kids will be jumped since they are new faces. Where some will join gangs and the cycle will continue.
It don't get better for our people. All gentrification does is slowly shift the old poor population out, and the new wealthy population in.
I just love these socialistic fetishes of how poor people are somehow morally entitled to their hoods.
Guess what, the poor have more than enough areas to choose from. What you advocate is basically keeping the city ****ty so poor people have a place to live. Since most of the people getting jacked would be poor, I would say that's wrong.
Places go up, places go down. Who here feels for the middle-class people (and yes, Middle-class Blacks and Puerto Ricans did exist in NYC during the 1950s) who lost their neighborhoods to a cycle of drugs and crime as "poor" people moved in.
NYC has too much poverty, having some of them leave for sunnier areas is not exactly a horrible thing.
^^^ no one is saying "Don't built in poor nabs. EVER!!!" All I'm saying is that if you want to rebuild, do it in a way that will keep the original residents (or residents who lived through so much) in. How many times have we seen stories on the news that rent is going up and people can't afford to live in the area anymore. Or that developers are buying apartments and jacking up the price by 10%. Remember the debate over Starrett City early this year? Or Peter Cooper Village-Stuyvesant Town?
Push the poor out and where do they go? Bergen County, NJ? Long Island? Lower Hudson Valley? Please!
I'm not saying ^^ gentrification is all bad. We do need to clean up the nabs that have been poorly treated for decades (mostly as a result of racial policies, but that is another story) But when it gets to a point that is actually destroy a nab all in the name of the almighty $$$, then don't you think the person who built the Starbucks is just a guilty as putting a nab in danger as much as the dealer and lookouts on the block? These nabs do need jobs, but wtf is Starbucks going to do if most of the people living there can't even afford to pay rent. Or live paycheck-to-paycheck. Look at it this way:
Someone owns a store on 125th for the past 40 years. He have lived in Harlem all of his life. He has seen it all. From poverty in the 60's, to crime in the 70's, to crack in the 80's, to AIDS in the 90's. However, starting in the late 1990's Harlem has starting seeing it's Real Estate starting to jack-up all becuase the nab is the "new hot market" People who once said Harlem is dead, is now moving past 125th in numbers. Though Crime went down and it's safer, he can't manage to live Uptown and keep paying for rent for his biz all because the nab is now "gentrified".
I know what Hustla is talking about. Long time locals are feeling like "Damn! We lived here all this time and we got some hipster from the city coming into our areas and jacking up the cost of living." But I guess that's life.
The Starbucks in the Hood idea come from some dude named Earvin Johnson. I don't think Starbucks Headquarters even wanted to think about shops in the hood! By the way, Mr. Johnson owns the Big Clock in Downtown Brooklyn (One Hanson Place).
Which leads me to my other issue, us...in this city! I'm gonna get in trouble for saying this in public, but the lack of a wide ranging "economic empowerment agenda", in my opinion, is one of the chief factors in allowing gentrification to swallow the hood! Some of our leaders were busy trying to "shout down The Man", and while others just weren't doing jack! Instead, we, as a whole, should have brought all them vacant lots and property en masse, or found ways to get resources to buy it! Remember, Atlantic Terminal Yards was all vacant lot in the 70s and 80s! All that should have been ours! And the city was giving that away cheap!
But I'm glad that I had individuals in my family, plus things I've seen, who weren't waiting any leader, any agenda or The Man to empower themselves.........
1) Two uncles of mine who have had property for 40 years. One of them is a functional illiterate.
2) My mom is about to pay off her 20-year co-op mortgage!
3) A brownstone owner on State Street Brooklyn, 13 years ago, who renovated his property with Carver Bank funds!
4) Miss Sylvia, who was waaaaay ahead of everyone in terms of commercial property ownership! Say what you want about her cooking......!
5) The above drove me to become a homeowner, and say "screw The Man"!
Man, these leaders, I'll tell you.........!!!!!! (sorry for ranting!).
^^^ no one is saying "Don't built in poor nabs. EVER!!!" All I'm saying is that if you want to rebuild, do it in a way that will keep the original residents (or residents who lived through so much) in. How many times have we seen stories on the news that rent is going up and people can't afford to live in the area anymore. Or that developers are buying apartments and jacking up the price by 10%. Remember the debate over Starrett City early this year? Or Peter Cooper Village-Stuyvesant Town?
Push the poor out and where do they go? Bergen County, NJ? Long Island? Lower Hudson Valley? Please!
What's wrong with NJ? Last I checked, the poor didn't fare so well when the city served as a holding tank for them. If they built affrodable housing on LI, are you gonna *****? I mean, they have better schools and good transit.
And let's be honest with ourselves, a lot of these residents are poor for a reason (drugs/crime), so don't dilute yourself.
What's wrong with NJ? Last I checked, the poor didn't fare so well when the city served as a holding tank for them. If they built affrodable housing on LI, are you gonna *****? I mean, they have better schools and good transit.
And let's be honest with ourselves, a lot of these residents are poor for a reason (drugs/crime), so don't dilute yourself.
What's wrong with NJ? If you make under 30,000 bucks a year... Where are you gonna live? Newark? Camden? Paterson?
LI? So we put someone who can't find a job to live on the South Shore. Hell, the Hamptons is nice this time of year.
Yeah, every poor person is a junkie and a criminal. Too bad the Gottis didn't get that one..
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