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Old 07-16-2012, 07:56 PM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
46,001 posts, read 35,034,553 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harlem resident View Post
Litter and garbage proliferate in places like Harlem. This is not the case to such an extent in other areas.
Might be worse there, but the city in general is still pretty trashy. Would be nice to see New Yorkers pick up after themselves and take care of their surroundings better. There is no excuse for the amount of trash people here throw on the ground.
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Old 07-16-2012, 08:46 PM
 
31 posts, read 89,489 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Harlem resident View Post
Litter and garbage proliferate in places like Harlem. This is not the case to such an extent in other areas.
Why do you think this is? I generally love the community spirit in Harlem, but the trash (especially on 125th street) is deplorable.
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Old 07-17-2012, 01:20 AM
 
1,097 posts, read 1,589,671 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78 View Post
So the streets don't have litter everywhere or do you choose to just ignore the mess?
Some parts of the city are still filthy (such as Chinatown, Midtown West, Harlem and the ghettoes in South Bronx and Central Brooklyn) but there are reasonably tidy areas: yesterday I was walking in FiDi, Midtown East and TriBeCa... sorry, I didn't find trashy streets.
Also, can we stop the "newyorkers throw trash everywhere" crap?
Stop generalizing, please: if SOME newyorkers (and SEVERAL tourists) lack civic pride and public spirit I don't see why anyone has to bash the entire population.
I lived in Rome and Milan for ten years... they are filthy even in theirs affluent nabes: I can't say the same about NYC.
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Old 07-17-2012, 06:28 AM
 
499 posts, read 790,773 times
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I think a big reason why many New Yorkers litter is because most buildings have to leave their trash bags on the street for pick up. Many people throw there own personal litter on top of the pile, as if garbage men are really gong to pick up Kleenexes and receipts. All those able-bodied folks in public housing who don't have jobs should be required to do a few hours of community service (like street cleaning) every week. To be real, it's mostly impoverished folks and their spawn trashing our streets and parks.

Our entire sanitation system needs to be modernized and the city wastes so much money carting our garbage to far off states. It's unfortunate that a city with a 60 billion dollar budget has no funds to prevent itself from looking like a third-world country.
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Old 07-17-2012, 06:49 AM
 
8,743 posts, read 18,326,169 times
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FYI Italianuser, many of those sparkling clean neighborhoods have their own private santiation crews which clean the streets and sidewalks. Rockefeller Center, Broadway, Park Ave, etc stay clean not because their residents are clean, but because the businesses pay to clean the areas. Take away all those private sanitation companies and you would see how filthy even the "nice" areas become.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:17 AM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
46,001 posts, read 35,034,553 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by italianuser View Post
Some parts of the city are still filthy (such as Chinatown, Midtown West, Harlem and the ghettoes in South Bronx and Central Brooklyn) but there are reasonably tidy areas: yesterday I was walking in FiDi, Midtown East and TriBeCa... sorry, I didn't find trashy streets.
Also, can we stop the "newyorkers throw trash everywhere" crap?
Stop generalizing, please: if SOME newyorkers (and SEVERAL tourists) lack civic pride and public spirit I don't see why anyone has to bash the entire population.
I lived in Rome and Milan for ten years... they are filthy even in theirs affluent nabes: I can't say the same about NYC.
I just wish more New Yorkers would pick up after themselves....only reason for the generalization because I don't have the time to name each person...but yes, people in this city have a tendency just to throw their trash onto the streets rather than take the time to properly get rid of their waste.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:21 AM
 
Location: Portland, Oregon
46,001 posts, read 35,034,553 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arxis28 View Post
I think a big reason why many New Yorkers litter is because most buildings have to leave their trash bags on the street for pick up. Many people throw there own personal litter on top of the pile, as if garbage men are really gong to pick up Kleenexes and receipts. All those able-bodied folks in public housing who don't have jobs should be required to do a few hours of community service (like street cleaning) every week. To be real, it's mostly impoverished folks and their spawn trashing our streets and parks.

Our entire sanitation system needs to be modernized and the city wastes so much money carting our garbage to far off states. It's unfortunate that a city with a 60 billion dollar budget has no funds to prevent itself from looking like a third-world country.
This is a huge issue, I see this happening daily. This is where much of the trash comes from....and for the comment about the people in public housing should be required to pick up trash...I think the better answer would be all New Yorkers should be required to spend a day picking up trash so everyone can see what happens when they throw their personal trash on top of bags of garbage...this isn't a class thing, people of all classes do this.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:38 AM
 
Location: West Harlem
6,885 posts, read 9,891,215 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by upineastharlem View Post
Why do you think this is? I generally love the community spirit in Harlem, but the trash (especially on 125th street) is deplorable.
It is due to a persistent and destructive phenomenon known as "ghetto culture."
And while some neighborhoods may have been better served by the city, that was the case because people complained and took action, and above all, due to the fact that the surrounding community did not support littering and dumping (or whatever else). Many of the destructive things that happen in Harlem continue because community members support such behaviors - tacitly or not.

I have actually been at community meetings where, when someone brought up bad litter situation A, B or C, the person was attacked as "racist." This is truly astonishing to observe, because directly in front of everyone there would be (and would remain) that steaming heap of garbage in the empty lot. But in the end, after a major subject change, nothing at all would be done about the garbage. Often, people will even point out that "newcomers" are obligated to "give back" to the community, and clean up the litter themselves !

Any sort of observation about Harlem that fails to be absolutely celebratory will immediately be identified as "racist" by that percentage. Unfortunately, the people who engage in this are a vocal bunch, and this habit connects with the guilt of a percentage of the "new" Harlem people.

And so things continue.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:39 AM
bg7
 
7,694 posts, read 10,512,033 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanlife78 View Post
This is a huge issue, I see this happening daily. This is where much of the trash comes from....and for the comment about the people in public housing should be required to pick up trash...I think the better answer would be all New Yorkers should be required to spend a day picking up trash so everyone can see what happens when they throw their personal trash on top of bags of garbage...this isn't a class thing, people of all classes do this.
People without class drop their trash around them (and those people can be rich or poor).

However, take a train ride on the MNRR up on the elevated tracks through the city and you'll see housing projects where people throw their garbage out of the window to the grounds below. People don't usually beleive me the first time I tell them this. Its incredible. What I have noticed its that its prevalent at some projects and seemingly absent at others.
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Old 07-17-2012, 07:43 AM
 
Location: West Harlem
6,885 posts, read 9,891,215 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Arxis28 View Post
All those able-bodied folks in public housing who don't have jobs should be required to do a few hours of community service (like street cleaning) every week. To be real, it's mostly impoverished folks and their spawn trashing our streets and parks.
This was tried. The civil-liberties-interested filed law suits, claiming that imposing jobs infringed on the liberty of each person to develop him/herself.

Among the generational poverty people with whom I worked, there was a very strong dedication to getting around whatever similar solution was posed. Many of these people would have wasted less time simply doing what the city asked, and if they combined this with getting their children off the streets, where they are deep into the evenings, the accumulation of litter would have been curtailed, perhaps tremendously.
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