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i ask u this question....with the amount of stalled construction sites throughout the city, within proximity to and in manhattan, will that even matter? if they cant capitalize on sites that werent formerly public housing, how can they capitalize on sites that formerly were? williamsburg is 20 minutes tops away from lower manhattan and it has an abomination of stalled construction sites. so what difference does it make? and if it has worked in chicago, why not in nyc? cabrini green is blocks away from the gold coast. read on the revitilization that is occuring. NYC and LA did not have riots because of the projects. Paris did. big difference.
They can't capitalize on projects that were expected to bring in the Kool-Aid price of $1000 per sq. ft in Brooklyn. All of the new Williamsburg condos would get snapped up in a NY minute if their developers lowered the condo prices to, say, beachfront S. Florida levels ($300-400/sq ft or so).
I don't see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand. My point still stands: the land on which many public housing projects are located even in today's, post-bubble, New York is too expensive to justify NYCHA holding on to it to the detriment of the rest of their finances/clients.
Socioeconomic diversity has been proven to be little more than wishful thinking in a free country with a mobile population and its benefits tend to be overstated by its proponents, anyway. Squandering enormous amounts of money on it (at least in terms of the opportunity costs of holding onto very expensive real estate) is blatant incompetence and mismanagement on the part of NYCHA.
And no, Paris did not have riots because of the projects. It had riots for the same reasons other cities with significant poverty have riots.
They can't capitalize on projects that were expected to bring in the Kool-Aid price of $1000 per sq. ft in Brooklyn. All of the new Williamsburg condos would get snapped up in a NY minute if their developers lowered the condo prices to, say, beachfront S. Florida levels ($300-400/sq ft or so).
I don't see how this is relevant to the discussion at hand. My point still stands: the land on which many public housing projects are located even in today's, post-bubble, New York is too expensive to justify NYCHA holding on to it to the detriment of the rest of their finances/clients.
Socioeconomic diversity has been proven to be little more than wishful thinking in a free country with a mobile population and its benefits tend to be overstated by its proponents, anyway. Squandering enormous amounts of money on it (at least in terms of the opportunity costs of holding onto very expensive real estate) is blatant incompetence and mismanagement on the part of NYCHA.
And no, Paris did not have riots because of the projects. It had riots for the same reasons other cities with significant poverty have riots.
when NYCHA built their properties, the land value was significantly lower than what it was today. all the property was formerly slums, so who can predict land value 60 years ahead of time?
read the article, it specifically makes note of the ghettoes "in a ring" around Paris. my point is you would be creating the same effect with displacing NYCHA properties in Manhattan to the outer boroughs.
So are we to get rid of NYCHA properties in Manhattan to developers to build more high-rise condos that cant even sell for what they're worth in this market? The developers are in this to make money. With the high construction costs today, lowering their prices to South Florida levels is the last thing on their minds. Nobody in their right mind is going to ask $180,000 for a studio in Midtown Manhattan, or Williamsburg, based on your numbers.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
I still didn't see any evidence in the article that it was the location of the housing projects in Paris that led to the riots, and not the usual grievances. The riots started exactly like the Rodney King riot in LA: after an instance of police brutality. And if you're going to have a riot, wouldn't you rather have it as far away from the city's core as possible, so it would have the least possible disruptive effect on businesses and the city's reputation?
Quote:
when NYCHA built their properties, the land value was significantly lower than what it was today. all the property was formerly slums, so who can predict land value 60 years ahead of time?
No one. NYCHA got lucky like other holders of Manhattan properties. But now that they KNOW they're sitting on very valuable real estate, the question of opportunity costs MUST be raised. The public housing projects need not be demolished to give way to today's fishtank condos. They can be converted to condos on their own: they're of sturdy construction and certainly no worse than the 1960's white brick boxes, built by private developers on the cheap to house the post-college crowd on 3d-2nd avenues. Many of these boxes have been converted to "luxury" condos.
Really, in a city of often hour+ long commutes, it is beyond shameless to live on the cheap within a 15 minute commute of midtown/downtown and not have a commuting job. If you're unwilling to privatize the projects, at least make it a requirement that every adult who lives in one on Manhattan or western parts of Brooklyn and Queens be gainfully employed in Manhattan.
The condoization of the world does not solve the problems, we have seen this. Reintroducing the middle/workign class to the housing projects by changing income limits across the board will ultimately be the ONLY answer. How can NYC, with a vacancy rate that usually howvers less then 3%, and even less so for "affordable units" sell the argument to the public that they are removing 200,000 units of CHEAP housing to make way for condos. Does this make sense? No, and the public won't go for it...and they shouldn't. Having these projects as true affordable housing for a variety of incomes is the only way to salvage them. Condoizing is never the solution to social ills.
I still didn't see any evidence in the article that it was the location of the housing projects in Paris that led to the riots, and not the usual grievances. The riots started exactly like the Rodney King riot in LA: after an instance of police brutality. And if you're going to have a riot, wouldn't you rather have it as far away from the city's core as possible, so it would have the least possible disruptive effect on businesses and the city's reputation?
No one. NYCHA got lucky like other holders of Manhattan properties. But now that they KNOW they're sitting on very valuable real estate, the question of opportunity costs MUST be raised. The public housing projects need not be demolished to give way to today's fishtank condos. They can be converted to condos on their own: they're of sturdy construction and certainly no worse than the 1960's white brick boxes, built by private developers on the cheap to house the post-college crowd on 3d-2nd avenues. Many of these boxes have been converted to "luxury" condos.
Really, in a city of often hour+ long commutes, it is beyond shameless to live on the cheap within a 15 minute commute of midtown/downtown and not have a commuting job. If you're unwilling to privatize the projects, at least make it a requirement that every adult who lives in one on Manhattan or western parts of Brooklyn and Queens be gainfully employed in Manhattan.
i didnt say that the riots in paris happened just because of their location. what i initially said was that if you move NYCHA out of manhattan, you will be creating the same conditions that Paris currently has. a low income high rise cesspool miles away from the city that will cause great resentment. sure it started over a police assault, but there was tension leading up to that moment. and that is caused by a high concentration of poverty. if the housing is dispersed evenly that situation would have never happened, and this is why neighborhoods like brownsville are in the plight that they are in, as i also mentioned.
you want to convert the existing buildings, fine. but then spread the population out thoroughly. make each building 33% upper class, 33% middle class, 33% lower class. otherwise its basic class segregation. take from the poor, and give to the rich. call it socialist, or whatever term you like. but i do know that the approach chicago took was much better than letting that slum of a cabrini-green exist blocks from the Gold Coast.
they're good enough to wash my car or to deliver my food, but not good enough to live in manhattan, is basically what you're saying. i dont think income structure and commuting time should have any correllation to each other.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
you want to convert the existing buildings, fine. but then spread the population out thoroughly. make each building 33% upper class, 33% middle class, 33% lower class. otherwise its basic class segregation. take from the poor, and give to the rich. call it socialist, or whatever term you like. but i do know that the approach chicago took was much better than letting that slum of a cabrini-green exist blocks from the Gold Coast.
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Ideally, this would be the most equitable, but unfortunately it doesn't work. I remember when Bay Towers were built in the early 70s in Rockaway near the Cross Bay Bridge. It was supposed to be a mixed income development. The apartments were new and nice. There was a pool. Within a year the tenants paying the highest rental fees were resentful that they were getting the same services for the highest price. They moved out, the place went downhill fast and that nice pool was only kept open for a few summers.
Ideally, this would be the most equitable, but unfortunately it doesn't work. I remember when Bay Towers were built in the early 70s in Rockaway near the Cross Bay Bridge. It was supposed to be a mixed income development. The apartments were new and nice. There was a pool. Within a year the tenants paying the highest rental fees were resentful that they were getting the same services for the highest price. They moved out, the place went downhill fast and that nice pool was only kept open for a few summers.
that really should be management's fault then...i'm sure the residents knew they were moving into a mixed income development, so i cant imagine they would harbor any resentment towards someone paying less, upon moving in. if management would have kept up with the repairs and addressed situations in a timely manner, maybe the situation would have turned out different. i've been in bay towers but back in the 80s when i was a kid. a friend of the family lived there, but she moved out.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
i ask u this question....with the amount of stalled construction sites throughout the city, within proximity to and in manhattan, will that even matter? if they cant capitalize on sites that werent formerly public housing, how can they capitalize on sites that formerly were? williamsburg is 20 minutes tops away from lower manhattan and it has an abomination of stalled construction sites. so what difference does it make? and if it has worked in chicago, why not in nyc? cabrini green is blocks away from the gold coast. read on the revitilization that is occuring. NYC and LA did not have riots because of the projects. Paris did. big difference.
That's a result of economic fallout, not social policy. Guarenteed if Wall St comes back like it did in the 1990s, then all those condos and then some will be filled.
I'm sorry, but to a great extent, I agree w/ Woozle and VictorFox. France is certainly not a land that scrimps on social spending and all it has done is harden and reenforce underdesireable behaviors amongst it's low class. My personal preferance would be for NY to begin converting closer in projects to middle class housing and start from there.
As far as the commuting argument goes, that doesn't really fly when you consider some of the backbone of the city's working class is coming in from as far away as the Poconos. To me, I can see the resentment coming from the idea that a hard working immigrant has to commute 2 hrs on I-80 to feed his/her family while some ghetto fabulous clan can live it up down on the LES. It should be the opposite.
That's a result of economic fallout, not social policy. Guarenteed if Wall St comes back like it did in the 1990s, then all those condos and then some will be filled.
I'm sorry, but to a great extent, I agree w/ Woozle and VictorFox. France is certainly not a land that scrimps on social spending and all it has done is harden and reenforce underdesireable behaviors amongst it's low class. My personal preferance would be for NY to begin converting closer in projects to middle class housing and start from there.
As far as the commuting argument goes, that doesn't really fly when you consider some of the backbone of the city's working class is coming in from as far away as the Poconos. To me, I can see the resentment coming from the idea that a hard working immigrant has to commute 2 hrs on I-80 to feed his/her family while some ghetto fabulous clan can live it up down on the LES. It should be the opposite.
well of course if the economy is good the condos will be bought but i am addressing the situation as nyc is in its current state.
ok well move nycha out of manhattan and queens brooklyn and bronx will go back to pre-giuliani days sorry to say. the poor have to go somewhere i guess.....it would be much easier if we could do something similar to what the british did with their convicts in the 1700s and shipped them off to australia, right?
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
ok well move nycha out of manhattan and queens brooklyn and bronx will go back to pre-giuliani days sorry to say. the poor have to go somewhere i guess.....it would be much easier if we could do something similar to what the british did with their convicts in the 1700s and shipped them off to australia, right?
Being poor is not only an issue of having no to little money but an issue of attitude and behavioral problems thats co-related with being poor.
It's their attitude, behavior and "ghetto" lifestyle (sub-culture) that's considered undesirable and unacceptable. It creates a nusiance to the community and degrades the neighborhood.
You can give a poor ghetto person a million dollars, at the end of the day, they're a rich ghetto person with the same attitude, behavioral problems. The money does nothing to correct them. Their mentality is the same.
As the saying goes..."You can take the person out the ghetto but can't take the ghetto out the person." SO TRUE!
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