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I lived in East New York when you heard gun shots and saw gang bangers chasing each others with guns drawn. A gang banger running from the police and throwing his weapon in my friend's clothes at the laundromat. Drug dealing as the kids walked by with their parents. It isn't the best or safest yet. I have however seen the gradual change that new residents bring. Gentrify the hell out of these degenerates. Being poor is not a crime. I empathize with the genuinely disabled and some poor. But these criminal and multiple generations living in the projects or section 8 apartments, goodbye and good riddance. I don't understand the mindset of romanticizing crime and low quality of life. I will take bland ohio flavored neighborhood over filth, grime and crime everyday.
I'm in Vegas right now. Plenty of folks I came across here romanticzed about old NYC. According to them, the New, New York City completely sucks. I agree with them. Overall gentrification in NYC has its pors and cons. First off. Only a select few people can benefit from gentrification in NYC. One if you own a business or service, and can adjust your business to the changing market, that business can benefit. Two if you own property in areas close to Manhattan or near Manhattan. One will be able to benefit from increased real estate appreciation. Three having a college degree. Having a college degree in NYC will assest in finding better employment in fields that require a 4 year degree. Mind you, majority of native New Yorkers don't have a college degree, don't own a business or own property.
NYC was never meant to live in for long time. Poor European immigrants built the city, and when they had the money they moved out to the suburbs. In the 80s and 90s, the Blacks and Hispanics who moved up socioeconomically also headed out to the suburbs.
Who wants to live in a run down ****ty apartment permanently or raise a family there if they can help it/
I do think most NYC residents benefit from gentrification. Crime went down, partially because of gentrification. All the people who come in and out of NYC spend money so the service sector does well on that. NYC got much better retail options, including grocery store options.
Slow and organic gentrification isn't THAT bad a thing, but hyper sonic speed gentrification is HORRIBLE. Also developer speculative gentrification is obnoxious.
quote:
NYC was never meant to live in for long time.
Another post of yours that I can do nothing but roll my eyes. Seriously?
As to the OP's question which opened this thread (asking us all "Has gentrification improved or hurt NYC?"):
The obvious first question to the OP is "From whose perspective is this question to be answered?".
Certainly it has benefited the Donald Trumps and Michael Bloombergs of the world and their like cohort of uber-wealthy persons, along with all the very-affluent trust fund-financed persons, the very-high-paid professionals + and other high-earning semi-professionals and other working and non-working persons who have their very high income & assets however they acquired them, and the very-well-to-do who are the foreign nationals and visitors who moved here altogether or else have second or third (or even more) homes or bases-of-operation here and in other parts of the nation or the world, and so on. Yet not nearly as beneficial or even outright NON-beneficial for everyone else who is below the lot in life that these other priorly-described persons are characterized as.
Although NYC at large is certainly cleaner and prettier to look at in its more-gentrified state-- and arguably safer all-in-all --than it was before it became so "gentrified" over the course of time.
*waiting for the racist keyboard warriors to storm in and preach how gentrification gets rid of bad people*
You're the only one associating "bad people" with people of color. Asians for instance make up a very sizeable part of the newly wealthy here, as do people directly from Latin America, Arabia and Africa.
Gentrification has helped certain neighborhoods because it brings down crime (usually) and adds economic plusses, but it's also hurts because many of the people moving in are some of the most annoying people you could ever meet.
Slow and organic gentrification isn't THAT bad a thing, but hyper sonic speed gentrification is HORRIBLE. Also developer speculative gentrification is obnoxious.
quote:
NYC was never meant to live in for long time.
Another post of yours that I can do nothing but roll my eyes. Seriously?
NYC was never meant to live in for a long time. Legions of immigrants came in, and those who moved up and who could do better moved to the suburbs OR around the country.
Even today, rental apartments in NYC are not made for people to live in permanent. Luxury rentals cost massive amounts of money per month (4, 5, 7, 7, 8k). Rental apartments for poor people often have horrible conditions. People who are middle class live in neighborhoods where they can buy houses, or they live in co-ops or condos.
Even if gentrification slowed or halted, rents would go up due to inflation. What happens when you retire, especially if you don't have retirement benefits? A lot of old people end up homeless or having to go into some sort of elder housing because they cannot pay the rents.
Renting in NYC is not sustainable all your life.
All those white people you see in NYC suburbs used to be NYC residents who worked their way up. Ditto for homeowners in the outer boroughs, or all those condo and co-op owners in the city. If you can't advance to owning property in NYC at some stage in your life you are going to need an out or you will likely join the ever growing legion of homeless.
I do not feel sorry at all for people who KNOW they could live much more cheaply if they moved to just Jersey, PA, or the lower Hudson Valley. If you want to live in NYC so bad, FINE, pay up what it costs to live. That is YOUR CHOICE, and if that's what you CHOOSE to do, it's up to you do deal with all the consequences.
The real question should be why are people so entitled these days!
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