Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Allow me to give a transplant perspective! For u slick rick and those who agree with you. I grew up in south LA! We still have plenty of pimps, hookers, and crack heads so you know where to plan your next vacation! I expeienced the gang wars, riots and and the fires that went along with the riots, stabbings, mugging, shootings! All from the comfort of own neighborhood! Let me tell you there are victims from what u call grittyness, I have lost many people and I'm offended that you feel the way you do!I have many scars from the things i've seen! I can't believe that there are people like you want that to be what city life is like! Why were all those lives destroyed? So that you can impress some girl by bringing her to the big bad city and act like you belong! If it was so great why didn't you stay? I now live and love NY! I do understand your so call feeling of freedom I felt it and you can have it! The things you describe are not unique to NY! Maybe you guys should get out more! I came here to live my dreams and that makes me a real NYer!
great post!
I grew up in the bad parts of new york, and let me tell you, it was not fun at all to be afraid to walk across the street to your friend's house! I've had lots of things happen to me and my family and I am so greatful that now my kids are safer and able to use the subway without fear!
I just can't leave his one alone! I usually don't vote rep! but marty I can't deny NY's progress! It is unbelievaberlble that any city can go from looking like WW2 Berlin to present day NY in less than 15 years! I bet slickrick will raise his kids in suburbia! He will still be talking big! The truth is he would never make it in the environment he so admires! That is why that is the only way he knows how to impress a female! I know many like him!
Allow me to give a transplant perspective! For u slick rick and those who agree with you. I grew up in south LA! We still have plenty of pimps, hookers, and crack heads so you know where to plan your next vacation! I expeienced the gang wars, riots and and the fires that went along with the riots, stabbings, mugging, shootings! All from the comfort of own neighborhood! Let me tell you there are victims from what u call grittyness, I have lost many people and I'm offended that you feel the way you do!I have many scars from the things i've seen! I can't believe that there are people like you want that to be what city life is like! Why were all those lives destroyed? So that you can impress some girl by bringing her to the big bad city and act like you belong! If it was so great why didn't you stay? I now live and love NY! I do understand your so call feeling of freedom I felt it and you can have it! The things you describe are not unique to NY! Maybe you guys should get out more! I came here to live my dreams and that makes me a real NYer!
If you care about those people so much why do you support something that kicks them of of their homes and onto the streets?
I love threads complaining about gentrification. Read the news, and don't worry, folks. The way the economy is going, there will be plenty more gritty areas before the year is out.
New York in the 70's and 80's. A juxtaposition of decay, decline and also of great creativity and unique expression. On this thread, people have been giving voice to both manifestations. And, I don't think anyone on this thread has said that they want to see NYC return to a city of fear, crime and disintegration.
What I hear is the pride of current New York residents in the city of the 2000's - clean, safe, a sense of inclusion in the boroughs - and from those who experienced the creativity of the 70's and 80's (actually the 60's as well) - a sense of appreciation for the gifts that were part of the richness of the city experience at that time. Are either of these groups wrong to express what makes (or made) NYC an important and special place for them? I don't think so. I don't even think they are at odds with one another even though they may think they are. I think both groups want what they view as good for the city, for both the people living and visiting there - a city that is clean, safe AND creative.
I found this article interesting as it addresses many of the issues that have been raised in this thread:
I think creativity is directly tied to the quality of public education, which has plummeted in cities across the country. It's a crime.
Well, from a personal perspective and observation in rap music, I agree with your point of view. I noticed how rap and hip-hop two decades ago would contain greater amounts of advanced vocabulary. Now, rap and hip-hop utilize common language and foul language more often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dand5
I just want to say that it is important to distinguish between mere gentrification and improvements in quality of life, although they react to each other. It is true that gentrification has lead to a demographic shift, but this has happened many times before, and it's happening in the same way within cities all over the world. So, I think it's incorrect to insinuate that the city's creativity was tied to its crime and filth. Rather, it may have been tied to the existence of affordable lower and middle class housing in mixed-use neighborhoods that foster a sort of community, something which has been slowly creeping out of the city since the 1940's.
I also agree that a sense of community can also lead to creativity. People are more comfortable with one another and ideas can be exchanged more easily. When residents keep to themselves, or are distant and cold to one another, exchange of ideas and culture can slow to a trickle.
A lack of diversity in the form of household incomes, cultures, backgrounds, and upbringing can create a uniform culture that has less variation and lead to less inspiration. Even if New York was a racially diverse area, if most of its residents held to middle-class ideals and were "Americanized" with mainstream, mddle-class culture, it would be more sterile than if the city were to be home to middle-class immigrants from all over the world, or if the city had residents from all income levels that had different experiences in their upbringing.
Last edited by tennis368fan; 01-07-2009 at 02:07 AM..
I just can't leave his one alone! I usually don't vote rep! but marty I can't deny NY's progress! It is unbelievaberlble that any city can go from looking like WW2 Berlin to present day NY in less than 15 years! I bet slickrick will raise his kids in suburbia! He will still be talking big! The truth is he would never make it in the environment he so admires! That is why that is the only way he knows how to impress a female! I know many like him!
Where do you get off lame. To impress a female? Grow up. I understand you only see what you want to, but my god, you act like you know me from one post. My point regarding NY and I have already said it two or three times, has nothing to do with crime. It is the fact that NY has lost its "edge", take it for what it is.
But the bottom line is that you are a transplant from LA, nothing more, nothing less. I bet you have never even seen NY fifteen to twenty years ago, yet because you live here now you feel its right to comment? I bet if you were even alive back then you probably were just a baby. Yet you talk like your originally from NY, through and through. You are a transplant. I understand that what I have said is to advanced for you to comprehend, so I really wont bother explaining it to you anymore. But your like a broken doll where you pull the string and it keeps saying the same thing over and over. You seem very young to me, because no matter what I say, all you do is see the part of my post that talks about crime, ho's, pimps, etc. If you only knew how many have wrote to me telling me that they feel the same way, you wouldn't be so arrogantly mocking me . You simply want to point out "crime", ha ha ha ha, he wants crime back, da da da, he wants the ho's, and pimps, etc. Instead of the point I was trying to make, you are only taking what you want from my posts (certainly not any of my points) and leaving the rest. Let me tell you something, a bit of a news flash, not just LA has all of those things you mentioned so condescendingly, every city does. But NY used to be the type of city that was "in your face". They didn't hide it or apologize for it. These things you will never understand being that your a west coast transplant. I love the fact that crime in NY is down.
To some who said that I dont understand because I didn't live there then, there right I dont understand. I can only assume it was as horrible as depicted. I guess if you could have the "edge" without the crime, that would be what I miss. Unfortunately they seem to go hand in hand. As far as NYC. There isn't to much that I can already say. I still think its the best city in the world, so there is no where else to go with that.
I understand people interpreting it the way they do, but some of you like "lame" are a bit rediculous. I never said that I wanted higher crime. Unfortunately with your new sanitized NY it does feel very sterile. And as far as Times Square--yuck. But those are probably the things about NY that lame likes. And by the way, for all of you that have missed my point, I live in Buffalo now and have been for the last five or six years and let me tell you that we have our share of pimps, ho's, crime, etc, so about me raising my kids in suburbia, not quite. But if it were, that wouldn't be a bad thing either. Raising kids in Suburbia is underrated.
And by the way, when I refer to the "old NY", I am referring to the many different and unigue shops NY had an abundance of. Every shop seemed a bit different from the last. The NY that wasn't yet commercialized. The NY where Times Square was something to "witness", not just see. It wasn't just Giant commercialized chain stores with big bright neon signs. The NY with the grit and edge that many miss, not just me. The graffiti, some like it some dont, I personally did. The NY where that feeling of being able to find or buy anything was always there in your conscious. Now, if they don't have it at one of the big chain stores like Macy's you might not find it. I miss the originality that NY had above all other cities. The NY that still had some distinct ethnic neighborhoods. For instance Little Italy. I know there hungry in Chinatown, but they just about gobbled Little Italy up. I know the other boroughs still have disticnt neighborhoods so in this regard I am speaking more generally towards Manhattan. Even Bubba had to transplant his way into Harlem. There is something very disturbing with that. I miss the different ethnic neighborhoods around every corner. Kids playing stick ball in the street. That sort of stuff. Thats the NY that I miss.
Last edited by SlickRick1; 01-08-2009 at 02:02 PM..
Well we are going to have to agree to disagree guy. I understand the blocks were previously burned out. But for long term growth there needs to be vision, and this can be found by looking at history. Allow more mom and pop owned food stores, restaurants, delis, etc. Also, why not build real houses that can last years as was done 2-3 generations back? The way the old ethnic workers painstakingly built houses. Employ working class men to do an excellent job with this and teach the next generations that we need working class guys to do infrastructure jobs as much as we need bankers and doctors.
Why sell a P.O.S. cardboard house to someone who worked hard for their money? It is deceit. I believe in smart, quality building and rewarding those who weathered the crime storm by not fooling them that they will get x full time jobs in some local new project when they really get a handful of temp jobs. You really think ratner cares about the people of Brooklyn? He wants money and fame off that project and wont give it up even though his stock is practically worth pennies. The Brooklynites that go to the games would most likely not be residents of Flatbush, Brownsville, or Bensonhurst, but the ones living in $3m brownstones.
The biggest part I do not like about gentrification is it is racial/economic cleansing, and everyone is in denial of this. Why erase roots when generations of people spent years building them? These roots were always the real attraction of New York to the masses who only saw it through a movie screen. When you put 2 and 2 together, you realize people who say Giuliani/Bloomberg are great mayors because "I can walk the streets safely now" are basically saying they are glad that ___ ethnic group or ___ race is less prevalent in those areas.
All Giuliani and Bloomberg did was push the "elements" to other towns outside of city limits and give the problems to another area. Go to the Pocono Mountains, their gangs are more New York than the west coast nonsense in NY. These clowns did not solve anything - they just took the easy way out and are regarded as saints by doing so. The cycle is to push out and get the wide eyed midwesterners in white collar jobs in to spend more of their income on increasing rents, or the trust fund hipsters to spend their daddy's income on dumpy overpriced joints. It has developed into a well oiled machine by these two mayors.
Very excellent post! My points exactly. Although I disagreed with your misunderstanding of me on one of your posts, this particular post articulated many things that I was going to say.
Humm, you were spot on with everything you said. You interpret what I mean perfectly! Thank you. There were many others that said very good things, so I apologize if I didn't mention you. However, I definately repped you.
Last edited by SlickRick1; 01-08-2009 at 03:04 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
and STILL people complain..
