“There is no social change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals” is a quote by Winona LaDuke which highlights the themes of today’s readings (Angotti 113). The readings talked about the Cooper Square and Melrose common plans and how both were two important milestones in community plan and change for community voice in development planning in the city. Both cases represent how persistence and fighting for community representation and purpose can lead to compromise and lead to a voice for the community in city planning. Instead of developers being able to impose their own vision upon neighborhoods and relocate thousands of people with unaffordable housing plans and buildings, the community came together and projected their voice forcing development plans that had minimum percentages of affordable housing built and contingencies that prevented mass relocation of people already living in their respective communities. While the battles between city developers and community planning has led to the compromise of new development projects with community input in NYC a special case in Denver, Colorado shows how community planning in conjunction with city agendas listening to the needs of the people can create a diverse, multi-cultural, and affordable neighborhood.
Gentrification and the Deterioration of NYC Small Businesses
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc823LhSqAE]
Winifred Curran in his essay called “From the Frying Pan to the Oven: Gentrification and the Experience of Industrial Displacement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn” discusses the role that gentrification has had in pushing out small businesses in NYC. The above video by TYT Politics Reporter Andrew Jones is an interview discussing how Governor Cuomo is favoring corporations and big businesses over small local businesses and that the rising rental costs along with gentrification in NYC are forcing small businesses to close down and relocate to less suitable areas. Continue reading “Gentrification and the Deterioration of NYC Small Businesses”
Astoria Group Social Explorer Post
In order to start Naveera logged in through the Brooklyn College library website and based on the video tutorial invited us through the collaborate option on Social Explorer. Then we looked at the areas close to the waterfront close to a recent housing development project called Hallett’s Point which will be the focus of our analysis of gentrification in Astoria. Looking at the Hallet’s Point area between the 2012 and 2016 maps, we can see that rent prices have gone up $300 in the area from around $1,500-$1,800 that’s going to be developed while the nearby public housing prices remained constant at around $600. This lines up with what we’ve seen in gentrification in the past, with increasing rent prices, which will in turn push out the local population that can’t afford it.
By Astoria Group: Chrismal Abraham, Priyanka Algu, Prashanth Thomas, Naveera Arif
Brooklyn: The Start of Ghetto Tourism
Sharon Zukin in her book the “Naked City” highlights the changes going on through Brooklyn throughout the past century as an immigrant filled melting pot changes it’s identity to a gentrifying and seperated community leading to diverse standards of living and lifestyles for different residents in different districts of Brooklyn. While places like the Brooklyn Yards and Williamsburg have changed from gentrification and have had white upper class settlers move in displaying the African American and working class people to places like Bushwick, gentrification seems to have a firm grip over all people in Brooklyn whether it benefits them or not.
Jane Jacobs: Warnings against the Trump Era
Jane Jacobs in her fight against Robert Moses and his power hungry plans to establish multiple projects in the New York City area had shown the need of the public to fight back against dictatorship like power that can arise in political leadership. However Jacobs also saw the rising power of cities and the power that comes with leaders manipulating nationalism and xenophobia in order to fulfill their political and economic agendas. Donald Trump is one such person who used xenophobia and an increased sense in nationalism to go from one of New York City’s most wealthiest real estate investors to the head of arguable the most powerful and influential government in the world. The article states that this is what Jane Jacobs precisely wanted to avoid as she states in her books that this is the coming of the New Dark Age where the views of the people can be distorted in this form of “mass amnesia” and manipulated to fulfill the agendas of people like Trump who can use the increased sense of nationalism and fears such as xenophobia to climb the political ladder and establish policies not entirely beneficially for the majority.
Continue reading “Jane Jacobs: Warnings against the Trump Era”
Robert Moses: An Industrial Visionary or Ruthless Dictator
Robert Moses is seen by many as a revolutionary who changed the landscape of New York City with his conviction in his beliefs and a will to change the city for the betterment of the middle class. However his aggressive personality and powerful beliefs to apply his vision to the entirety of New York City came at the expense of many. Moses built bridges, highways, houses, and used Title 1 to create multiple expansive projects destroying slums and creating new modernized buildings in accordance with his vision. However the problem with Moses’ vision was that these new slums relocated massive amounts of people that originally lived in the already condensed area that was renovated. And with the increase in living prices associated with the projects Moses was building projects the lower classes could not afford even though the new areas for are built on property they previously had lived in. This led to a massive relocation of many poorer families leading to Moses gaining a dual perception as both a tenacious visionary and a inconsiderate uncultured dictator forcing his vision leading to large scale movements of people form their homes.
Continue reading “Robert Moses: An Industrial Visionary or Ruthless Dictator”
