Labeled as the “real estate capital of the world,” New York City is determined to be one of the most marvelous cities in the US due to urban city planning. However, Tom Agnotti serves to enlighten readers about the true harms that real estate and “modernizing” the city has caused to the people of New York and to the landscape which was the main point of struggle as gentrification arose during the 1950s and 60s.
Agnotti describes how post- World War II federal urban renewal programs contributed finances to authorities, as, they could procure land in areas of reduced market value. Such areas however, usually belonged to low income and colored/immigrant individuals. Therefore, relating to the account of how urban renewal therefore contributed to the damaging and decline of such low-income New York neighborhoods, and the thereby inclination for those abandoned areas to be a part of upscaled redevelopment. The urban renewal programs represent the threat of government officials’ ability to further depress land value, therefore forcing the individuals to live and thrive there to be forced out. Thus, the “neighborhood abandonment” epidemic became the main focus of real estate speculators who took advantage of the land depressed by the government programmers to buy the land for a cheap price and redevelop it into luxury residences (to therefore be bought for a high price.) Therefore, the housing crisis that arose from the relocation of working-class immigrants established the wealthy living quarters of the renowned Upper East Side for one.
The part of this piece that had the biggest impact was the dramatic distinction of crammed tenant homes of the relocated working-class immigrants and lower income individuals that were forced out of their housing, and the suburban mansions that replaced the life and vibrancy that once existed before gentrification. The piece explains how the majority of residents of New York could not even afford a percentage of the rent required to own one of the luxury homes constructed in the Upper East Side, Brooklyn Heights, Riverdale, Forest Hills Gardens, and Todt Hills. More than 50% of income gained for city-dwellers therefore was found to be dedicated towards household costs. This however, contrasts with the average 35,000 homeless sleeping on the streets due to “dislocation” and following urban redevelopment.
Videos found of life in the 1960s (attached in this post) really stood to show the shocking contrast of life due to urban redevelopment. Where, in fancy restaurants and dining rooms the luscious food and decorated lifestyles represents the suburban-like wealthy who replaced the people of the working class. Agnotti’s piece states “Congress made sure that funding would be limited and that austere design rules would prevent the Housing Act from becoming a model for new development (arguing that if working people knew they could get decent public housing; the private market would be threatened).” (Agnotti 71) Such can certainly be viewed in the second video posted, where children can be seen sleeping in mattresses outside of living quarters and people are seen suffering the consequences of government contracts that used the Title I federal Housing Act- which is supposed to house those that are relocated- to instead provide luxury housing for the wealthy. This deliberate act against the working class is pointed out by Agnotti, and is told to even be a part of Stuyvesant’s plan for Manhattan in the 1600s- that specifically sought to displace “Negros” from the rest of the city. However, this is translated to the 1900s where displacement reaches not only colored individuals, but, also immigrants and the construction workers whose jobs were removed casing the job market and employment rate to plummet at this time due to real estate planning efforts. Such is all due to the flee of the city’s capital market from the city to the suburban. Therefore, the roots of history which is planted in the real estate record of NYC serves for the effects of community planning thereof and the effects on cultural diversity/ dispersion of races and cultures due to skewed housing speculators luxury and resulting suburban-like luxury housing.
Questions:
- Does the long history of racism in the development of NYC serve as the basis of government officials preference to provide for and develop land for the rich rather than the working class?
- How does ‘nativist’ panic serve to yet affect immigrants and colored folk that seek housing and building lives in the city today as compared to the past in the 1900s?
- How does the idea of “neat model communities” contrast with the life that most Americans (especially today) care for; that is, the “neat” housing and clearing out of the “busy” working class, does it work for the city or is the city dependent on this diversity -meaning that this urban planning is moreover irrelevant and in fact harmful?
