Author: Ariel Avgi (page 1 of 1)

Our visit to Capitol Hill was eye-opening to not only the ways homelessness is being addressed in New York City but who the homeless are. The stigma of homelessness is one of laziness, addiction, and filth. New Yorkers pass by their fellow citizens begging for change on street corners and don’t even bat an eyelash because many have the perception that these are people who have strayed too far down the wrong path in life and cannot pull themselves up. Capitol Hill’s residence consists mostly of the elderly who simply cannot afford to live in the city they have called home for most of their lives. Some of these residents may suffer from mental illness or are in addiction recovery, but at Capitol Hill that isn’t necessarily the norm.

Based on our visit to Capitol Hill and meeting some of the residents, I learned that homelessness isn’t a black and white issue when it comes to a solution. More places to keep people, whether it is a shelter or affordable housing, is not going to eradicate homelessness. What needs to be addressed is the reason people experience homelessness. An affordable housing complex like Capitol Hill addresses the needs of an aging population that cannot sustain itself on a meager pension or Social Security check in a city like New York. However, what about those experiencing mental illness? Families of four or more? The interplay of so many of the factors we discuss in class and more when it comes to homelessness makes it one of the trickiest to address in the sphere of public policy.

Ariel Avgi

The implementation of Broken Windows Theory in city policing is based in valid research that illustrates that if we let minor crimes and disorder go unchecked, the execution of larger crimes is a likely result. However, what constitute minor crimes in our city are not free of bias. Often, instead of trying to keep order with more strict policing, officers end up criminalizing poverty. For example, vandalism and jay walking are both misdemeanors that the average person could easily commit and that the average person could easily avoid. Petty theft and fare evasion, on the other hand, are equally punishable by law, but are often committed by those who cannot afford basic needs like food and (in the city) transportation.

Race and economic status are so closely tied in our society, that the perpetuation of criminalizing poverty in this way is disproportionately putting behind bars African Americans and other minorities. To let policing influenced by Broken Windows Theory continue in this manner will only result in greater interracial tension and also greater tension between minorities and authorities. The role of law enforcement in any city should be to induce safety but today, more often than not, law enforcement is inciting public fear. The failed application of Broken Windows Theory to law enforcement in New York City should be a wake-up call to politicians to start addressing so called “crimes” of survival, like stealing food and turn-style hopping, as part of the larger economic issues they embody.

Ariel Avgi

The Cross Bronx Expressway should have been built but not in the location it stands today. The Cross Bronx Expressway, today, makes New York City extremely accessible to Westchester and areas north of the Bronx. It is in part because of Moses’ highways that New York City is the bustling epicenter of commerce and culture that it is. However, the manner in which the expressway was constructed led to the destruction of people’s homes and lives in the sense of living in a community. Tearing down dozens of apartment buildings and uprooting over one thousand families doesn’t justify the construction of one of the many highways that make Manhattan accessible to other counties and boroughs. The Cross Bronx Expressway was one of multiple routes a highway through the Bronx could have ran, and it was a callous and careless choice. The widespread opposition to the highway, especially by the residents of East Tremont, should have led to an alternative route but nevertheless to a Cross-Bronx Expressway.

It is the accessibility to New York City that allows it to flourish commercially as a financial capital and also culturally as an immigrant hub, and Moses’ infrastructure facilitates that. The Cross Bronx Expressway did not need to displace the New Yorkers that it did, but a Cross Bronx Expressway should always have been part of New York City’s future road map.

Ariel Avgi

Based solely on the introduction, I’m not sure that the assessment that Moses “damaged” New York City is a fair one. To displace thousands of New Yorkers and, moreover, those already marginalized in society, the poor and the minorities, is wrong. To kill off complete neighborhoods to facilitate migration to the suburbs designed for the wealthy and elite is wrong. However, in many ways it is Robert Moses who laid the groundwork, quite literally, for the cultural and global capitol of the world that New York represents. Lincoln Center, the United Nations, and the miles and miles of highways, parkways, and expressways that lead to the buzzing metropolis are only a handful of his achievements. As an icon, Moses’ reconstruction of New York City proved an asset. However, as a residence, Moses’ construction irreversibly damaged the city by pushing the poor to the fringes and intensifying class divide. New York in its multidimensionality will interpret Moses’ building record on the city in multiple ways, but the irony is that New York’s multidimensionality is a product of Moses’ building record.