Author: Rosa Kyung (page 1 of 1)

Before my visit to Capitol Hill, I had a narrower view of homelessness in NYC. I occasionally see homeless people on the sidewalk and on the train, and I thought that instead of asking people for money, their time would be better spent doing some kind of job. I knew that rent in NYC was very high and a lot of people were struggling financially, but I’ve never personally known anyone who became homeless. No matter how hard it was to live, the people I knew tried very hard to keep their lifestyles. I didn’t have a favorable view on homelessness because I thought that it stemmed more from personal responsibility than anything else.

While I met some of the residents at Capitol Hall, I learned about the various factors that contribute to homelessness. It was less about personal responsibility and more about unfair circumstances. For example, people lose their homes to construction projects. Some people cannot hold down a house or job because of mental illnesses. Some people have disabilities. It is the government’s job to help these people, but it is not doing enough. Homelessness in NYC is a complicated problem and the mayor is trying to alleviate the problem by advocating affordable housing, but more needs to be done. It will not be surprising if more of NYC’s population becomes homeless. The economy is bad, but rents are increasing. The city does not have enough funds to give the homeless new homes. To keep NYC as vibrant as it is, the federal government should extend their help and more developers should join to build affordable homes. It will take a longer time than New Yorkers would like for the rate of homelessness to subside.

Rosa Kyung

The Broken Windows theory sounds logical. Implementing ways to combat broken windows would probably reduce crime. Stopping little crimes like petty theft and graffiti would make neighborhoods safer, or at least give the illusion that it is safer. Cracking down on smaller crimes would give criminals the idea that they might get caught and discourage them from pursuing larger crimes.

However, this does not work well in real life. Police officers may stop smaller crimes, but they cannot stop the inner issues that cause people to commit these crimes. People who are economically disadvantaged are more likely to jump turnstiles or steal some money. They don’t do them because they want to, but because they feel that they need to. The law is there to curb wrongful behavior, but it actually seems to punish the poor. This is the fundamental problem with the broken windows theory. The poor, who are typically minorities, are being targeted as the cause of crime.

As a result, the broken windows theory is implemented with greater force in neighborhoods with majority African Americans. Trust between the police and residents of those neighborhoods are lowering. Crimes happen in other neighborhoods, but the broken windows theory doesn’t seem to cover those crimes. There is also the problem of the rich using their money to get away with crimes.

There needs to be a systematic change to policing. Every person should face the law equally, regardless of class or race.

-Rosa Kyung

Change is always difficult, but there doesn’t seem to be a more logical and smart way to improve New York’s tolling system than the Move NY Fair Plan. Millions of New Yorkers deal with transportation every day and it is a huge part of our lives. There is discontent among bridge users because the toll increases every year. To avoid tolls, drivers sometimes go out of their way to go on bridges without tolls, which may be dangerous. For example, truck drivers go through the Queensboro Bridge, which can barely hold massive trucks up, to avoid tolls. In addition, there is a lot of traffic on bridges with no tolls. There also doesn’t seem to be a good reason why some bridges have tolls and others do. There is much to improve on the city’s tolling system to make bridges safer, less traffic-heavy, and cost-friendly to users.

Move NY advocates a great plan to do exactly that. To deal with traffic, it makes sense to have low tolls on bridges that have low congestion and higher tolls on bridges that do. This will give people that use highly congested bridges the incentive to use other bridges. This may also lower the number of people who unnecessarily change their routes to save a few bucks, and therefore not risk possible dangers. Lowering tolls itself is a great benefit to bridge users.

Queens’ public officials are not on board with this plan, however. They should reconsider because although Queens may not be affected much, the plan has the possibility to improve life in New York overall.

Rosa Kyung

Robert Moses accumulated immense power in the planning and construction of highways, bridges, housing and parkland by bribing politicians and destroying anyone who opposed him. He was very involved in the inner circle of politics because of his close ties with politicians. His wealthy authorities helped fund politicians in return for their approval of the current project Moses was working on. Robert Caro writes, “It was the men who received Moses’ turkey baskets who fought against any diminution in Moses’ power” (18). Politicians who received Moses’ help supported Moses in any opposition he faced in his work. By dealing with politicians, he influenced many aspects of the city such as the city’s labor unions, contractors, insurance firms, banks, and real estate manipulators. He funneled more than a million dollars into the pockets of city and state officials. Even though the public did not know it, Moses was a politician behind the scenes.

Moses accumulated more power by destroying the careers of everyone who opposed him. He had skilled investigators working for him who knew secrets of city officials. If one official crossed him, Moses would blackmail the official into complying. If an official did not have any secrets, he would leak a lie to a newspaper that would turn all public opinion against the official, such as being a follower of the Soviet Union’s secret police, and force the official to resign. Since Moses had virtually no opponents, he was unstoppable in his desire to plan and build.

Rosa Kyung