The role of the community is quickly vanishing as larger complex urban cities encroach upon areas that were once self reliant havens for the working class. It is no secret that the small communities, especially in New York City, serve as the home for many minority groups. In the first chapter of this week’s reading, the authors’s discussion of labor as a commodity is quite intriguing, in the sense that the driving force behind these growing urban areas is a luxury in itself. In order to arrive to work every morning, workers need a home to sleep in every night. In New York City, these homes take shape in areas where thousands of minority workers create small communities where other members of their race or ethnicity groups also reside. In East Harlem, members of these small communities openly protest when their homes are in danger of being displaced to make room for private development projects that cater to the rich. The importance of catering to the working class is lost as the private developments continue to win their case of perpetual encroachment.
The second chapter by Alice O’Connor the flaws of the federal government’s role in facilitating the preservation of small communities is highlighted by revisiting past mistakes. In order to keep these small communities the greed and desire to create a complex commercialized city must be controlled and balanced. New York City has the potential to become an urban city that serves as a home for private luxurious developments and the minority groups that are veterans to the five boroughs, especially in Manhattan. In the film “Whose Barrio” the necessity for a small communities is showcased through the actions of the residents themselves. The morality involved in displacing thousands of people to make room for luxury condos is skewed, for the fundamental ethics behind real estate encroachment in favor of the rich is just plain wrong. Unfortunately, there seems to be problems with every proposed solution to provide homes for both the growing communities of the rich, poor, and working class. This week’s readings related back to the original problems we discussed in Fullilove’s reading that depicted urban renewal as “negro removal.” In the past, displacement of African American communities have had ripple effects that resulted in prejudiced racial relations. These kinds of prejudices must be taken into account for when trying to develop a city with such a diverse population. It is not an easy task to allow for the equal treatment of all, but the basic right to housing should at the least be allotted to all. However, many factors come into play when trying to house a population, especially, racial and social factors. Thus, New York City is the perfect example of the present day’s urban renewal transforming into “minority removal.”
Discussion Question: What validates a class or a group of people to distribute housing according to their liking? Since affordability is a man made concept, what can we do to bridge the gap between affordability and reality?
