Professor Prabal De, CCNY 2014
Blog posts
What is a “New Yorker”?
010 years
by Lizzy Elliott
in Blog posts
“We all have a million anecdotes of what typifies New Yorkers,” says the Director of the population division of the Department of City Planning, Joseph Salvo. I can’t help but agree with him, especially after glancing at the statistics from his talk with Macaulay Students a couple of weeks ago. There is such a complex amalgamation of cultures in New York- packed into NYC alone, that no single anecdote could possibly represent a “New Yorker”.
So I started to think about where I’m from, asking what typifies someone from Westchester County? The results, according to Census Data, were not wholly surprising. Irvington, New York: 2.77 square miles, 87.1 % White, and a median household income of $123,226. Clearly it’s not so difficult to deduce the identity of a typical “Westchesterite”. While these statistics are not representative of my town’s entire population, they do not fail to show its unfortunate lack of diversity—and the location of a large portion of the unpopular “1%”. Manhattan of course has its fair share of wealthy elites, yet its overall diversity is truly unparalleled by New York’s surrounding counties. With a 37.2% Foreign-born population in 2010, NYC is harboring immigrants from all over the world who contribute to the growing identity of the elusive “New Yorker”.
Sources:
http://www.census.gov/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/nyregion/02experience.html?_r=0
Foreigners in NYC
110 years
It was interesting to see just how much of New York City’s population is made up of foreign-born immigrants. As a person who didn’t live in NYC, although there was decent diversity in my high school, it was nothing compared to what I see now in City College. Even in my suite in the Towers, each of the three of us are different ethnicities.
One of the slides also noted that people traveling to NYC from inside and outside the United States are arriving better educated and able to make more money. I find it interesting how, despite being one of the biggest commercial cities of the United States, the education in NYC isn’t as good as even other places in the US.
Lastly, something else I would like to see is data on the types of people moving to NYC from other places in the United States. Are they “native” Americans, or possibly immigrants moving to NYC from another city?
Economic Disparity Stops Here
110 years
Since many of us are first generation children born in the United States from foreign born parents, we’d heard countless stories about how they initially believed that New York is the city of equal opportunities for prosperity and happiness. As much as we’d like to believe that this is the truth for many immigrant families, it isn’t. One glance at the census data and Salvo’s presentation, the economic disparity between different neighborhoods in the same city is undeniable. There’s also a massive correlation between the areas in which different ethnic immigrants congregate and the poorest neighborhoods, with minimal increase in economic prosperity within the past few decades. Many immigrants who came prefer to stay in neighborhoods with similar ethnicities and they can’t really afford housing anywhere more affordable. Thus, it feels like many of these neighborhoods are stuck in a vicious cycle in which poverty perpetuates itself.
I agree with Allen’s post below, about how that notion of New York City as a melting pot is incorrect. It’s not a nice, homogenous mixture, but clumps scattered all around. For example, check out this fascinating interactive link from the New Yorker, which shows the median household income in the city based on each subway stop. http://www.newyorker.com/sandbox/business/subway.html
It’s just baffling to see how on the 1 line, how annual median income can range from over $200,000 near Chambers Street to about $25,000 near City College. That’s almost 8 times difference between two locations in Manhattan that aren’t even THAT far apart (only roughly half an hour on train). How could a city that’s so well known for being the land of opportunities have this much economic disparity?
I agree with Alina, I’m also a bit skeptical on the census data since there are many undocumented cases. Although it is the closest we have to accurate representation, I hear many stories from my parents about immigrants who don’t really report their information or documentation, as in they might work and get paid in just a few dollars a day. The data could be affected in this way, and the situation could be better or worse than it seems.
However, I’m curious to see how the census can change in 10-20 years, when the children of many foreign born New Yorkers are grown and get their college degrees, as we are right now. Possibly we’d be able to bring the prosperity to our ethnic neighborhoods and realize the vision we had about New York, that even though it might not seem like the land of opportunities at first, eventually all the hard work and dedication the foreign born New Yorkers will pay off.
Size Matters
110 years
What I found most interesting about Mr. Salvo’s presentation was the sheer number of people that reside in New York City. Although I was aware that New York City is the most populous city in the US, seeing its population relative to other large cities was quite striking. New York City is more than double the size of Los Angeles, and four of the five boroughs would have ranked in the list of most populous cities in the US, had they been considered cities.
This data helps explain some governance issues that arise in this giant city. The population here is so large and so diverse that making citywide decisions on government spending and services is very difficult. Thus the borough presidents and the city councilmembers must be very much aware of how their constituents’ needs play into the agenda of the entire city.
As a fun aside, the population size also explains “borough loyalty.” New Yorkers tend to identify by their borough, not their city (As in, “I’m from Brooklyn,” rather than “I’m from NYC.”). Considering the boroughs size and diversity, such identification makes perfect sense.
New York, Happiness and A Better Life
010 years
The pursuit of opportunities (you thought I was about to say happiness ha), a better style and higher standard of living and yes, the pursuit of a happiness (Yes, I said it) has been the driving force of migration of people throughout the world for a long time. I would draw it back to previous millennia; however, that would most assuredly be extremely boring and frankly irrelevant. Why look at stuff that happened centuries before when Dr. Salvo has spent most of his life studying population trends and has kindly shared with us specific data on such migration events going on in our own back-yard? Whew, that was a run-on.
While I won’t draw a line back to the history of this phenomenon, I will draw a line directly to a major source of this phenomenon – please do note that this is not the only major source, it is simply one among others. It’s called capitalism and it’s what creates this high concentration of jobs, resources and other various opportunities in New York City. It’s this really awesome/ not-so-awesome system where a lot of people can be sufficiently satisfied with minimum dissatisfaction and up till now, it’s definitely working. At least compared to other systems of fascism, communism and other economic/ governing systems, it’s doing awesome. New York is a prime example of a geographical region that showcases exactly how people can thrive under this system and therefore it has become a satellite of the system drawing more and more opportunities (jobs) and resources towards it. And in hot pursuit comes everyone else. Whether from Alabama or Australia, as stated prior, people just want a better life and therefore it is no surprise that Dr. Salvo has predicted a change of 9.5% added to the current existing and growing population by 2040. It is no surprise that most people not proficient in English are in economically deprived areas of the boroughs while 60% or higher people with a bachelor’s degree to their name can be found in highly gentrified and thriving areas of the boroughs (Slide 28, 29 and 31 respectively).
Also New York is kinda awesome compared to other places in the world. Take it from an immigrant.
Casey Bolles – Joe Salvo’s Lecture
010 years
by Casey Bolles
in Blog posts
I live (what usually ends up being) a 9 hour drive away from New York City. Before September, I had no experience spending time in the City, and still haven’t really been in most of the boroughs, so Salvo’s lecture was particularly interesting to me. The statistics that most surprised me were the size of New York and its boroughs, and the migrations numbers. First of all, New York is larger than the next 3 biggest cities combined, and well over twice as large as LA, the second most populace US city. Also, holding the preconceived notions of an outsider, I had always assumed Manhattan was the largest borough, but both Brooklyn and Queens out-populate it. But the fact that Manhattan alone is bigger than a city as large as Philadelphia is incredible to me. The second fact I mentioned, total migration, also shattered some of my views as an outsider. Primarily, the concept that so many people leave the city to live elsewhere in the nation (many more than migrate to it) is incredible to me because, while I have only been here a few months, I can’t imagine wanting to leave unless it was to a foreign country. A final thing that I think will make this course particularly interesting to me, is that Buffalo is not very diverse or dynamic. This is not the case with New York.
Joe Salvo Talk- Rachel Weintraub
010 years
by Rachel Weintraub
in Blog posts
Dr. Joe Salvo’s talk on the peopling of New York was very eye opening. Being from Brooklyn, I see a lot of the facts that he pointed out first hand. I live in a very concentrated area of Orthodox Jews but a couple of blocks in one direction and you’re in a mini Chinatown, and a couple blocks in the other direction there is a very large African American Population. One of the things that I found most interesting was the amount of people that move in and out of New York City from within the United States. The people moving into the city from within the United Sates are making up for the decrease of foreign immigration we have experienced in the past ten years. I always thought of immigration as an international phenomenon, and was amazed by the net domestic migration. People coming both domestically and internationally are coming fully educated and ready to find work. Boroughs in New York City have larger foreign born populations than entire states around the US allowing the foreign born to define the city. New York City is truly a melting pot.
