Title I and Federal Intervention One of the most foundational causes of NYC’S Rot took place in the 1950s. This was Title I and the construction of highways throughout the City. After World War II, the Title I act granted the federal government power to use eminent domain to destroy and remove minority communities in order to build highways, promoting suburbanization. The tight-knit urban communities of NYC were destroyed. The local businesses that relied on the community to stay afloat saw their customers forced or moved out. The neighboorhoods became densely populated in high-rises, and communities that were working class and self-preserving found their collective lives frayed by the government order.

Outsourcing and Offshoring: The lack of jobs and economic collapse of the 1970s directly came from the erosion of the working class in NYC. This started in World War II, as the war industry shifted to rural communities where the building of large artillery was easier. Even though rural America got most of the funding, there were over one million factory jobs in 1950. However, the shift continued, and factories moved out of cities like NY to cheaper locations such as Newark. The city lost many jobs during the coming decade. This set the city up for bankruptcy, and set up a “losing game” for NYC’s working class.

Financial Crisis in 1970s:

Financial Crisis in 1970s: In the early 1970s, NYC was unique in the wide range of social services it offered, from public hospitals, to free higher education, rent stabilization, and public housing. But this also led to unprecedented expenses for the city, particularly due to the cost of Medicaid and Welfare. Government officials at the time took on a strategy of deficit financing, spending more money than was coming in. Soon enough, federal and state aid wasn’t enough to cover the cost for the city. NYC resorted to borrowing more and more money, and by 1975, as America fell into a recession, NYC was close to declaring bankruptcy. After a few failed attempts in budgeting and selling bonds, the federal government had to step in and provide NYC with loan options. Banks and unions made arrangements with the city to get it back on its feet.

Manufacturing:

Between 1969 and 1974, NYC, part of the Rust Belt, lost half a million manufacturing jobs, while the southern Sun Belt began to prosper. As Unions in the Rust Belt were able to negotiate higher wages for employees, production costs increased. In addition to unions, deindustrialization in the north was spurred by a lack of competition and therefore in innovation among big firms.

White Flight/Suburbia/Redlining:

After WWII and until 1970, four million African Americans settled in Rust Belt cities. Not coincidentally, many white families began to leave NYC at the same time in favor of houses in the suburbs, a phenomenon encouraged by the GI Bill. Middle-class, white soldiers returning from war could buy affordable houses in spacious areas with their families.Meanwhile, black veterans and their families were not offered the same generous insurance packages, but were redlined into crowded urban high-rises and not given those same economic benefits. This discrimination would help to explain the wealth and crime gap in the 70s between suburban whites and urban blacks.

Population Decline

Population Decline: New York City in the 1970s was strongly defined by the declining population, with a drop of 4.2% from 1970 to mid-1974. The early part of the decade saw a net movement of 464,200 people away from the city, with the population of every borough except for Staten Island down. By 1977, Brooklyn had a net migration out number double that of the Bronx and Manhattan. Meanwhile, suburbs farther from the city, namely Suffolk, Orange, and Rockland counties all saw gains in net population.

Effects of the Financial Crisis:

This signified a period of strong budget cuts. Police officers, teachers, and firefighters were laid off, while MTA fares were raised and CUNY asked for tuition for the first time. The cut of social services in the late 1970s was also a big contributing factor to crime.

Effects of Manufacturing on Population:

As manufacturing jobs moved to the politically conservative and warm south, New Yorkers with previously stable incomes lost their work and resorted to Welfare. Many workers left NYC to follow these jobs down south, and many African Americans also relocated as civil rights issues began to change the political climate of the south.

Effects of White Flight/Suburbia on Population:

As people moved out of the city, so did factories and headquarters. In addition to native-born Americans, some children of European immigrants from a past wave of immigration had also earned enough of an income to leave the city in favor of the suburbs.

Hierarchical Structure of The Hustle

Depending on race, jobs involving prostitution varied greatly in wages and danger.

Indoor Prostitution:

The best jobs were in brothels or apartments in wealthy areas (midtown) and sold their services to the upper class. These jobs were almost entirely white. The next step down were massage parlors, which often feature stripshows and saunas. Jobs in these places were also mostly white, with the majority of the workforce being suburban runaways coming to the big city. However, there were a number of less-pricey parlors that employed African American and Latino girls. All prostitutes inside private buildings were relatively safe from arrest, as police regulations at the time did not allow officers on duty to undress. Thus, prostitutes would, at these indoor brothels and parlors, force customers to undress before soliciting anything. Prostitutes working at these places are able to continue working until around 35-40 years old.

Streetwalkers:

The most dangerous form of prostitution is streetwalking, in which one would find customers by standing on corners. The most popular blocks or “walks” for these prostitutes were the “…cornman on the East Side (Lexington Avenue between about 23rd Street and 59th Street), the East Village (Second Avenue north to 14th Street,), the Upper West Side along Broadway, Harlem (with the corner of Lexington and Eighth Avenues and l25th Street being particularly active spots), Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side” (Lichter et al., 2-A). These sex workers often have a pimp or “daddy” that protects them from violent customers and bails them out of jail if they are arrested. However, these pimps are very violent themselves and take a large percentage of the prostitutes wages. It is not uncommon for streetwalkers to be heroin addicts, but pimps typically avoid “hiring” addicts due to the high price of maintaining an addiction. Most streetwalkers are forced to retire at 25.

Unfair Policing Practices:

Although there are prostitutes of every race, the vast majority of arrests are disportionately non-white. This is due to the racist policing practices of the 1970’s that instructed policemen to stereotype and focus on minority ethnicities for arrests. Also, while the male customers and pimps were committing crimes as well, police were guided to focus only on the female prostitutes for arrests. Because of this, “…2,838 arrests made city-wide in 1976 for prostitution,…2,620 arrests for loitering for the purpose of prostitution, and 8,114 prostitution-related disorderly conduct arrests…” while there were only “…59 arrests of pimps and two arrests for permitting prostitution”(Lichter et al., 12-B). Furthermore, this caused such a surplus of prostitution arrrests that more than fifty percent of the population of New York’s women’s prisons were arrested on prostitution charges.

Changes in Immigration Laws:

From the 1920s onwards, immigration to the United States was disproportionately from Western and Northern Europe. In 1924, the Johnson-Reed Act established a quota, restricting immigration from from Southern/Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa on the basis of nativism, racism, and xenophobia. In 1965, this quota system was finally abolished via the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965, allowing for new waves of immigration to America and NYC. The 1970s were characterized by a large influx of Italians, while the 1980s welcomed people from Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

What did Immigrants Bring?

Immigrants helped revitalize the end of the 1970s as well as the 1980s, providing a fresh set of ambitious workers. Immigration increased the potential labor supply, helping to offset the domestic population drop and financial crisis. Immigrants carved out new potential markets with their willingness to work long hours and take entrepreneurial risks.

Affordable Housing:

After immigration legislation was passed, NYC was a desirable location for immigrants because of its affordable housing.

Immigrants to NYC Left their Home Countries:

Guatemala (Adelita):Guatemala faced a brutal civil war, beginning in 1960 and lasting 36 years. Leaders oppressed their people, and were overthrown by other oppressors. Political armies formed and a lot of blood was shed, and the political instability is why Adelita left for NYC.

Ireland (Corrigan): The Northern Ireland conflict lasted from 1968 to 1998, and was a violent dispute over territory and politics. In Northern Ireland, Catholics faced prosecution, and when they spoke out it led to unrest and riots. As political parties became more divided over nationality and religion issues, the North Ireland government began imprisoning republicans without trial. In 1972, protestors of this internment were shot dead by the British army, and in retaliation car bombs went off on Bloody Friday, something Corrigan was a witness to.

Crime Prevention

A more hands-on approach to crime helped bring crime down. A focus on low-level crimes, a theory known as Broken Windows policy, was used by Mayor Giuliani in the 1990s to bring order to the inner cities. A focus on public transportation helped make the once-dangerous subway cars safer with widespread police presence and a crackdown on graffiti, aggressive panhandling, and fare evasion. However, this does not alone explain the general trends. A wide array of NY agencies worked to institute order in the city, and the hiring of more police officers, longer prison sentences, and the use of COMPSTAT-a data system that identified large spikes of crime in particular areas, helped to make the city safer for its citizens.