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Zoning: Divide and Conquer – Josh Solomowitz
March 9, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Zoning has its advantages…for the rich. Zoning not only groups the wealthy together, but keeps the middle class and lower class divided. As it was mentioned many times in class, the political system is very dependent on money from wealthy investors to fund campaigns. These zones are also political agendas – the wealthier zones will be listened to moreso than the poorer ones.
Not only are zones a way to divide groups, but also help hide the problems associated with specific zones. For example, poor zones will suffer from low housing prices, high crime rate, poor education system, low graduation rate, and decreasing quality of infrastructure. But the wealthy and middle class will have no reason to go into these neighborhoods, so all of these issues aren’t addressed. The minorities are the ones who usually suffer by getting put into the poorer neighborhoods, and here they stay for generations until someone receives a good education and can pull the family out of the slump.
Zoning is a form of segregation – there’s no doubt about that. Whether it’s for racial or economic purposes, it is unfair and further divides people. Why can’t we just live side-by-side with one another? Why do humans always need to classify and categorize everything, until one group can stand on top of the rest? There’s competition and capitalism at its finest for you.
Gentrification is an issue that has really sprung up in the past decade or so, especially in NYC. Members of the lower class are getting pushed out of their neighborhoods by the rich. With increased housing prices and increasing cost of living, these people cannot afford to stay, even if it has been their family’s home for decades. Gentrification usually improves the neighborhood as increasing income, housing prices, cultural centers, and lowering crime rate, but at what cost?
I thought it was a very interesting point to bring up that public transit sites attract the poor, especially in places like NYC. Thousands of people depend on public transit daily to get to work, and it is relatively cheap for now (until they raise prices again). The NY Daily News brings up the fact that those on the bottom of the economic ladder have a very tough time climbing up it. Why do you think? Well for one, many on the bottom are minorities that have been stuck in the same position for years. High cost of education and poor level of local education have really limited this group of people. Lowering the cost of higher education and increasing funding for local schools that are under-performing will aid those in the poor class to move up (not a done deal – there are other factors – but education is a great start).
Different types of zoning battles have been around since the US’s founding. When segregation was accepted in our society, zoning was perfectly legal – putting whites in a great, private, wealthy neighborhood, and blacks in poor and rundown neighborhoods. After Brown v. Board of Education, segregation was deemed illegal – but the people at the top still wanted a form of it. So economic segregation came about, and being that most minorities are lower class, it was almost as if the issue was never really addressed. It didn’t help that many whites left the cities for the suburbs, and blacks couldn’t do this because they weren’t allowed to.
The “poor door” is very similar to the issue we addressed with charter schools – with the example of the shared school and students weren’t allowed into the charter school’s nice and pristine bathrooms. I don’t know how people can walk through the “rich door” and feel good about themselves. That’s like drinking from the “white people” water fountain and seeing the black sludge pour out of the “black people” one. I agree however, that if you’re paying more for your apartment (as long as it’s included in the cost AND those that don’t have it included can purchase it) then they can restrict gym membership, pool, and other amenities. I have that in my apartment complex – the gym is offered to everyone as long as they pay a premium. People can choose whether or not to be apart of it – but I think in this situation the amenities are only open to the rich – which obviously isn’t fair.
If the government passed looser zoning laws and provided subsidized housing for those from the lower class, the income inequality gap would start to shrink. These people would be able to move to growing and innovative cities where they could get a great job and get out of poverty. There should be systems in place where the government fronts the cost of the housing and, over time, you pay it back after you get a good education and/or job. That way, you would be in a rather expensive city for cheap and be making money and connections, while Uncle Sam will make some money off you and everyone would be better off. Of course, it all starts with the zoning laws.
