Mar
10
Blog Post #6
March 10, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Where we reside is so invariably linked with income. The rich neighborhoods versus the poor slums or the safe, gated communities versus the criminally riddled projects; all of it has to do with how much one earns. New York City is the pinnacle of two different worlds with neighborhoods like the Upper East Side right beside those like Harlem. It’s odd and jarring to see such a disparity within a few blocks, but the disparity is there. Whether that disparity is a good or bad thing is heavily debated.
With the article in CNN Money, the author mentions the term “de facto segregation”. She uses this term to relate how developers and building owners creating a “poor door” or restricting amenities to lower income residents of affordable housing is basically segregation. I completely agree. These restrictions are treating lower-income based residents as people who are different and unworthy. Having a “poor door” part of a building is like trying to even hide the fact that lower income residents live there. It may be easy to say that since those residents don’t pay a higher price, they don’t deserve those amenities within the building. However, the proximity of lower income residents to those amenities and facilities make restrictions cruel and rather mocking. In this case, such obvious disparity between residents of the same building is something I do not agree on.
However, on the same side, economic diversity in NYC may not be such a bad thing.As the author in the AEI article points out, inequality seems to all come down to one thing, education. Instead of the common cry for education reform, he calls for easier geographic mobility. The key for a prosperous city is to attract those people while making it easier to come and live there.That’s something that is related to the Daily News article. They mention that extreme inequality in NYC isn’t innate, it’s about attraction and groomed environments for both high and low income people. A massive global financial market center attracts the rich. An accessible public transit system and ethnic communities attract the poor. It’s not about restriction for one group or another, it’s about a mesh of groups being attracted to one place and trying to make it all work. Maybe disparity in NYC isn’t too bad as long as there is possible mobility.
But the problem arises when mobility is an exception rather than the norm. When some people move out of poor neighborhoods while others are stuck. Exclusionary zoning is something brought up by the Washington Post article that alludes to exactly this. White or higher income families being able to move out to suburbs while black families stayed where they were because they were not wanted in the suburbs and also simply couldn’t afford it. When exclusionary zoning is advocated for and these families are zoned to their respective school districts with or without integration, that creates a cyclic problem for the lower income families. While the suburban families have an out for a better life, the families stuck in poor neighborhoods are stuck in poor schools with a lower chance of mobility.
Ultimately, I don’t think that zoning is fair. Your neighborhood is being shaped by outside sources that may not have your interests at heart. Most of the time, zoning is created by lawmakers who may be influenced more by the rich than the poor. In effect, the rich is controlling how your community turns out. Fueled by income inequality and education, zoning divides people unnaturally and yet it is such a fundamental aspect of NYC.
Stella Kong
