Feb
24
Blog #4 Income Gap NYC
February 24, 2015 | Leave a Comment
The three articles together bring a depiction of the city similar to that of co-location for public and charter schools. By this I mean that the same problem of having the better funded and highly refurbished charter schools literally with in a drawn line’s distance from a public school full of broken books and underfunded utilities gives an accurate analogy to the layout of the city based on income. The extremely rich are a single subway stop away from people significantly under the poverty line.
Although much of the city has become “safer” for both rich and poor to intermingle on subways, in Central Park, and in previously crime ridden areas, and it is true that the top 1 percent are giving a lot of private funding for public resources, much of the safety is coming from an increase in a police force that intimidate and strike fear into the poor so that the rich feel safe. It isn’t a matter of the lower income residents getting to go to the park late night or ride the train without robberies, they weren’t who were being robbed, these increases in public use have been from upper and middle class residents who know the police will make sure the poor are fearful of consequences from acts of desperation such as robbery.
I really found the New Yorker article to be quite startling to see the polarizing differences in income -in such close physical proximity! The fact that their can be a difference of $200,000 in median income with in one single subway line shows just how uneven the distribution of wealth is. The CNN Money article furthers this point by showing the drastic increase in total income and total wealth of the top 1 percent from the 1980s while over that same time the lower portion of the economy has seen stagnation and deficit in their share of the total pie. In a city so tightly packed with people to have such a mighty few be within walking distance from the meek and desperate is a need for concern. Even if an increased crime unit keeps order and peace, that does not change the fact that a significant portion of the city’s population is being held back from its potential while having the pretentious success of some be thrown in their face, by their near neighbors.
The City Journal article was rather interesting for its unique perspective on this matter. It does not deny the existence of large income inequality, but goes to show how the substantially rich few can actually, and have actually, benefited the poor of the city. Although that argument is certainly manipulative in many obvious ways due to the highlighting of positives that come from an extreme negative, rather than the fixing of the extreme negative to have a stream of more encompassing positives for the poor, the article does bring up some good points. As NYC residents, regardless of income bracket, we are very lucky to have free or discounted access to many tools for success, such as the libraries and public help centers, and cultural/recreational benefits such as the beautiful and refurbished Central Park, paid for significantly in part by the upper echelon of the economy. This and many other claims in the article are true, and real benefits to the poor, they are mere actions to mitigate symptoms of the problem, rather than actually combatting the cause.
Personally, throwing donations and funding toward fixing some of the city’s resources that are still flawed or bringing about benefits to those who have already felt the impact of social and economic inequality is a poor excuse of help and not deserving of a pat on the back. The foundations and structure of the systems and infrastructure need to be reformed, not half-heartedly rebuilt on top of the underlying problems. Being poor is one thing, but how would it feel to have a millionaire right next to you everyday, while you try and get by?
