The article in The New York Times entitled “Government Can’t Help? Tell That to the South Bronx,” by Michael Powell debunks many preconceptions that people may have of the government and of the Bronx. Firstly, it’s pretty rare to find someone defending the government when it comes to the economy. Secondly, most people probably would not classify the South Bronx as beautiful. I certainly follow along with those characteristics, or at least I used to. Reading this article made me reconsider stereotypes that I know to be pretty widespread in New York City.
The first one is about the government and the economy. Especially in the past few years, people have almost completely lost faith in the government to save us from the financial crisis. According to Powell, the government is very capable of doing so. Unfortunately, it isn’t in the way we think. People expect higher employment in the corporate world or a decrease in the national debt, so they overlook great strides in public housing. It’s gotten to the point that people really don’t trust the government to do anything that could possibly benefit them, so they just disregard it.
Along those lines, people just have a tendency to remember the bad things and forget all the good things. Of course it’s only natural to ignore one positive aspect when there are plenty more negative ones, but I think that’s just a horrible way to go about things. It’s slightly upsetting that this article had to be written to show people that the government can actually do something. Maybe it is a miracle, but we shouldn’t have that mindset in the first place. We expect so vigorously for our government to fail us that we can’t accept any of their victories at all.
The second stereotype is about the South Bronx being beautiful. Perhaps this is a result of people ignoring the government’s successes, but I had no idea that the area had even changed, let alone to such a great extent. It seems that the stories of what the South Bronx looked like in the 1970s have been passed down and live on even today. Considering that New York has always done relatively well with its public housing initiatives, I’m surprised that knowledge of the South Bronx’s reconstruction isn’t more popular. Even so, it sounds wonderful. It sounds like all of these developments have been nothing but an asset to the area and its residents.
Going back to my earlier point about not trusting the government, the John A. Boehner quote is really disappointing. If that’s really the case, who can we count on? What era are we moving into? Who will be responsible for growing the economy? Will it be any different? Were this new entity to fail, would we blame them and then decide to move on again? That doesn’t sound like a very promising start. The best way to approach this, which I think Powell was trying to get across, is to recognize the good things. Failure is inevitable, but success, no matter how small in comparison, still deserves acknowledgement.
