Frank Braconi’s account of New York City’s public housing policy provides an excellent illustration of the challenges of governing a city as sprawling and diverse as this one. Mr. Braconi makes it a point to note that even though the concept of In Rem housing is not unique to New York City, it is certainly a more complex and significant process here than anywhere else. Despite the problems mentioned in the piece about the management of In Rem housing taken over by the city, I think that this story is an example of how city governments can be successful in the face of overwhelming odds.
I was really impressed by all the inter-agency cooperation that went into tackling various problems that arose in the public housing system. It was also very interesting to see the instances of conflict. For example, how the welfare policy actually worked counter-intuitively to the goals of the housing department. I agreed with the city’s proposal to try and implement a policy to have the welfare checks cashed upon signature from both tenant and rent collector. As exemplified by the Pruitt-Igoe debacle in St. Louis, lack of revenue from rents can be devastating to buildings. Thus, it was a good decision on the part of the city to make rent collection an absolute priority.
Another interesting connection that can be made here is that the extensive abandonment of certain neighborhoods that Mr. Braconi talks about would be exactly the kind of situation that would call for measures suggested by Roger Starr in his article, “Making New York Smaller.” When middle class families rushed to leave inner city neighborhoods for the suburbs, it would have expanded the city’s borders while simultaneously making it harder to carry out administrative functions by making more neighborhoods in special need of support from the government. Loss of revenue combined with the rise in areas to be taken particular care of, I think, made this a draconian task for New York City’s government. In this case, it is clear why Roger Starr would see the expansion of cities to be wasteful and impractical.
It’s incredible how the New York City government responded to the abandonment crisis but, at the same time, I think that these events signal a larger problem. Mr. Braconi mentions early on in his writing that New York is peculiar in the fact that unlike other major cities, the ratio of residents who are tenants in their homes to those who own their homes is quite high. I don’t believe that this has changed even to this date. Most New York City residents are tenants and thus the threat of such a period of abandonment happening continues to exist.
This is why, contrary to what Mr. Braconi seems to be suggesting, I am fully in support of the aggressive measures taken by the city to shrink its In Rem portfolio during the Giuliani administration. Perhaps the timing of these efforts wasn’t entirely convenient, but I believe it is the correct policy to adopt. It was the city’s responsibility to take care of these abandoned buildings to ensure that the infrastructure of inner city neighborhoods didn’t fall into total disrepair. But, once a neighborhood is stabilized, private investment should be encouraged, even aggressively sought after.
