Author Archives: Kelly Chan

Macaulay Seminar 4 Conference

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I presented with Lynda and Alice on Sunday at 10am. We were the very first group to go, and I think it went just fine but could have gone better. Being in an unfamiliar room with strangers definitely hindered our presentation. We were used to the podium in our classroom and how to maneuver around it; we usually all stand behind it and just shift the attention onto whoever is speaking. We tried to do the same thing at the conference, but there was a lot less space and it ended up being a little awkward. We were also used to our audience being familiar with our topic. The rest of the class has seen our presentations leading up to this one, but our new audience had no idea what we were talking about for the first few minutes.

Even so, I think we got our point across well. We were lucky that most of the people watching had been to the High Line, so they caught on once we declared that we’d be discussing the future of its funding. There didn’t seem to be any confusion amongst the other students when we were finished. The moderator and a visiting professor had some thought-provoking questions for us that gave us some ideas for our final paper. We had a small discussion about the process of creating a BID and methods for encouraging residents to participate in one for the High Line.

Our presentation could have gone better if we’d prepared more for the new atmosphere. In comparison to the other presentations, ours was the only one that seemed to be a part of a larger step-by-step project. We didn’t really take into consideration that the people at the conference wouldn’t have the same understanding and background information that our classmates have. Personally, I was also uncomfortable in the new space. I got a little tongue-tied occasionally because I was making eye contact with total strangers. I could have avoided this if I just mentally prepared for that factor, but it didn’t even cross my mind until it happened.

The most interesting presentation that I saw at the conference was about public housing on the Upper West Side. Students from City College made the presentation, and they spoke about some really interesting ideas on how to revamp the neighborhood. Since we’ve spoken about public housing, the topic resonated with me and I was able to follow along easily. They proposed ideas like opening up a street through a housing complex to increase foot traffic and building a school in the middle of the complex. On a side note, I thought it was funny how the Baruch business school students talked about funding while the City engineering students talked about architecture.

It was also interesting for me to see other presentations about the future of NYC that didn’t involve neighborhoods. There were presentations about crime control, education, obesity, etc. Watching these presentations allowed me to ponder the future of NYC in a broader and less geographical sense. They were more focused on the people and their wellbeing. This also helped me get a better perspective on what I should be thinking about when I take a position in my final paper. I have to think of the people in the area and not just the physical space alone.

“Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment” Response

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The book, Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment, discusses different methods of funding public projects. In all honesty, I really didn’t understand the private investment aspect. What I got from it is that American cities fight for private investors’ money in order to support the projects necessary to revitalize them. If that is correct, then I find it pretty awful that cities have to compete for these things. It appears that the government refrained from helping because it received negative feedback when it did so, but I don’t see why. This is something that I think is the government’s responsibility, so I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want the help. It’s actually not the government’s fault, but having the cities battle it out for investors is just ridiculous.

However, it seems that cities are perfectly capable of attaining this funding. Once that happens, the main focus becomes the actual construction. Recently, cities have been building expressways in areas with little to no urban development. As expected, there has been criticism: it encourages the expansion of cities and increases traffic. However, people also dislike when expressways are built through areas that are already urbanized. Somebody is unhappy either way, but I think it’s best to build the expressways before the urbanization occurs. In the long run, it works out better for everyone to grow a city around this central structure instead of forcing it into the middle of something that is already established and functions well. This complies with the “do no harm” paradigm, and its potential problems probably would’ve happened anyway.

Something that violates the “do no harm” rule, on the other hand, is the renovation of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. It involves the displacement of 300 residential apartments, but it services a lot of people and companies. This brings up the question of if it’s okay to sacrifice a little in order to gain a lot. It sounds reasonable, but I’m sure that the people being moved out of their homes don’t feel that way. I think the “do no harm” clause is great. There must be other ways to go about building or rebuilding structures that avoid harming people in the process. This “do no harm” concept can definitely be followed, so it should absolutely be enforced.

The criticisms of these mega-projects really made me think about how cities avoid expansion. With New York City, the population has steadily risen over time, yet the allocated space for the city has hardly increased, and not nearly at the same rate if it has at all. This would mean that cities just have to recycle their land over and over again whenever they start to run out of space. How do planners come up with new ways to do this all the time? Will there ever be a point where they can’t continue? Is there a backup plan for when that happens?

This book focuses on the mega-projects of the twentieth century. Now in the twenty-first century, there don’t seem to be as many. This is mostly because they have become increasingly expensive, but I also think it has to do with the fact that so many things have already been built. There isn’t really a need for another airport or highway in most American cities; they are all doing just fine with what they have as of now. Since we no longer need new transportation facilities, we have turned to creating space intended for living and recreation. Mega-projects have just changed in nature, and they are fortunately still happening profusely.

“Underclass to Entrepreneur” Response

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In Katz’s “From Underclass to Entrepreneur: New Technologies of Poverty Work in Urban America,” the underclass is a group of people defined not by poverty but by characteristics like drugs, crime, teenage pregnancy and high unemployment. Over time, those qualities became synonymous and the poor became the underclass. I think that was inevitable because they overlap, so it makes sense, but it’s a little too general for my liking.

There was one particular description of the underclass that I found very interesting: the categorization of the poor. Ken Auletta organized poor people into groups that he labeled as the passive poor, the hostile, the hustlers, and the traumatized. I like this approach because it helps to differentiate the people who are making the best and the worst of the same situation. Naturally, we see the bad things and then assume that everyone in that predicament is doing them. Not every poor person is a criminal, but many people, including myself sometimes, perceive them all that way. This categorization can change that. Although it might be true to a certain extent, it is still unfair to say that every poor person is a dropout or an addict. If that can be eliminated, then a lot of issues regarding stereotypes can too.

Something that comes up is that the concept of the underclass supports the practice of blaming the victim. I believe this happens a lot to those involved with drugs, delinquency, and pregnancy out of wedlock. This isn’t to say that it is never their fault, but it seems that people ignore the possibility of external factors. For example, a drug addict may not have chosen to become one of his or her own free will. However, all we see is a poor life choice. Nobody considers what could have driven that person to that point and whether or not it had anything to do with him or her at all. Instead, we cast these people aside as the underclass. With this logic, people in that type of situation may never be able to find a way out.

The example that Katz makes of Muhammad Yunus, who distributed money on the idea that the poor are inherently entrepreneurial, brought a few questions to my mind. How true is that statement? We hear stories all the time of people who came from nothing and now have everything, but how often does that actually happen? If the poor really are such fervent entrepreneurs, how successful are they? Clearly there is some truth to this statement, or else Katz would not have written this chapter, but I wonder if it still holds true today. All we’ve been hearing about in the news lately is the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Maybe it was the time period and the need to oppose racism that encouraged them back then, but I’m not so sure that poor people nowadays have that ambition or opportunity.

Even so, the micro-finance method sounds effective. I don’t expect everyone to climb to the top with this bit of help, because that’s just impossible, but it’s better than nothing. At the very least, it supports saving, which can eventually assist the elimination of the underclass. The question is not if they should be saving but how the government can help them save. I think people are definitely capable of that, and they should absolutely be aided in doing so. Sadly, in today’s economy, I can’t say that the government is doing such a great job of that.

“Neighborhood Effects in a Changing ‘Hood” Response

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The fifth chapter of Freeman’s book, entitled “Neighborhood Effects in a Changing ‘Hood,” goes through the many changes caused by gentrification. Honestly, I’ve only ever heard of gentrification in a negative way, and I never thought that it could be used to pull a failing neighborhood back from the edge of complete destruction. In that case, gentrification is a wonderful thing. However, I’m not sure that it’s smart to wait until the very end to take action. Maybe gentrification is better than I thought because it’s saving neighborhoods on the verge of failure before the real descent even starts. Perhaps we just don’t understand the big picture when our communities are being gentrified.

As many of the other readings we’ve done this semester have mentioned, this chapter says that altering neighborhoods requires mixing people of different incomes. At this point, I still can’t imagine that ever working out. I’m not sure if I’m thinking of the difference in income as drastic when it’s actually not, but I just don’t think these two categories of people would be comfortable together. Income dictates your lifestyle, so I don’t know how differing ones can coexist in such close proximity.

Even so, it seems that I am the only one who feels that way because Freeman goes on to discuss whether or not affluent neighbors are beneficial. With gentrification come new people, often with a higher income. Some people argue that these residents will effectively push out the original ones, while others say that they will instead push them to try to improve. I personally don’t see how that is possible. Having a horde of people, who are mostly better off than you, entering your neighborhood doesn’t seem very encouraging. If anything, it would be embarrassing and could possibly cause a rift in the community. Freeman recounts a conversation with some residents of a gentrified neighborhood, which essentially reveals that there is little to no social interaction between old and new tenants. Even if it does make you want to be better, that doesn’t mean you have the resources to do so either. There is a reason as to why you were living in what was a low-income neighborhood to begin with, so it might not be possible to advance in that aspect.

Later on in the chapter, Freeman says that well-off neighbors can bring better amenities and services such as the police force. While this may be true, I can’t believe that it’s actually being used to support gentrification. This argument is a clear example of discrimination. Why should inhabitants of low-income neighborhoods be subject to less police assistance? The only thing that can come out of that is increased crime. As mentioned in the chapter, concentrated poverty only leads to worse circumstances, so keeping the police out can’t possibly be a good idea. Doing so, and based on income of all things, is just unfair and wrong.

The chapter ends with a vague outlook for the future of gentrification. Freeman says that there are both pros and cons depending on the situation. This leads me to wonder how anyone can decide when gentrification should happen. How will anyone know if the benefits will outweigh the harms? Who gets to decide this, and what information will they use to do so? The only solution I can think of is to do a series of trial and error gentrification experiments until some sort of pattern can be discerned. And while that could be amazing, it could also be detrimental and we’d have no way of knowing until all is said and done.

“Government Can’t Help? Tell That to the South Bronx” Response

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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.

“Making New York Smaller” Response

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Roger Starr’s “Making New York Smaller” discusses various methods of saving New York from the financial crisis of the 1970s. Beforehand, Starr explains how the city is fiscally divided into the Economic City and the Political City. I really liked this description of the city, for I’d never thought to separate it as such. As I understand it, these two entities must balance each other out. In essence, the revenue earned in the Economic City becomes the basis for the taxes collected from the Political City, so there’d be an issue if either of them fell behind. When it came to the financial crisis, the Economic City was lagging, so the Political City had to overcompensate to maintain the balance. This led me to question whether or not NYC could survive solely on the Political City. If the economy ever got so bad that there was basically no revenue, could we get by on federal funding? If this balanced system were to fail, do we have any sort of backup plan?

It is mentioned in the article that New York used to be a center for manufacturing and that it was suffering financially because it was no longer that. While the shift occurred for other reasons, something that caught my attention was that New Yorkers didn’t want to think of their city as a factory town. I personally never thought New York had that image to begin with and that it was always a tourist attraction, but it seems that tourism was not always what it is today. Apparently, tourism was low at the time that the article was written. I’m not sure if that’s a result of the financial crisis or if New York just didn’t have as much to offer as it does now. Still, I agree with the consensus that New York should be more than a factory town. Starr implied that the decline in manufacturing brought financial troubles, but I’m glad that nobody pushed for the return of factories. If that had happened, the NYC that I grew up in might have been monumentally different.

One of Starr’s main arguments was the concept of planned shrinkage. He believed that the city’s population would decline as the number of jobs declined and that the city government should plan accordingly. However, I don’t really see how he could anticipate such a drastic change in the population. Even with unemployment at an all-time high, there’s no guarantee that people would leave. If they did, it probably wouldn’t be until a few years later anyway. If it were me, I’d probably just muddle through it until the city found a way to get out of that rut. I wouldn’t want to uproot my entire life just because the economy was temporarily unstable. Who said the same thing wouldn’t happen in another place too? I don’t think Starr was being very realistic when it came to his contingency plan. He proposed federal assistance in this process, but I don’t think that’s plausible in such magnitudes.

There really wasn’t a specific way to plan for a smaller population either. If a significant number of people did move away, which places would still be considered alive? There wouldn’t be enough funding to support the entire city, so only certain places would receive maintenance while others became desolate. That alone sounds bad, but how would you get people to move into these designated areas? If an entire building is vacated with the exception of one resident, it wouldn’t be fair to make him/her move and there’d probably a lot of resistance too. Perhaps that area would have been a good place to maintain too, so it would be a waste to shut it down. How would any of this be decided?

Towards the end of the article, Starr almost refutes his entire plan by saying that the Department of City Planning could formulate multiple plans based on possible future populations. If they were to do that, there is really no point in banking on the hope that the population would decrease. It could fluctuate easily based on so many factors, so I think all of this planning would have been useless. Starr shouldn’t have been focusing on coming up with possible outcomes; he needed to find a way out of the financial crisis. That means devising a plan to implement right away, not hypothesize how to handle a situation that could basically go in any direction. All the time people spent criticizing his idea of planned shrinkage (and all the time Starr took to defend it) could have gone to a better and more productive cause, which would have been ending the crisis instead of figuring out how to deal with its supposed aftereffects.

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” Response

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The film “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” really helped me understand the trials and tribulations of the public housing development. The most memorable of these, in my opinion, was the video clip of the Caucasian woman. She’d said that she had originally moved to the neighborhood because it was a ‘white neighborhood,’ but that she no longer wanted to live there because of all the black people in Pruitt-Igoe. This did not sit well with me at all, and the racism in the North still shocks me even though I’ve heard of it time and time again. I wonder what she’d have said if Pruitt-Igoe was successful. Had it not been ridden with crime—which had nothing to do with the race of the residents anyway—would she have gotten past her issues?

The documentary offered a lot of insight to the development that had only ever been described to me as a complete failure. The interviews with former residents certainly showed me different perspectives. For example, one man recounted how his brother was killed there while a woman reminisced about the happy childhood she had there. I suppose this one woman’s pleasant memories don’t cancel out all of the negative experiences others had, but it was nice to hear that Pruitt-Igoe wasn’t a horror for everyone. At least there is someone who can look back on it fondly and remember something other than constant criminal activity. Had it not been for this documentary, I would have continued to believe that Pruitt-Igoe did nothing but ruin countless lives. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to sway my opinion entirely.

Seeing the buildings being blasted with dynamite gave me a sense of relief, and I actually felt happy that it happened. Once things took a turn for the worse and tenants began to leave, there was no going back. Vacancies led to break-ins by drug addicts, which led to even more crime. In addition, the low rent generated even less funding for maintenance. Everything was spiraling down, and Pruitt-Igoe could no longer be saved. If the government had left it there, it’d just serve as a breeding ground for crimes, drugs, violence, etc. As wasteful as it was to destroy something that had cost so much money and served as a form of stable housing for many, it had to be done. I would imagine that the development today, were it still standing, would have an awful connotation in the local area and just attract more trouble. It’d be known for its dark history, which would inevitably repeat itself.

On the other hand, I don’t think that the land should be vacant anymore. Surely by now, the housing authority of St. Louis has perfected a method of building public housing. I don’t see why they aren’t building more public housing unless it’s actually not needed whatsoever. If that’s true, why not make a nice public recreational area, like a park or a mall? Developers in NYC would kill for an open piece of land like that, so I’m surprised it hasn’t been grabbed up to be used to its full potential. Pruitt-Igoe was already such a waste, and I can’t believe that the lot has remained untouched. If used correctly, whatever gets built could reap great profits along with benefits for the community. It doesn’t make any sense to do absolutely nothing with it.

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” makes me wonder if the development was just destined to fail from the very beginning. In an effort to create decent housing, safety and maintenance were ignored. That might have been acceptable at first, but definitely not over a long period of time. Was that never considered? The large amount of children residing in the development couldn’t really be reduced, but they were a main source of the havoc wreaked throughout. As a family destination, was this not considered either? Whose fault was it that Pruitt-Igoe failed so miserably? It could be argued that it was not planned for accordingly in terms of funding and security, but could the residents have counteracted that in any way? Especially as a community of families, could they have banded together with a goal of general safety and no crime? Had that happened, maybe the myth we’re hearing about today would be drastically different.

“Designs for a New Metropolis” Response

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At the very beginning of the chapter, a complaint is expressed about the tower in the park public housing that exists in New York City and most other cities in America. I personally don’t mind that urban residential buildings are not aesthetically pleasing. That isn’t the point of them. Nobody comes to the city to look at the housing. The people who live here don’t even look at the housing. It’s all about the commercial areas and the tourist sites. In a suburban setting, the appearance of housing developments is more important because there isn’t much else to look at. In the city, people go home to sleep and that’s it. More attractive buildings wouldn’t bring more people here or change anyone’s opinion of the city because it’s not what they’re here to see in the first place. These buildings serve their purpose of providing plentiful and affordable housing, and that’s all that matters.

In addition, Bloom points out that these high rises provide anonymity. This is something that I view positively. Cities don’t have the atmosphere that requires everyone to know each other. People often come to New York City to fall into the crowd and not be watched constantly anyway. I think it’s nice to be able to go home and have privacy. There’s no pressure to see other people or interact with anyone. After a long day, you can just make the trek home and enjoy the rest of your night.

Later on in the reading, Bloom says that Moses’s developments “paired middle-income projects with public housing in many low-income neighborhoods” (133). This is considered to be good planning, but I don’t really see why. I could foresee a lot of social stigma against middle-income people living in low-income neighborhoods. Why would they want to live there? Why would people of either income level feel comfortable in such close proximity of the other? Across New York City, most of the population believes that certain income levels pertain to certain neighborhoods (which may or may not be true), and I don’t think those boundaries are going to break anytime soon. In general, it seems that people like to be around others who are within the same income level. If this actually became a concrete initiative—to mix socioeconomic classes—I’m not sure if it would work too well.

An issue with public housing that Bloom mentions is that it displaced a lot of stores. This made me wonder if New York City could change its general layout. Currently, each neighborhood is practically self-sufficient because it has housing and stores to service residents. What if there were sections of the city reserved for housing and other sections reserved for stores? That would destroy the concept of small communities, but I’m curious to know if it would work. It might make the city less urban, since it basically imitates the model of a small town where everyone lives in certain areas and there’s a centralized space for businesses, but the city is so big that I think it could work out just fine. We would never reach the point where everyone knows each other, so it would probably feel just like it does now.

Nonetheless, there isn’t exactly anything wrong with what we have now. The NYCHA has done a fantastic job with clearing slums and creating better housing across the city. There might have been unfortunate consequences here and there, but that always happens to some extent. Compared to other cities, as Bloom says, New Yorkers are much better off when it comes to their housing. There’s probably room for improvement, but there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with what currently exists. However, there’s still a negative connotation when it comes to the projects. Under ideal circumstances, that would no longer be in effect. This is what we need to combat now. We’ve learned how to successfully create housing, so we can now focus on eradicating the bad perceptions that people have of it.

“The Power Broker” Response

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Everything I’ve ever read about Robert Moses gives me conflicting views of him. He’s often described as a power-hungry man with no regard for community, yet he’s also praised for all the revolutionary contributions he made to New York City. In my opinion, Robert Moses was not a bad man in regards to his work across the city. His primary goal was to serve the public, which he successfully did. People might argue that he had absolutely no regard for the cultural hubs and small neighborhoods that make New York so unique, but he had visions of urban planning for maximum efficiency. In the grand scheme of things, that seems much more important. The culture will emerge regardless, so it’s better to focus on bringing the city to its full potential.

I can see that Moses may have abused his power, but all anyone really cares about is the outcome. The bottom line is that he was able to get these projects done. As most New Yorkers know, public projects can take years discuss and plan, let alone to complete. Moses came up with an idea and effectively executed it. That alone is impressive. The simple fact that he made progress is enough to make me overlook any sketchy deals he may have made, which were probably nothing compared to any little plot our politicians might pull today.

On the other hand, no project could ever fully justify evicting people from their homes. There’s probably an argument about the greater good, but all of Moses’s creations were doing absolutely no good to the thousands of people who had nowhere to live. This is probably why Moses has such a wobbly reputation; the cons outweighed the pros, which eventually led to people forgetting about the good things and only remembering the bad. His work was undoubtedly great for New York City, but it might not have been worth sacrificing the homes of thousands of people. Although, everything worked out in the end, so I still think relatively high of him.

Moses is especially known for his highways, but another one of his ideas caught my attention: “little shelters, for instance, in Central Park, so that mothers could change their babies’ diapers without having to go all the way home,” (4). I think that would be a great initiative, and it made me think about restrooms in general. I have always wondered why there are no public restrooms in New York City. This is a place full of commuters, tourists, and people who are constantly away from home, but there are no facilities for them to utilize while in transit. When I visited Hong Kong—another large city—almost ten years ago, there were public bathrooms that proved to be extremely useful for pedestrians. At the very least, some portable bathrooms would be nice.

The closing of the “The Power Broker” introduction brings up an interesting point about Moses. I can’t even imagine what New York City would look like now had he never lived. Would somebody else have come up with the idea for highways and public parks? If yes, how would theirs have differed from Moses’s? Would Jane Jacobs’s tight-knit communities have prevailed? It’s difficult to think of a New York City that’s different from the one I know. As far as I can tell, it’s working out pretty well the way it is. I can’t think of ways to make it more efficient, so I wonder if we’d have ever gotten this far without Moses. Moreover, where would we be without him?

Museum of the City of New York

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I was pleasantly surprised by the tour we received of the museum. I thought the exhibit would be a storyline of history, but I’m really glad that I got to learn about the housing situations around the city. I also thought that our tour guide was great. Especially when we were looking at the miniature replicas of various buildings, she did much more than just spit out facts she’d memorized about each one. It was rather engaging and made me more curious about architecture and urban planning. It definitely made me think of my own home and imagine all the possible layouts that could be implemented in the space. It had never crossed my mind that you could design your home an infinite number of ways to make the most of it.

I’d already known that the greatest portion of the city’s population consists of people living alone, and the statistic offered by the museum’s collected data is 33%. As much as this reflects the nature of New York City, where people come by themselves from all around the world to chase their dreams, I think it might be a waste of space. The 400 square feet that are mandated by housing regulations can easily hold more than one person, but it appears that many of them contain only one occupant. As the city’s population continues to grow, more housing must be created. Perhaps regulations will soon have to be amended in order to accommodate this inevitable change; units may have to be smaller or more than three unrelated people may have to be allowed to live together.

Along with an increase in the number of residents comes the issue of parking. We discussed briefly that it’s not that important because many people who live in the city don’t own cars, but I feel that the matter requires some more attention. My family owns more than one car, and parking is an absolute nightmare. It might not be that serious now, but who’s to say that city dwellers may not one day choose driving over public transportation? What will we do then? We can’t just build more and more housing without even considering parking options. At the very least, each housing complex should have some sort of parking garage (underground or elsewhere) for its tenants. There isn’t much that can be done about parking in commercial areas, but this must be addressed in residential places.

The new micro-unit that is to be tested is, in my opinion, a fantastic idea. As I said before, a single person does not need 400 square feet to live comfortably. The model apartment was amazing to see. Every method of adding storage or making things compact was so clever and creative. It was fascinating to see what people come up with and how much more efficiently we could all be using our space. Nonetheless, I don’t think I could live in one of those apartments. It looks really cool that everything can be tucked away somewhere, but in all honesty I’d probably be too lazy to put my table and bed away every time I finish using them. The price might also be an issue as well. The cost of living continues to rise in New York City, and I don’t foresee any cuts on the price due to the smaller space. As modern and chic as the micro-units are, I would feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth.

Something that piqued my interest, despite the fact that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, is the difference between housing across the boroughs. For example, everything in Manhattan is so cramped, yet there are spacious lots all over Queens. I’d like to learn why this is so. When was it decided that these certain types of living arrangements would be built in their respective boroughs? I understand that there are probably socioeconomic factors that play into this difference, but that wouldn’t be the case if it weren’t set up that way. That’s also a lot of space that could be used much more efficiently. I don’t exactly know whether or not we need it at this moment, but I can almost guarantee that we’ll eventually need it sometime in the future.