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Response to Michael Powell’s “Government Can’t Help? Tell that to the South Bronx”

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Speaker of the House John A. Boehner started out the article with a disappointing yet untrue remark: “when the economy grows, it’s not because of a new government program or spending initiative… it’s time to leave that era behind.” Who else can the people lean on when the hard time comes, especially in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Just by a glance, one can conjecture that Boehner may reluctantly be an advocate of “laissez-faire” or free-market economics where the least governmental intervention in the market is the norm. But please remember what “laissez-faire” did to us back in the 30’s? Hoover’s “laissez-faire” policy was a perfect by-the-book example of classical Keynesian economics, yet it did not work. In fact, the American economy dove so deeply into the trough of the economic sine graph due to “laissez-faire” that it took us more than 10 years to get back to the grace of the market had it not for the intervention of New York’s own Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mike Powell’s article once again debunks Boehner’s line

As an international student studying in New York, my knowledge of the city prior to my arrival was based on movie and novels. One fact pattern that always pops up is that the Bronx is not the most ideal of places to visit or to live in due to lines of old pre-war buildings with bullet-holed decorations. Having lived in New York City for over 5 years now and having visited the Bronx so many times, I have had chances to refute that old pattern that no longer holds truth in the present New York. Yet from the article, it is still amusing to learn about the past Bronx that was “the once broken beauty” and the vivid description of the borough from the narrative of the teenage Mike Powell. The kids drove through “ghost canyons of burnt-out buildings, saw mattresses and old sinks and tubs piled atop hills of rubble,” encountered drug dealers who mistook the white kids in a Buick as “boys in search of a fix.” I have learned of the success of housing authority in New York but their accomplishment in turning around such wreckage like the past Bronx and making it “livable” again cannot be overlooked, absolutely not. It is fascinating to learn about what the government has done for the borough, from Mayor Koch to today’s Bloomberg. The Bronx is “the greatest public rebuilding achievement since WWII” thanks to those administrations and a standing example of how terribly wrong John Boehner was in making such a depressive and assuming statement.

It was something of a peaceful sigh that I hear from the author, during the narrative of his trip around Melrose with “men in white fedoras playing dominoes under umbrellas” and the old lady’s statement “Oh my God, it was the ghetto.” Not anymore it wasn’t, all thanks to the government. My hope of our present government is somewhat restored, yet the author just had to say “the era of government may be in danger,” making me reexamining my own thinking. We will see.

In Re In Rem

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It is often said that the only thing that devastates cities more than physical destruction is a poor housing policy. The term is often applied to those coming from underprivileged backgrounds, and the urban decay often wrought in low income areas. As has been a common theme in the readings in our class, Frank Braconi explores the failures and successes of New York’s public housing departments in combating urban abandonment and housing degradation.

Beginning largely in the 1960s and intensifying in the 1970s, a rather despairing trend began in New York. More and more people (mostly from low income areas), began abandoning their homes. The pattern was most observed in New York’s public housing units. As tenants began to vacate, landlords started neglecting their properties. Standard maintenance and upkeep went unheeded. Slowly but surely through back taxes and overdue fines, these delinquent properties began filtering into the possession of New York City. These In Rem housing stock quickly became a thorn in the side of New York. With tenant vacancy low,  the housing was costing more for the city to keep than  than the revenue rent was generating.

A number of initiatives were taken to manage the In Rem real estate from of party other than the city. One such as ideas implemented was the cooperative or co-op. In a co-op there are no said owners or landlords of an apartment building. Every tenant is a co-owner and services such as maintenance and heating are organize by the tenants. This idea is especially popular because it both eliminates the capitalistic for-profit component., while placing the responsibility for the well-being of the housing with the actual people who use it. I am in fact very intrigued by this concept of housing. Generally people are enticed by incentives. If your going to do something, your going to want to get some benefit from it. Co-ops capture that idea, and empower people to define their own destinies and living standards which I think is a marvelous idea.

Another propositions implemented by the New York housing authority handed over In Rem housing to non-profit organizations. The idea seems simple enough. Ideological groups such as non-profits who are not out to make a quick buck are best suited to run housing for the underprivileged. Yet as Mr. Braconi elaborated in his piece, there are still difficulties with this model. Generally, non-profits are hesitant to raise rents. With rising operating costs and skyrocketing utilizes in the 1970s and 80s, expenses began to outpace revenues. Thus non-profits who were unequipped psychological to raise rents were caught desperately off guard. This inability to make difficult decisions would constantly undermine the not-for-profit model.

Lastly, the housing authority began turning over their housing stock to for-profit businesses. This model happens to be the most controversial. Critics argue that for-profit organizations should be the last parties involved in housing for the poor and underprivileged. Yet, people respond to incentives. In many way for-profit enterprises are the only ones who actually have the incentive to keep and maintain delinquent housing. Personally, I believe a combination between for-profit housing and government subsidies could make for an effective match. In truth, this model proved to be one of the most successful employed by  the new york housing authorities.

Roger Starr

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When I was reading Starr’s NY Times article, “Making New York Smaller” I couldn’t help but think that this guy writes like a politician. After a quick google of his name I discovered that he was in fact New York’s housing administrator before he began writing for the times and in fact my hypothesis was correct. The way I happened upon this conclusion is the manner in which he discussed the solution to New York City’s financial crisis and it is quite noticeable how he puts a political motive in his writing.

The first thing Starr says about New York is that it can be divided into two different types of cities, a political city and an economic city, this is the first thing he said which led me to my hypothesis. By saying that New York is two different types of cities that coexist in order to form one type of city in itself sounds very much like a bureaucracy. In other words, he says that there’s an Economic city is the city which produces and sells all the goods, while there is the political city whose job is to provide the city with social services such as a fire department and public education. Furthermore, if one were to look at what each of these cities represent they would see how he truly shows his political nature. The political city is clearly a representation of the NYC government while the economic city is more of a representation of the people of the city who make the money and pay taxes. Well, this is a very political point of view and in fact an un-American point of view as one of the main principles of the American government is that it is a government of the people for the people, not a city which stands on its own.

The second thing which led me to my assumption of Starr having a political motive in all this is the way he leads up to his introduction of the shrinking city solution. Starr first brings up ways in which New York City could try and get out of the financial crisis firstly by way of increasing taxes and secondly by way of appealing to Washington and Albany for more money. Then he introduces a third method, his method. However, if one notices the wording, when he was introducing the first two methods of trying to get the city out of the financial crisis, he says it in a manner of exclusion where the government should make tax programs or appeal to Albany, in a way he makes it seem far away. But, when he introduces his idea or the third method he does so by using the word ‘we’, he says, “We could simply accept the fact that the city’s population is going to shrink, and we could cut back on city services accordingly.” By using the word ‘we’ he’s trying to include the reader and make it feel like they are a part of it so that they’ll be more likely to agree with him and follow his ideas and this in a way seemed like a move that a politician would use.

The third thing he mentions which helped me develop my hypothesis was his mention about how two communities picketed to not let him speak at the Regional Plan Association meetings at the New York Hilton. Now no average news reporter is going to be invited to speak at something that sounds so important and if they are no one is really going to care. But, Starr had not one, but two communities (the African-American community as well as the Puerto Rican community) unhappy with him. This led me to believe that the guy writing this article is not your average journalist and must have some type of background.

All in all, I found Starr to be sport a political motive in his writing. I do not necessarily know if he wrote this before or after he became New Yorks Housing Administrator, and in fact if this proves anything, it’s that he knows quite a bit about how the New York City Government works and about its politics. But, just because someone knows about politics, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they should write in a political manner.

“Selling the City in Crisis” Response

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To me, New York City is a place many people want to live and work in. Financial prosperity lurks within the streets of Manhattan and the traffic in this borough is unbelievably congested. In comparison, New York was known as one of the worst places to live 30 to 40 years ago. For someone born after that era, it is very hard for me to believe New York City was a place no one wanted to go to because of the crime and death. I still hear of those incidents nowadays but not nearly to the extent the author portrayed New York in the article. It is just very hard for me to believe.

When I read corporations moved to the suburbs to operate, I was pretty shocked. I can understand why they would move to New Jersey since it is only one state away from New York but not the suburbs of Westchester County, Connecticut. Are the suburbs very populated? I have a perception of suburbs being a place to live and not necessarily a place for corporations to reside. I don’t know if the suburbs are like this today but I am curious to know if any big name corporations are located in the suburbs.

The power breakfasts were a clever idea employed by the ABNY. The ABNY would pay very big name people to come to NYC to give speeches. The speakers brought people who wanted to hear what they would say and connect to those people. Having big name people here brought a better image of the city. ABC News and the “New York Times” covered the speeches bringing more positive publicity to the city.

I thought it was very interesting of how the “Big Apple” became such a defining term for New York City. To market New York City as the place to be at, the advertisers designated everything was big in the city. Everything was bigger and better in New York ranging from the medical facilities, transportation system to financial center. Of course, New York didn’t have the best transportation system as we all know but they marketed it as the best. Although our education system is the best, it is the biggest as Marshall said and they marketed as that at least.

Reading what New York has been through, it is hard to believe the events occurred in New York when we see how it is now. New York still has some its bad areas and remnants from that era but it is less obvious compared to what has been accomplished. I am grateful for the ABNY for doing a good job saving the city. Now New York is known as one of the global cities of the world.

“Making New York Smaller” – Response

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Roger Starr’s article about New York City’s financial crisis in the 70’s was fascinating because of the unusual idea the author posits as a solution to the situation.Mr. Starr suggests that allowing the city to shrink in size would provide economic relief. This is a curious because, it is usually accepted that a shrinking population equals a weaker economy due to smaller labor force, less tax revenue etc. The author here believes that New York City’s budget deficit would be insurmountable because the city simply could not spend any less if it had to continue to support the existing population. The solution to this, according to Mr. Starr, is to tailor policy towards creating a city that has fewer people dependent on its resources.

Naturally, this unconventional, and therefore controversial, idea seems to have had strong opposition. One criticism that is addressed by the author in the article is the argument that the poor would be the worst affected if shrinkage were allowed to happen to a city. Mr. Starr responds by saying that the poor would in fact benefit from the city’s increased ability to use its resources to serve a smaller population. I found this contention to be debatable because of what we learned from the Pruitt-Igoe documentary. There, St. Louis’ decreasing population directly contributed to its terrible downfall.

Residents that are economically better off will naturally be the ones with more options open to them. If a city in fiscal crisis were to admit that it was incapable of handling the situation unless the city housed fewer people, then it will be the more economically advantaged residents who will choose to leave, simply because they can afford that choice. If any city experiencing such an exodus does not take actions to reverse or at least stop that flow, then it seems logical that it will meet a fate similar to that of St. Louis.

However, Mr. Starr’s theory does not limit itself to saying that the population of New York City should be allowed to shrink. Instead, the author actually suggests making New York City physically smaller. I was thoroughly surprised by this. It is almost an universal trend that cities expand outwards. For someone to suggest that urban planners should think about encouraging people to limit the city’s borders and concentrate towards the center seems totally surprising. Mr. Starr writes, “It is better to have one building full than two half-full,” explaining his logic for why New York City should literally make itself smaller. However, I think that the only way this idea would make logical sense is if we implicitly made the assumption that it was time for New York City to step down from its position as a leading urban center.

In fact, Roger Starr admits as much in the last few lines of his article. He seems to have arrived at the conclusion that New York City’s financial woes had reached such a level as to cause the city to grow beyond its prime. He believes that the best solution is to give up on the great city and just accept that this city is just not the place of dreams it was made out to be. In hindsight, that conclusion seems to be one that was reached hastily. As we can see, it has been several decade since those dark times, and New York City appears only to have grown in reputation as a thriving urban place of economic opportunity and success

“Selling the City in Crisis” – Miriam Greenberg

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Before reading Miriam Greenberg’s, “Selling the City in Crisis,” I never acknowledged the impact reputational capital had on a City’s economy. From this chapter, Greenberg portrays the importance of public perception in shaping a city’s fiscal condition. With this in mind, civic organizations become a necessity in order to fight bad publicity and its related prospect of economic stagnation.

It seems as though New York’s reputation in the 1960s was a self-fulfilling prophecy because we entered into a cycle where bad publicity led to disinterest and deterrence. For instance, the media consistently portrayed New York as a graffiti tagged and crime infested area. This reputation discouraged both prospective investors seeking to start a business and residents who already lived there. In addition, publicizing and overemphasizing crime made it difficult for existing companies to attract talented employees. As a result, the city experienced a “Corporate Exodus,” where businesses with headquarters in the City found it more appealing to situate elsewhere. Furthermore, because of the corporate flight, the City lost revenue from business travelers, reducing hotel occupancy and tourism in general. The spiral continued downward as middle class residents moved out of the City and relocated in the suburbs where safety and sanitation were of less concern. Hence, it is easy for a City lambasted by negative media to enter into a cycle where negative attitudes become actualize.

Since Greenberg makes it clear that perception has the power to start an economic downturn, it becomes a necessity to keep the City’s image in check. Civic organizations such as ABNY (Association for a Better New York) need to exist regardless of their overall measurable benefit. ABNY was formed with the goal of promoting NYC as business friendly and lobbying for better regulations. Although its economic impact was wiped out by the fiscal crisis of 1975-1976, it still made strides in promoting a healthier image of the City. Strategies such as the Big Apple campaign, operation clean sweep, and operation interlock have survived for decades and restructured the way people perceive New York City. Though there is much to be debated about their involvement in housing and development, ABNY managed to bring news media, and even comedy hosts, to understand the importance of portraying a positive New York City.

Altogether, Greenberg makes the general point that public perception can dictate the economic conditions of a city. New York’s unsavory image during the 1960s turned away residents, tourists, and potential businesses. However, the formation of ABNY to promote economic health through perception and legislation made way for a future of attraction. Hence, it is necessary for civic groups to protect the perception of a City if we hope to escape the cycle that follows bad publicity.

Making New York smaler and selling the City

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This week, “Selling the City in Crisis” by Miriam Greenberg and Roger Starr’s “Making New York Smaller” were informative yet depressing. Theyr lays out many problems that New York City faced back in the 60s.

In contrast to New York City today, where excessive richness and congested traffic spread throughout the streets, New York City in the 60s was one of the worst places to live in. The crime rate was nearly 95% for more than a decade with reports of murders, mugging, and drugs were disseminated regularly on television. Vivid portrayal within the article were nauseating and thrilling. Even worse, Eisenhower’s highway projects facilitated outward immigration trend, making it easier for concerned parties to leave the city in the dust with all its notorious reputation.

Moreover, the city was in an economic crisis. Businesses declined proportionally to the rise of crime and interest rate. In 1963, bond’s rating was downgraded to “high risk,” forcing city officials to expensively borrow money to maintain the city. The combined effect pushed the city deeper into excessive borrowing and high level of debt, thus sinking the bond’s rating even lower. Neither the business nor the bonds of the city could be sold; New York City was losing a battle against the recession.

Since a city’s image strongly impacts its attractiveness to and the morale of the people, above-listed problems aggravated existing problems and caused new problems by further depressing New Yorkers who had already been stressed enough. The negative public image, in turn, pushed away both potential investments into and people away from the city. The United States Government was so repulsed by the city, seemingly regarding as a diseased spot that need to be left untouched, continuously declined funding and resources to resuscitate the City. Nowadays, one can see that the government has had a “fonder” view about New York City, continuously bailout banks and corporations of which headquarters are in New York all the while regarding it as the place where greed was born and presently resides.

Having mentally experienced what New York has been through through the pages, it is still hard for me to believe how bad the situation was back then. Upon realizing that, I have a better outlook on its current situation. The present does not seem so bad comparing to the past. I am now more grateful of the luck that we are currently enjoying. It’s not that bad after all.

Pruitt-Igoe Documentary

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When we were watching the documentary of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project one of the things we saw was the destruction of the building. At first I was wondering what am I watching because I just couldn’t imagine something like that happening in New York City. In fact, the only time I feel I’ve seen buildings falling to the ground was on 9/11, but that was an act of terrorism. However, in this case it was done by choice, it just goes to show how much of a failure the project really was and I think the documentary did a good job of personalizing as well as analyzing this fact.

The documentary does a great job of ‘putting a face to a name’. In other words by watching the documentary you would understand the topic better if instead you just chose to read about it. The reason the documentary does a good job of that is because for one thing it has visual cues (such as the imploding of the building), which can go a long way. But, more importantly the documentary has the one-on-one interviews with people who experienced this time period in St. Louis’s history first hand. By bringing in the people it sort of adds an empathic aspect where others are more inclined to listen to what the people are saying because to a certain extent it appeals to the emotional side of the audience so the audience would like to understand it better. This can be seen where one of the people in the documentary talks about how she felt like they were being penalized for being poor, a lot of people will be able to relate to this and will be able to better understand the topic being discussed for that reason. In this regard the Documentary proves more efficient than if someone was just reading about the topic because it gave you a face to see and shows you that someone is actually being impacted by this as opposed to if you were reading this you’d just see a paper in front of you,

The documentary also attacks the audience in a more analytical sense as well. For example, the video talks about acts of legislation, such as the Housing Act of 1949 (which was actually one of the causes for the building of Pruitt-Igoe). The documentary then goes on to explain how this ties into Urban Renewal which will lead to a lot of people moving out of the city and into the suburbs. Since so many people were now moving into suburbs the cities were emptying which had a negative impact on the city and more specifically the residents of Pruitt-Igoe as a whole, where the citizens now had to adapt to a harsher society where violence was growing prevalent. From this aspect the documentary is trying to engage its audience in a more analytical standpoint and build credibility.

The underlying message that the documentary was trying to give off was that although public housing is a good idea, Pruitt-Igoe is a demonstration of how it will fail. In the case of Pruitt-Igoe the residents were given a nice place to live where at first everything was good. However, the government stopped caring and the workers stopped caring and because of this everything got out of hand; Pruitt-Igoe became the very thing that the government was trying to get rid of (slums). Now, Pruitt-Igoe is deemed one of the biggest failures in public housing and when public housing is even mentioned Pruitt-Igoe is brought as a defense against it. It’s a shame that the workers and government stopped giving care to Pruitt-Igoe because had they actually put in some effort into the project we might be having a different discussion about this housing project and instead of watching a documentary about how it failed we’d be watching one about the effects of its success.

In conclusion, the documentary “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” attempts to draw in its audience from all angles. It uses the emotional aspect by way of stories and visual cues, as well as through a logical standpoint by bringing in facts and analyses. In my personal opinion the documentary succeeds in these regards and does a great job both in captivating the audience as well as portraying their opinion about the failure of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project.

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth Movie Response

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The Pruitt-Igoe documentary was a very interesting and insightful film to watch. It was a housing project that came to those who needed it the most. The project brought so many positive effects to the people who used to live in the slums in very unfavorable conditions. If it was done right and the government and the workers cared for it more, I wouldn’t be surprised if it became something bigger. Unfortunately, it was not the case and with it many heart wrenching stories came about.

I did not understand why the maintenance workers stop caring. It was a new complex and the government was getting a good reputation for it. They wanted people out of the slums and this complex was a gift no one in the neighborhood thought they would receive. Why did the government stop caring and did the workers start slacking off? I understand the government would want to save as much money as possible but to not have a television and have people checking on you all of the time must have been so annoying.

The woman whose mother had to sleep in the kitchen was a really heart wrenching story. i can’t imagine the sacrifices her mother made for her family. Her mother let the others have rooms while she herself had to sleep in the kitchen. I was very happy to hear that her mother got her own room when they moved in. The woman also had the greatest times of her life in that complex. She and her siblings would blast music from their place and all the kids from the neighborhood would come and start to have fun. Even when the building went to ruins, her childhood memories came from Pruitt-Igoe til the day it crumbles.

Although this was a very serious movie, I could not help but laugh at the man’s story of how he helped people with the elevators. When the maintenance workers stopped caring about the complex, people who were stuck in the elevators can’t get out. Who better to help people than two young boys? The man and his brother actually opened the doors and pulled the cables to get to the next floor. It showed me even in the midst of troubles, life has its funny moments.

I think if the government did things differently, Pruitt-Igoe would be remembered as a success rather than a failure. It started off well but then soon deteriorated. If the workers at the building cared more, the building wouldn’t have gone to such disrepair. The way the welfare money was handled was definitely too overbearing. I think giving them a set amount of cash based on a budget sheet and letting them use the money the way they wanted would’ve been a better way to monitor the money rather than having someone check if they have a tv or not.

Response to Pruitt-Igoe Film

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The Pruitt-Igoe film showed the possible outcomes of public housing projects, both good and bad. It explored the intentions and policies related to Pruitt-Igoe and how these impacted the experience of residents and the community. It showed the issues that led to the eventual downfall of the housing project. I thought it was disheartening to hear some of the terrible things these people experienced and I wanted to know what had gone so wrong.

Many of the original ideas, policies, intentions, and hopes for Pruitt-Igoe were positive and beneficial to the people who lived there. It was designed to give better homes to people living in slum conditions. Some of the testimonials in the film explain how great the living conditions were when they first moved in. I thought it was interesting to hear that one woman even thought these good memories were great enough to overshadow the bad ones. I believe the experiences that people had in this early stage at Pruit-Igoe were close to what everyone had envisioned for it. Unfortunately they didn’t last.

I believe that the general idea for Pruitt-Igoe was right but there were certain policies and concepts that prevented it from reaching its potential and led to its decline. The first of these was the concept of racial segregation that was involved in the creation of Pruitt-Igoe. I think that the idea that the buildings were being used to keep impoverished black people away from white people encouraged hostility. This was detrimental to the environment and attitude in Pruitt-Igoe.

Another policy that harmed Pruitt-Igoe was expressed in the testimonial describing the father that wasn’t allowed to live with his family in Pruitt-Igoe. I understand that the government didn’t want to waste resources helping people who they perceived as not needing as much help but I believe this policy would have had very negative impacts on the community in Pruitt-Igoe. As we discussed earlier in class, a problem with some low income housing projects has been a disproportionate number of children compared to adults. There are not enough adults to supervise the children so the children begin to cause trouble. This policy only would have contributed to this problem. In addition, because the father lived with the family secretly, this could have encouraged impressionable children to disobey authority figures.

Unfortunately, these issues and others, such as decreased funding for maintenance and increased rent, eventually caused the decline of Pruitt-Igoe to the point where it was dangerous and needed to be destroyed. I do believe that things could have turned out differently that things been done differently early on. I think it serves as an example of what should and should not be done in relation to public housing.