Paris may be France, London may be England, but New York, we continue to reassure ourselves, is not America. (Beyond the Melting Pot, page 2)
New York’s otherness is something I have actually thought quite a bit about over the course of my travels. Since age 9, I, through a combination of my parents’ generosity and sheer luck, have been traveling abroad. I’ve confronted and been confronted by people’s conceptions of the United States. The visions have been varied: in Russia, America was viewed with some real mistrust; in southern Italy (Sicily, to be exact), an antiquated vision of the United States featuring streets paved with gold survives; Germans located themselves somewhere in the divide between these two opinions. Many expressed themselves confused by American naivete, a trait that they perceived with a bemused wist. Whatever the opinion on my country at large, almost all I have met on my travels agree that New York is not the United States. I have often agreed with this assessment, many times very eagerly. New York is culture; the United States is not. New York is learning; the United States is not and so on and so forth. I am not sure that after the election I can totally agree with the authors’ assessment that the nation is being remade in the city’s image. Perhaps it was but I think the results push back at that notion. I do think however that New York continues to be one of the best examples of American principles, prizing pluralism and diversity. It would be naive of me to render it some kind of utopia in which difference does not matter. But as I have forced myself to think more about the country’s intellectual tradition and the concept promoted by Alexis de Tocqueville that democracy in America did not need to be imposed as it was in Europe, unified here as it has been with the common sense of every citizen, I have come to recognize my city much more as a integral part of the United States. It is no longer an entity I wish to divorce from its larger context because, at its core, the tradition is beautiful (if deeply flawed).
Benjamin Karasik
February 13, 2017 — 12:35 am
I have a literature question:
From “Seeing Cities Change”
What particular negative values from the inner cities allowed many individuals to flock to the suburbs? And in respect to the suburbs, what positive values did the suburbs present people that they could not get in the city? I understand it as a way out, but not for everyone. Individuals who essentially had to stay in the inner city did so, but others who were able to leave, did so through their own means and were not subject to the cruel nature of the inner city. So what are they fleeing?
(Page 22)
My take on these texts is that the connections between particular race based aspects of NYC in the 1960s and NYC today are very similar. As I mentioned above with the question, middle class individuals, mostly white, have the opportunity to abandon the city at times where it fails them and when it is convenient for them, and then return to take advantage of particular neighborhoods, their amenities, and their perks. There is something about New York however, as Professor Krase mentioned above that attracts individuals to it. It pulls New Yorkers back in when we try to leave. “So and so place is nice but it ain’t no New York” as we like to say. I did like the imagery I received when I read that New York city is like a jungle ( from “REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS”) It skewed my “visual urban approach” towards the city that I always viewed as boastful, prideful, and voluptuous. Yet, I keep reading about why people want to always leave it. Maybe NYC, and in a smaller scale, Brooklyn, is in of itself a living, breathing entity that consists of all little nooks and crannies that people from Long Island to Parkchester to Coney Island bring to the table. Just a thought.
Jerome Krase
February 13, 2017 — 11:27 am
Good points! The introduction presents a visual approach to understanding how and why cities change. It emphasizes that the ways that ordinary people, like you and me, feel about the places in which they live and work affect how they act upon it, such as staying or fleeing. Our goal in the goal is place ourselves in the 1960s and this a good start. Thanks.