Hi Noelia,

I’m not scheduled for a response this week, but I wanted to add a comment to your response.

In your response to Ariana you wrote:

“On a side note, isn’t gentrification sort of expected as a result of rezoning areas in a capitalist society and urban landscape like ours?”

This is exactly what I thought after going over the readings and blog posts this week.

I also asked myself why it’s any surprise that rezoning has been used to displace low income residents when more profitable opportunities arise. Putting aside the capitalist spirit of the city for a moment, urban planning has focused heavily on economic growth and prosperity. Thinking back to our discussion of the past and present Time Square, it’s clear that urban planners favored the plan that would open up economic growth and prosperity. The Third Regional Plan, while stressing the Three E’s, similarly talked a lot about how to make the tri-state region desirable to global businesses.

Going back to your statement about capitalism and urban landscape, I totally agree with what you said. If we go with the typical capitalist narrative of picking ourselves up from out bootstraps, working hard and becoming wealthy, and we do so — doesn’t it make sense (in this system) that we get what we want? Shouldn’t we be rewarded with the convenience of living near Colombia University, for example?

Based on this model, why should the 19% of people earning $10,000 – $25,000 per year be protected from displacement? Didn’t they do something wrong? Didn’t the people who can afford to attend and live within Colombia University do something right?

I think what I’m getting at here is that the city and it’s planners do not value everyone the same. Rezoning and strategizing to take land by the Bloomberg administration using the justification of economic development says this. The prospect of putting wealth into an area of the city is more important than maintaining low income housing.

Based on a capitalist system, is this wrong? If the goal of both the city and it’s planners is to make money, then perhaps it is the right thing to focus on the upper middle class and wealthy at the expense of low income residents.

For the super wealthy, the city has a vested interest in attracting them and keeping them happy. Some information about NYC’s top 1% was in the Daily News today. NYC’s top 1% (individuals who earn at least $636,000 per year) paid 47% of income taxes in 2013. They earned $107.5 billion, around 38% of the city’s income. In our capitalist system, their voices far outweigh those earning $10,000 – $25,000 per year. But isn’t that only fair? If true equity “the quality of being fair and impartial” (dictionary.com) in the city is myth, then what does “urban equity” or “capitalist equity” look like?