According to NYC Housing, “New York City’s shortage of affordable housing has reached a crisis point.” The problem of affordable housing has different causes, including increase in New Yorkers’ purchasing rate in the housing marketplace. Salaries of city’s renters have not changed much in the past 20 years, but “the average monthly rent for an apartment in New York City increased by almost 40 percent.” (NYC Housing) In addition, the mismatch between supply and demand also lead to the problem of shortage in affordable housing. The 2011 U.S. Census states that there are 979,142 households that are either low-income or extremely low-income, but there are only about 424,949 affordable units available to rent. Therefore, affordable housing is a top priority of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. In 2014, he released his plan to create 200,000 units of affordable housing by introducing two policies, mandatory inclusionary housing (MIH) and zoning for quality and affordability (ZQA).

In class, we had discussed one of solutions to increase the amount of affordable housing, which is to encourage developers to build bigger buildings and include a specific percentage of apartments with cheap rent. This seems like a good policy and would attract developers who want to build giant buildings. However, is it really beneficial to people who are looking for affordable housing? Since only 20% of apartments in a building are affordable and the rest are expensive, the stores around the building would tend to sell products that are affordable for people with high incomes. The rent of the place determines the prices of products sell in the store and the monthly rent of the store. No one is willing to pay for a high rent and selling five apples for two dollars. Business owners need to sell the goods at prices that can support their monthly rent, the wages of employees and themselves. So, are government also going to provide services in the neighborhood, for 20% of the population, by opening stores for these families? Although MIH provides affordable housings in the city to low-income families, these families are not getting the sense of community in the neighborhood they are living in.

Another problem of MIH policy is many developers chose not to participate in the inclusionary zoning program, because “implicit subsidy for the affordable units is so high.” “As a result, inclusionary zoning generated fewer than 3,000 new affordable units from 2005 to mid-2013, according to an analysis from Brad Lander, a New York City councilman.” (Barro, 2014) The statistic shows the ineffectiveness of the inclusionary zoning program and makes me think implementing this program might not be beneficial people. First of all, the hidden cost of sustaining cheaper units discourages developers from participating in the program. Secondly, residents living in affordable housing units would have a hard time finding a sense of community in the area they live in, because stores in the neighborhood are possibly all targeting the rich customers. Finally, low-income communities are the targets of upzoning programs and since often of time residents are not included in the decision-making process, more people will be displaced rather than getting helped.

Nathan Newman, a housing activist, suggested that instead of including affordable units in the large building, government should sell density to developers for cash. The government can then use the money to improve low-income communities by constructing buildings with affordable housing and allow the residents in the community to decide what to do in order to best benefit the community and its people.

Work Cited:

Barro Josh (2014). Affordable Housing That’s Very Costly. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/upshot/affordable-housing-thats-very-costly.html(last accessed 5 May 2017)

NYC Housing. Our Current Affordable Housing Crisis – Affordable Housing For Every New Yorker. http://www1.nyc.gov/site/housing/problem/problem.page (last accessed 5 May 2017)

Oscar Perry Abello (2016). How East Harlem Wrote Its Own Development Plan. https://nextcity.org/features/view/east-harlem-neighborhood-plan-upzoning-affordable-housing (last accessed 5 May 2017)

 

Compared to the city that Robert Moses depicted, reconstructed and modernized in large scales, the city Jane Jacobs described, to me, has more sense of community and friendliness. In “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” Jacobs presented her idea about the relationship between the city and its people, “give each other constant mutual support, both economically and socially” (Jacobs, 1931, p.14). Her belief, that the formation of a great city should be spontaneous and the residents in the city should be part of developing progress, is very different from that of Robert Moses. She argued that the city and its people should mingle together and the city should be structured to improve the quality of life for its residents.

During Robert Moses’ era, the city went under many construction programs supported by the government. Residents were convinced that these programs would improve the quality of life of working people and solve the problem of unemployment. In fact, neighborhoods reconstructed did not perform better, instead went downhill faster (Jacobs, 1931, p.6). To Jacobs, theses programs led by Robert Moses seem to care about the apparent of the city, how it is present to people, more than the actual function of the city. In the introduction of her book, Jacobs pointed out the difference in the life of North End during her two visits, which supports her point that the city is able to adapt and generate itself without construction programs that Robert Moses promote. Additionally, the city undergoes the regeneration by its residents would function in a way that benefit its people the most. The community in North End is similar to the city that Jane Jacobs  described in chapter 7,  “The generator of diversity,” of her book.

Jane Jacobs believed a successful city should be diverse, in both physical structure and population. Population diversity will bring in different types of business due to various needs of people. Once a business succeed in the neighborhood, it would attract their competitors. As the number of different types of store increases, more individuals would be attracted to the community due to the convenience it provides. Following this cycle, the city will develop both financially and culturally and became the city that  Savitch described in his article, “What Makes A City Great? An American Perspective.” which contains “the 4C of greatness.” New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles were listed to be four cities that presents “great city,” because them contain “4C,” which are currency, cosmopolitanism, concentration and Charisma (Savitch, 2010).

The ideal way of how a city should develop according to Jane Jacobs will lead the city to obtain the “4C” that Savitch discussed in his article. However, once the city becomes “successful,” would the same group of residents benefit from the convenience that the city provides? As more people move into the neighborhoods where parks, schools, stores and residential buildings mingle, the price of real estate will eventually rise, leading to unaffordable housing for low-income class and working class. Additionally, increase number of stores will lead to competition and forced small stores that are not able to keep up with the competition to shut down. In this case, how would the city that Jane Jacobs promotes remain diverse socially?

I agree with Jane Jacobs that residents have the power to shape the city, and what I would call “the resident-centered community” works best for both the financial and social development of the city. However, I think the residents’ ability to keep the city functioning in the same order is questionable. The mutual relationship between the city and its residents will remain, but the city will change as more people arrived and new ideas created.

 

Work Cited:

Jacobs, J. (1961). Introduction. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 2-25). New York: Vintage Books.

Jacobs, J. (1961). The generators of diversity. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 143-151). New York: Vintage Books.

Savitch. H.V. (2010). What makes a city great? An American perspective https://www.planetizen.com/node/46776 (last accessed 3 March 2017)