In this post, the success of the Bloomberg administration will be measured in terms of how people of color and the working class have (not) benefited from his policies and projects. It will use some of the points discussed in New York Times article, “12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg” to assess this. One of the first offenses I accused Robert Moses of was his focus over the expensive, middle-to-upper class orientated automobile over public transportation, which is more accessible and working-class friendly. Fortunately, under the Bloomberg administration, New York City was able to extend the 7 subway line to Hudson Yards (Larson 36; Jaffe). While the original plan for the extension had been to create an area for the 2012 Olympics (a bid New York lost), New Yorkers still get to benefit from more access to the city via public transportation. Furthermore, it is clear that Bloomberg did not overlook the MTA when pursuing his Moses-esque scale of redevelopment for New York City. This is the not first time Bloomberg had proposed new stations, but it is one of the few times they were actually developed. One of the other (failed) attempts to extend MTA subway lines was the 1 line to accompany the successful Columbia University expansion (Larson). A less noble and successful development from the Columbia University expansion is the required rezoning of 123 residential units, which was “blighted” (Larson 42). The Supreme Court justified eminent domain since the University counted as a public good (that you usually need to pay thousands for). The prioritization of a public good over the private needs of the working class immediately reminds me of Moses’ own tendency to do the same via slum clearance. Moreover, Larson discusses that the local community was not only concerned about the expansion; it was also concerned with the catalyzation of gentrification in nearby neighborhoods, which would increase the number of lower-income people displaced.
Another Moses-leaning policy of the Bloomberg administration’s is the stop-and-frisk policy. Though New York Times briefly tsks Bloomberg’s unconstitutional policy, it is not treated as a large enough factor when concluding their overall positive perception of Mayor Bloomberg. However, as a woman of color, this significantly impacts my perception of Bloomberg’s success. The stop-and-frisk policy allowed the NYPD to search, question, and temporarily detain people if they were believed to be suspicious. Vague, right? That was also part of the policy–its vagueness. The police were not required to articulate exactly why the person being frisked was suspicious, or the crime they were believed to have been committing, and do not require a warrant (“Stop and Frisk Data”). In 2013, 88% of frisked New Yorkers were innocent; 56% of frisked New Yorkers were black, while 29% were Latino (“Stop and Frisk Data”). In short, this policy was ineffective, criminalized people of color and allowed the NYPD to exploit New Yorkers due to its vague nature.
Finally, the Bloomberg administration is praised by many for the 165,000 units of affordable housing developed during Mayor Bloomberg’s atypical three terms in office (“12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg”). However, when I hear “affordable housing,” I hear more housing for the middle class rather than those with lower-income. This suspicion is not eased when taking into account that the units were geared towards those who would have to contribute 30% of their income to rent, which does not fit the criteria for lower-income tenants (Larson 42). Moreover, given that the homelessness population had increased by a third, I cannot help but believe there is a correlation (“12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg”). In 2005, the Bloomberg administration cut off homeless families from priority access to public housing apartments and Section 8 vouchers which would have helped homeless families transition from shelters to permanent housing resources. Instead, they were offered “short-term subsidies that became a revolving door back to homelessness for thousands of families” (Markee). Furthermore, around 500,000 units of affordable housing were lost due to vacancy destabilization in 2011. To give Mayor Bloomberg credit where it’s due, he did attempt to incentivize the private developers by providing Lower Income Housing Tax Credits. However, as Larson mentions, relying on the private market for affordable housing itself is problematic. Another flaw to Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan is its limited time-span. The ideal would have been permanent affordability, but instead, most of the affordable housing units were affordable a limited time before the market could then proceed to rent at a market-rate while the incomes of tenants would not increase accordingly. Overall, the New Housing Marketplace Plan could have been improved upon to provide lower-income tenants with (permanent) housing, but the intent to provide housing does not go unrecognized.
When I had first discovered that the Bloomberg administration had supposedly combined Jacobsian values with a Moses-esque efficiency during the readings, I had high hopes. Unfortunately, once again several lower-income homeowners and tenants were displaced. People of color were criminalized. The middle class is prioritized over the homeless and working class. The ratio of the influence of Moses to Jacobs in the Bloomberg administration matters little to me overall; it led to little success in my eyes.
References
Larson, Scott (2013) “Building Like Moses with Jacobs in Mind:” Contemporary Planning in New York City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
“12 Years of Mayor Bloomberg.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Dec. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/opinion/sunday/12-years-of-mayor-bloomberg.html.
Jaffe, Eric, and CityLab. “Fun Facts About the New York Subway’s New 7 Train Extension.”CityLab, 11 Sept. 2015, www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/09/7-fun-facts-about-the-new-york-subways-new-7-train-extension/404800/.
“Stop-and-Frisk Data.” NYCLU, New York Civil Liberties Union, 29 July 2017, www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-Frisk-data.
Markee, Patrick. “Bloomberg on NYC Homelessness: A Total Lack of Accountability.”Coalition For The Homeless, 13 Dec. 2013, www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/bloomberg-on-nyc-homelessness-a-total-lack-of-accountability/.
Nabila has done a great job of “questioning everything” as Larson likes to emphasize, and it’s apparent that she’s questioning whether the Bloomberg Administration was really able to help the low-income citizens of New York City, which I believe is very important because it helping us give context to the effects of the Bloomberg Administration on the city and its people. I wanted to add on to Nabila’s response by expanding on the stop-and-frisk policy, which was allowed across the country as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Terry v. Ohio case, but was most importantly ushered into NYC by the Bloomberg Administration (Rosenfeld et al 2011). Promoters of the stop-and-frisk policy say that although the arrests that are made under this policy are very few, the few arrests that have been made are still important because it’s still getting criminals off the street. However, according to a study done by Rosenfeld and Fornango, it was found that “The productivity of police stops, measured by the percentage of stops resulting in
arrest, however, is weakly and negatively associated with precinct crime rates: proportionately fewer SQF arrests occur in precincts with higher crime rates.” Thus, demonstrating how the stop-and-frisk strategy doesn’t generally work for the crime in NYC. It’s important to note that this study focused on burglary and robbery cases in NYC, and other crimes were not included. The study reports that although cases of robbery seem to have gone down, since the implementation of stop-and-frisk, cases of burglary have not really gone down, in fact, there is “no significant effect of police stops” on burglary cases. Now, I’ve yet to make the distinction between burglary and robbery, which I didn’t even know up ’til finding this study. Burglary is theft committed by sneaking into a building, with the intent to not engage with any civilians. However, robbery is theft committed by engaging with someone to steal their belongings through intimidation, and other methods. So although stop-and-frisk does allow some arrests to occur, it usually does not benefit the society since the police have all the power in deciding who they want to stop-and-frisk, which would just worsen the already strenuous tension between the police and the civilians they are meant to protect.
Rosenfeld R (2011) “The Impact of Police Stops on Precinct Crime Rates in New York City, 2003 – 2010.” Paper presented at Understanding the Crime Decline in NYC, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York (September 22-23)
http://johnjay.jjay.cuny.edu/files/Rosenfeld_Fornango.pdf