While the readings mentioned city planning, I find the most interesting thing to be how cities evolve despite how they are planned. This has a lot to do with Liz’s question: “Is there an underlying prejudice towards the citizens of Five Points fueling their status as the worst neighborhood in NYC?” Being called a slum is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. If people keep insisting that a certain area is a “bad neighborhood,” then those who can afford to will stay away from it. Only those who can not afford anything else will even dare live there. However, by restricting residents to the poorer people, the area deteriorates, becoming more of a slum with each poor family that moves in.
This is especially true when immigrants move in. They come to America with no money, no connections, and no knowledge of the land. Of course they end up living where no one else wants to live. Landlords even took advantage of them, splitting apartments into small, uncomfortable rooms. Because people look down on immigrants, places like the Five Points become even less desirable. The Five Points even became known as a place of immorality and sin. It was the place where black and white people were together on the street, drinking, and prostitutes practiced openly. This drove the upper class away except of course the tours to see how the other half live.
However some neighborhoods fare better than the Five Points. Recently, Manhattan has been undergoing gentrification in many neighborhoods previously thought of as untouchable. Like Jackie mentioned, Times Square used to be known as a sketchy place, almost a Red Light district, and now we all know it as a tourist haven. The East Village used to be just for starving artists and druggies, and now its the most expensive real estate per square foot in Manhattan. Even Harlem is on its way to becoming a trendy place to live.
The problem with this gentrification though, is that the poor people who call the neighborhood home for generations can no longer afford to live there. Someone whose family has lived in an apartment for centuries will be thrown to the side to make room for more white yuppies.
So what’s better? Leaving slums the way they are or kicking people out of their homes?
