Capitalism works because there are always ebbs and flows. There was white flight and there was crime, then there was a revival now there is over-saturation. The same people who had to live through the blight and the crime are being driven out by the sons and daughters of the whites that fled in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s not fair for them and its not fair to anybody who wants to live a affordable life in New York. We have just become too much of a cultural and economic icon for the tide to be reversed by people’s decisions. The commercial sector takes notice of cultural and political changes and uses information to make money. That’s why Brooklyn has blown up and that’s why it has become so expensive. It’s part of a real estate bubble like in any other place, there is going to be a rise and there will be a fall. This does not mean that landlords and developers should get to walk all over people. Bloomberg was very developer and landlord friendly because he himself was a man of commerce. Now De Blasio is trying to make himself into the great progressive crusader against the affordability crisis. He knows he has to work to do within the confines of the market and that means working with developers but not favouring them. In the future I think that the best the city can do is try to make sure that people are not abused by their landlords and by developers. That means strengthening tenant unions (something De Blasio mentions in his ESN plan but does not emphasize) and giving community boards more of a real voice in what goes on in their areas.
Like the Professor mentioned in class, it was the Poles in Williamsburg that decided to start charging more for the newer people rather than only renting to other Poles, they made a decision to benefit from the forces of the free market and they paid the price. There is really nothing that can stop the forces of the market and De Blasio’s plans are really just a straw roof for the people that know that the dreaded hipsters are heading their way. Unions work very well for industries and are the one of the greatest social aspects of our society that protect people from the arbitrary nature of the market. Tenants who form together and make themselves powerful, even by getting lawyers or getting themselves into the government, will be able to actually to protect their homes. Realistically, the only way to stop people from wanting to move into your area is by going after the super gentrifiers that are now pushing the hipsters out of Park Slope and Williamsburg. The people are being pushed down into Eastern and Southern Brooklyn and will continue to flow and change rents until they realise the New York the moved here to live in does not exist anymore because they have gotten rid of what they grew up dreaming about. That’s a different way of saying that they will have buyers remorse because coming in somewhere just as the financial bubble is about to pop is no fun. Time is on the side of the tenants because this bubble has been building since the 90’s but for now my recommendation is to build a defense around grassroots political organisations and prepare for the arrival of the developers and wait for band aids from the city.
