The readings definitely made me more bearish on the prospects of a tech-dominated New York. I am still skeptical that tech will reduce job opportunities in long run, but I am worried about how the influx of tech is causing a new wave of gentrification and tech’s short-term threat to job opportunities.
The Industry City proposal is seen by some as the future Brooklyn manufacturing sector. Supposedly, the plan will create 20,000 jobs. However, this is also coming at the heels of gentrification in rising property values and living costs. As Hum points out, rising property values in Sunset Park’s manufacturing area may displace both businesses and residents. Considering the nature of tech, it is reasonable to wonder just how many jobs will be created by Industry City. I am also disheartened by the focus that Industry City is putting on innocuous parts of the plan like hotels and bicycle paths; do these parts of the plan also threaten the residents?
Nonetheless, I still firmly believe that in the long run, if we push for standardized computer education, we can see a future where tech does drive job growth. This is shown in the third article where a new business is going out of its way to seek local talent and train them themselves in the Innovation Lab. As important as manufacturing is to the area, the industry’s decline has more to do with the rise of cheap labor in other countries than the rise of tech. I believe that even if this proposal hadn’t been made, the city’s manufacturing sector would’ve eventually died off. We should definitely push our city to adapt to the changing economy rather than slow it down for the sake of keeping some jobs in the short term. However, in the short term with so many tech companies coming in at once, there definitely will be a dip in employment and even residency among older New Yorkers.
This part is a continuation of my previous response. You asked about the $10,000 bootcamps. The $10,000 coding bootcamps are on the extreme end and are inherently designed to make regular people into “fully-qualified” programmers in about 19 weeks of intense training. In theory, investment should be recouped almost immediately after completing the bootcamp by landing a job since demand for programmers is high right now. However, the effectiveness of the bootcamp is questionable and typically not advised for newcomers. Instead what older New Yorkers should do is look to the numerous free web academies and videos online that teach people how to code. The second and third article discusses the Innovation Lab, a public and privately-funded vocational school that provides job training for residents looking for work in the Industry City. Nonetheless, even with all these resources, the older labor force may still not be able to adapt. Thus, it is uncertain what will happen in the short term especially to those living in the proposed Tech Triangle. However, like I said before, I remain bullish on the prospects of New York’s future economy.
Christian, you make a good distinction between short-term and long-term consequences of a new economy. It’s hard to see how a work force trained to do traditional work, whether it is farming, mining, or manufacturing, can make a quick transition to very different kinds of work. But their children and grandchildren, for the most part, will be trained to do new jobs. I think societies have learned that adaptation requires some kind of coordination and, it seems, a lot of financial support. Expensive boot camps are an individualistic response, although the New York City government is subsidizing some free intensive boot camps for city residents who have not gone to college.