Author: cbutron1996

The decline of small businesses is a widely overlooked consequence of gentrification despite the fact that their loss is just as impactful as the loss of low-income residents. Small businesses not only provide places shop and work, but are direct products of the cultural makeup of neighborhoods. Their loss and replacement by higher-income businesses also plays a role in accelerating gentrification by increasing the cost of living. Take Back NYC’s Small Businesses Jobs Survival Act is an attempt to stem the tide against small businesses.

However, despite the organization’s good intentions, the language of the act makes me concerned as to the impartialness of the organization and whether or not they are truly looking at every facet of the issue. My concerns are mainly focused on the language specifically targeting landlords, calling for laws that prohibit what Take Back NYC describes as “landlord abuses.” Certainly many of the things they listed as abuses are definitely horrible and should be prohibited. However, I think that the loss of small businesses is caused by more than just landlord abuses. The problem is systemic in that a lot of the change has been and is currently being propagated by the city government. It also does not help that the global economy has been suffering as of late. Foreign investors are looking for sure things to keep their money safe and that place is New York City real estate. Besides, some of the things that Take Back NYC describes as abuses such as passing on property taxes onto tenants seem to me as natural things to do. Property taxes are rising due to the rising property values. In both Small Business Survival articles, local property owner Michael Forrest argues against the popular point of view that most landlords are simply out to make money. He argues that like small businesses he values long-term customers and that he does try to accommodate them, but rising property taxes and other costs forces landlords like him to raise rents. Landlords have bills to pay too. Landlords make their money by owning land and renting it out while small businesses provide goods and services for profit. It isn’t unreasonable that landlords would want to pass on their costs to their customers as all businesses do.

Overall, Take Back NYC falls into the trap of targeting an easily-identifiable enemy and pushing its greater message on the back of attacking that enemy. While the intentions may be good and the technique is effective in gaining the most passionate supporters, like many causes that have employed this technique, the main goal and message will get lost in translation. Not to mention the act does little in actually solving the issue.

Solutions:

Finding an effective long-term solution to this problem will be tough, but I believe we can make great progress by being pragmatic and controlling the things we can control now. One thing we can control is property taxes. One solution that we can implement is property tax reform in that property taxes should be both progressive and based more on income rather than market value. Thus, landlords who own land with high value on the free market, but charge low rents will not be saddled with high property taxes. We can also provide incentives for landlords who intend to keep their rents low by paying for the difference in market value and current value in exchange. Also, since the tax is progressive it can decrease the amount of realtors attempting to gentrify the city. Those who wish to invest in city real estate are looking at a large tax bill.

Questions to Ask Shop Owners:

1. How long have you’ve been in the neighborhood? How involved are you in the neighborhood?
2. Who are your customers? Are most of them long-term customers or are they short term? Do you know many of your customers personally?
3. How has increasing rents/property taxes/cost of business affected your business? Have you had to increase your prices?

The recent wave of gentrification that has been impacting Brooklyn is not something new to New York or any city. Cities always change. Prosperous cities draw in many immigrants. Immigrants begin making up larger portions of neighborhoods. Current residents feel that their culture and livelihood is being displaced, resulting in them leaving and also causing property values to plummet. Immigrants dominate their respective neighborhoods. Eventually, new immigrants chasing opportunity come in and begin displacing the now entrenched immigrant populations. Decades pass and then eventually, property values plummet so much that it begins attracting hipsters, students, and artists. Hipsters, students, and artists start gentrifying their places of residence. This attracts higher-income residents, raising property values and threatening to displace the immigrants. Though seemingly local in nature, the cycle is part of a much larger global economic cycle that pushes immigrants to certain parts of the world in search of stability and that drives investors to coalesce around certain parts of the world for financial opportunity. Currently, New York City is attracting both large immigration and large gentrification. These conflicting movements are distinguishing themselves in interesting ways.

What is interesting is how differently the movements of the immigrants and the wealthy propagate themselves in cities. As the article Global Cities, Local Streets: Everyday Diversity from New York to Shanghai, puts it: immigrants who come from the Global South populate lower-income neighborhoods while immigrants who come from the Global North populate higher-income neighborhoods. The Global South tends to open businesses built on low-prices and a distinctly ethnic feel, which changes depending on the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. The Global North tends to open businesses built on high prices and a more homogenized, which is shown in the fact that upscale neighborhoods tend to be similar all around the world. As the article points out, ABCs, or art galleries, boutiques, and cafes, tend to be widespread in Global North neighborhoods.

One can say the Global North is a natural result of globalization and is a representation of multiple cultures, which is why the style is so similar across many borders. However, there is an argument that the Global South better represents globalization in that shops tend to reflect the ethnic character of not only the owner, but the neighborhood and the area around it. For example: the article points out the sandwiches at Ali’s roti shop, which are halal meat wrapped in Indian flat bread, brought to the Caribbean by East Indian migrants. Global South’s shopping streets are unique in each neighborhood, but have their own twists in that they are heavily influenced by their environments. The Global North, on the other hand, tends to force its culture upon places, replacing environments rather than embracing them.

What is also interesting is the somewhat differing and somewhat similar views that both the Global North and the Global South have for the rise of national chain stores. The Global North tends to see these stores as signs of decline since they tend to cater to all income classes, including those with lower income. The rise of these stores in neighborhoods of the Global South tend to be seen as signs of improvement yet at the same time they threaten the livelihood of small businesses who cannot compete with the pricing of the chain stores. The labor practices of these stores tend to be questionable. As a result of these many factors, there is fierce opposition to the proliferation of chain stores in New York from both sides of the aisle. Online stores face similar scrutiny from both sides. Online stores are similar to chain stores in that they typically cater to all incomes for their low prices. Thus, they are looked down upon by the North and are feared by the South. Though the North are generally more accepting of online stores. Online stores are even worse in that they have practically the same negative effects that physical chain stores do just without any possible social interaction.

Overall, I believe change to our shopping streets is inevitable as change to our cities is inevitable. The rise of online stores and more homogenized shopping districts is both unifying the world and isolating those who are not in tune with change.

The Silicon City exhibit and our tour of Civic Hall presented a very different outlook on the rise of tech in city than the one we have been presented in our readings.

Though Silicon City felt more like a presentation on the history of tech rather than one focused on tech in New York, it still touched upon the increasing number of tech companies basing themselves in New York as well as the prospects of more tech-focused education, as shown in the building of Cornell Tech. The theme of Silicon City is a future where most people will be employed in some form of tech.

The Civic Hall tour gave a much deeper perspective in effect of tech on the city. Though the presentation was mainly focused on the firm’s effect on the federal government’s tech policies, the underlying theme was that tech is always presenting new opportunities. The firm based in Civic Hall was basically created to address the inefficiencies of government tech. These inefficiencies are partially the result of poorly-run bureaucracy, but it’s also due to the continuous advancement of technology. Tech that was sufficient for certain responsibilities in the past have to be replaced to address the needs of today and the future. The firm works to recognize these inefficiencies and present solutions whenever possible. In a way, the message of Civic Hall is that tech is always changing and there’s always new problems. As a result, that means that there’s always new opportunities.

The Civic Hall tour reaffirmed my beliefs in tech’s true place in the future global economy. Though it is true that, in terms of employees per firm, tech does hire significantly less people than industries like manufacturing, the idea that that will lead to an overall decline in job opportunities is not proven. In my view, with the rise in problems related to tech, the rise in total number of firms may make up for the loss in employees per firm. Throughout tech’s short history, it always seemed that whenever one problem is fixed, ten more rise out of it. It’s like the rise of new programming languages. The language of C++ was created to address the inefficiencies of its predecessor C. While many new opportunities arose because of it, along came new problems that were simply unforeseen in C. Thus, it is unreasonable to believe that we may one day become so efficient in our tech that we may never need to maintain and upgrade it. Tech as we know it will be very different ten, or even five, years from now. There will be new problems and more problems than ever before. Tech has to be there, ever vigilant, to address them.

The rejected zoning changes in Williamsburg, however, brings me back to what I feel is the biggest issue with the rise of tech. It’s not the lack of job opportunities, though that issue is very real in the short term. It’s the prospect of gentrification and the drastic changing of environment that tech brings. Tech’s prosperity is rooted in its tendency to center itself in few locations. That means that it’s almost impossible for tech to prosper in areas without crowding lower-income people out. This issue is not just short-term, it’s long-term. Unless tech suddenly begins offering more lower-skilled positions, perhaps by dividing responsibilities that higher-skilled positions have, tech will always be a profession with a high skill floor and, as a result, a high income. In order to address this issue, we do need to hold off on completely entrenching areas in tech, perhaps only letting a few at a time. We need to make sure that when do let some in that it does not set precedents for other companies to come in at will, which is a primary issue of the proposed zoning changes. In the mean time, we must focus on educating our current and our future workers in tech so that when the time comes when we absolutely need to begin our full shift, that they will be ready to seize the opportunities as they come.

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.

The point of the finance industry is to facilitate the consistent flow of money. While it is an important industry, if the city overly relies on finance, then its economy would be heavily dependent on the world economy, which is volatile. We have seen the consequences of the city’s economy being influenced by that of rest of the world with the Great Recession. By growing the city’s tech sector, we can reduce New York City’s dependence on the world economy. The tech sector also has more employment opportunities. Aside from work in established firms, people in the tech sector can work freelance, full-time or part-time. The Center for an Urban Future reports that the amount of part-time freelance jobs increased by 51%. The fast-changing nature of the industry also allows for the flow of new ideas. Innovators can create startups to realize these ideas and New York City is one of the world’s biggest hubs of innovation. In 2015, NYC-based tech startups had around $6.66 billion in venture capital.

On the other hand, many see the sector’s penchant for automation as a threat to city employment. Most of the working population is not educated in the skills needed to survive in the tech industry. As a result, a sudden shift to tech could leave millions unemployed. However, if that happens, it will not last forever. Computer Science is quickly becoming one of the most sought after majors in the United States. The sector is still fairly young, leaving a great opportunity for growth. Also, the rise of coding bootcamps and online coding academies are replacing the roles that colleges held for educating aspiring computer programmers and engineers. These new schools are not like the standard Computer Science education offered in college in that students do not have to take abstract courses on the idea of programming or developing skills to prepare for programming. Instead, these schools focus only on making people into programmers by teaching only courses in learning programming languages and immediately exposing students to the advanced techniques that may take years for students in college to access. One bootcamp called the Dev Bootcamp proclaims that they can take a person new to computers and turn him/her into a full-fledged programmer in only 19 weeks. People who may not have had a proper college education or even a high school education can become programmers under these programs. The cost is a bit prohibitive with tuition averaging around $10,000, but the potential return is high with the currently high demand for labor. Not to mention, there is talk of adding programming to our core K-12 curriculum. In an industry known for its fairly young labor force, core programming curriculum can mean that post-secondary education may not even be necessary for future generations. Over time, the wider labor force should be able to shift smoothly towards tech.

Civic tech is another potential benefit of technological innovation. In the past, the government was largely inaccessible to the average citizen. It was once hard for people to commit to causes and organize with other like-minded people due to a lack of communication. However, the rise of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter coupled with civic technologies such as Neighborland, people are now able to organize faster than ever. All protests that occur in the city are organized online. Like-minded people can congregate on a single website. Even then, it’s still difficult for citizens to participate in elections because people either have other obligations or no reliable form of transport. This showed recently in the Massachusetts Democratic primaries where voters in several precincts reported that they were blocked from the voting lines due to a rallies held nearby. Never mind the fact that these rallies may have been examples of blatant voter fraud, the fact that things as simple as rallies can stop people from voting shows the inefficiency in the current voting system which requires people to be physically present at certain places in order to vote. Another form of civic technology which allows people to submit votes electronically can simplify the voting process and increase participation.

There is a concern that rise of social media and civic tech could mean that while there is more participation, those who do participate are less informed due to the rather low attention-span of the internet and the ability for misinformation to proliferate. However, with the speed at which people are able to access information via the internet, it’s difficult for people to completely uninformed. As quickly as one article can spread in support of one side, another article in opposition can spread just as quickly. Inevitably, those who do take the time to find out the truth will be the ones who do participate the most.

From discovering fire to creating the first computer, throughout most of history, humans have always sought ways to make life easier from themselves. Humans’ ingenuity has led to a society where people have access to a steady supply of food and water, where people can travel halfway around the world in less than a day, and where people can know about anything that’s happening in another part of the world at any time. We often take innovations like these for granted in how difficult they were to achieve them and how many sacrifices were made as a result. Despite the drastic changes that occur in society due to innovation, time and time again, whenever innovation occurred, new jobs arose. That could very well change in the future where innovation in the form of robots can completely replace people in jobs.

I have always wondered what the logical conclusion for humanity would be if robots actually took all of our jobs. Would we be a society of beggars because we have no jobs or would we be in a perfect paradise where our only jobs are to “enlighten” ourselves? I suspect that the answer is neither one of those two options. Or perhaps the replacement of people by robots in jobs only result in the creation of newer, much different jobs. I believe that this is the most probable scenario. As incredible as modern computers and robots are, they will always have one great limitation: the lack of a human brain. Computers and robots have are capable of amazing things: they can execute billions of calculations in a matter of seconds, they can drive cars given the right conditions, and studies have shown that they are capable of learning new information so long as there’s code in place to parse this information. However, computers are governed by hard-coded logic. No matter how many layers of complexity you fill a computer with, they will always be driven by simple logic, which ultimately stifles the computer’s ability to innovative. The human brain, on the other hand, is innovative. It can think outside the box and at times make seemingly illogical decisions that may end up working out in the end. That is something that robots can never achieve. The new innovative economy will most likely be a symbiotic relationship between robots and people where robots will do most of the heavy labor, and people will maintain and improve the robots.

It is more likely that the influx of robots would cause a temporary fall in demand for low-skill labor. However, I am confident in society’s ability to shift to a tech-oriented economy. If not that, the service sector will most likely remain dominated by humans. The US had begun long ago shifting towards a tech/service-oriented economy. “Over the past half-century, the USA has shifted from an economy centered on producing physical goods to one centered on innovation and knowledge.” This is due to outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to other countries. As a result, the shift to a tech-oriented economy should not be too drastic for the US. Though we should include programming as part of our core curriculum if we are to make steps to include the working classes and people outside the tech-centric cities. For the issue of tech being dominated by a few big cities, I feel that the issue is mostly a consequence of culture. The US, especially in the cities, is changing and the other cities will eventually catch up. There are also places in the web where programmers all around the world can work together and not have to be located in the special “tech cities.” While the venture capital and tech as an industry is centralized in the big cities, tech as a culture is widespread and is growing every single day. In the end, I am very tech-optimistic. I am also skeptical as to how much the shift to tech would really harm our economy.

However, the real question facing humanity is how do we help other countries acclimate themselves to changing economy? Ultimately, the tech boom will reach developing countries. It’s already reaching China—the world’s number one manufacturer and exporter. For years they’ve thrived on their ability to attract foreign investment due to their massive yet cheap labor force. However, the influences of rising wages and a higher expectancy of standard of living in that country has been causing a slow, but steady outflow of manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia and India. In response, there are reports that in late 2015, China was already making moves in building large robot-oriented factories, places that used to be dominated by cheap labor. While these moves were probably necessary, they could very well lead to the predicament facing the US today.

The Community Board 1 area comprising the neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint are home to a very diverse population. The majority of the population is non-Hispanic White, but a significant minority population resides there as well. Recently, the area has been undergoing gentrification. The neighborhoods’ reputation as a rough and crime-laden area has been usurped by the hip and modern look cultivated by the many artists that reside there. As a result, there has been a “flood” of new rich inhabitants willing to pay top dollar for an apartment in the area as well as increasing tourism. Many consider this reverse in outlook a revival of the once-deteriorating neighborhoods. Others, mostly long-time inhabitants, consider this a tragedy. Old residents, many of which have been living in the area for several generations, are being priced out. The very artists who helped “revive” the neighborhoods are also moving out since ironically the very reason they lived there was for the area’s low rents. There has always been racial and social tension in the area, the original source being crime. Now the source of tension is gentrification. Not every Community Board 1 resident is against gentrification. Many residents see the old industrial complexes of old Williamsburg and Greenpoint as outdated and in dire need of an update; they see the residents who oppose the recent changes as zealots who oppose improvement. They enjoy the support of the city government who see the neighborhoods as a great place to attract more wealth. The new, wealthy residents and the government are the pressure from above. The old, lower-income residents are the pressure from below. Whether or not these two groups can compromise relies mostly on the trust both groups place on the government and the government’s ability to meet the needs of both groups. The views of each side are not completely irreconcilable, there is room for compromise. The government is capable of modernizing and maintaining the neighborhoods while providing adequate affordable housing. Unfortunately, broken promises have destroyed the trust that residents had for the governments. The government’s complete disregard for the Community Board 1’s views in regards to rezoning have certainly reinforced the distrust of government. Certainly, the community boards in their current states have little influence over the future of their communities.

Charlotte Gardens, South Bronx caught my attention because it differs from the stereotypical look of affordable housing. While most affordable housing attempts to house as many people for as little cost as possible, the focus of Charlotte Gardens seems to be to provide an aesthetically-pleasing, spacious neighborhood that provides a healthy environment for those with lower-income. This look completely differs from what South Bronx was back in the 1970s when it was literally burning. South Bronx used to be the typical affordable housing neighborhood: large buildings with a large amount of residents. It was once dominated by Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants who mostly worked in factories. However, the combination of economic decline, the outflow of newly-middle class residents, the inflow of impoverished residents, and systemic neglect by landlords caused the neighborhood to decay. In the Washington Monthly article “Guess Who Saved the South Bronx?”, Robert Worth points to the government as one of the biggest catalysts for the decay of the South Bronx with its policy of rent control which made running apartment complexes in the area unprofitable for private landlords, meaning they also did not have the funds to maintain basic services and the quality of their buildings. The final nail in the coffin was what caused the South Bronx to literally start burning to the ground. As housing prices in the area fell and the maintenance of housing in the area remained unprofitable, landlords began burning down their own buildings in an attempt to salvage whatever money they could get from insurance payouts. Also, the government offered tenants grants if they were burned out of their homes. As a result, residents themselves began burning the buildings down. Many other events would plague the neighborhood, but the end result was the complete destruction of what once was a thriving community.

The current South Bronx seems to be the exact opposite of what South Bronx was, even before it began falling apart. What were once large high-density apartment complexes are now single-family ranch-style houses. What were once manufacturing plants are now stores. The goal of these changes are to encourage residents to care of their own neighborhood as the higher quality of the units and the more opportunities means each resident has a bigger stake in the community. These changes suggest that we need to employ new techniques to revive the broken down neighborhoods of New York City as what once worked in the past may not work in the future. Unfortunately, Charlotte Gardens does little to address the rapidly growing demand for cheaper housing, which is what the ordinary model of affordable housing aims to accomplish. If this strategy is replicated for other neighborhoods, it seems that in the future most of the people that need affordable housing the most will be forced out. Also, current issues like high inequality and the fall of both economic opportunities and real wages still impacts the neighborhood as half of the residents are still low-income. As such, it seems that the real permanent solution to the housing crisis could only be an economic one.

The first article of the reading assignment had a rosy depiction of public housing in its “golden age” from the 1950s into the 1960s. Richard Price, the author of the article, suggests that decline of public housing began when the “Originals” who had earned enough money to move out, had finally moved on from public housing, most of whom were white. This triggered a shift in racial balance, causing an increase in social tension and segregation. This coupled with the economic slowdown beginning in the 1970s brought about the weaknesses of public housing. The New York City Housing Authority, which had always been able to deliver services despite always being stuffed with pointless bureaucracy, was left seemingly helpless during the 1970s and especially during the 1980s. This was perhaps due to a shift in the political climate, or perhaps due to mismanagement and corruption.

However, I believe the real reason why public housing rose and fell spectacularly was because the idea of public housing in the past was that it was to be a temporary “springboard” for people who would eventually increase their income and move out to increase their living standards. While this did happen initially, such a systems relies on the continuous and monumental economic growth of the United States that started after World War II. With the rise of European and Asian economies that could finally challenge the US’s imminent dominance over the global market, US’s amazing economic growth slowed down. This meant that there would be less opportunities for those in projects and thus more people stuck in the projects. The springboard now became a prison. Nonetheless, after reading the assignment, I believe that it would be best for New York City that we build more public housing, but end rent controls.

The reason that we should end rent controls is that rent controls, more often than not, decrease the housing supply, making it even harder for those in need of affordable housing to attain it since private developers usually cannot afford or are unwilling to do business under market rates. Of course, the government can cover the difference between market rates and rent for private developers as described in fourth article. Such practices incentivize private companies to take better care of their affordable housing units. However, such practices may also result in an inefficiency where companies are able to add menial and useless renovations to an apartment and be rewarded for them. Ultimately, these companies are seeking profits so when the government covers for them, more is spent than actually necessary to maintain these housing units.

On the other hand, when true public housing is done right it has shown to be an excellent driver of economic activity. Despite earlier iterations being reliant on strong economic growth, with strong government oversight and community support, public housing can overcome this obstacle.