politricks and other distractions

Where Will All the Cities Go?

This upset me today, an article entitled, New York Asks Help From Poor in Housing Crisis.

"The New York City Housing Authority, landlord to more than 400,000 poor New Yorkers, is facing a budget shortfall of $168 million and has proposed narrowing the gap by charging residents new fees and increasing old ones for everything from owning a dishwasher to getting a toilet unclogged.

The authority says its operating deficit stems from enormous increases in energy and pension costs while its federal financing for public housing has been cut. Since 2001, the agency says, it has spent $357 million from its reserves to close repeated budget gaps; this year, for the first time, it no longer has enough reserves to cover the shortfall...

"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Representative Jerrold L. Nadler of Manhattan, who added that the federal government was taking less responsibility for public housing. "The Housing Authority has, by one ingenious means or another, been holding it together with spit and baling wire. This could be really devastating."

... Arlyne Allen, who lives in the Amsterdam Houses on the West Side of Manhattan with her husband and three teenage children and provides day care out of her home, said of the fees: "It'll affect me a lot. You can't even afford what you have now." If she could, she said, she would move to Pennsylvania to find private housing that she could afford....

Saul Ramirez, executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, traced the budget shortfall to "a steady disinvestment" in public housing at the federal level. "Obviously," he said, "there has been a decline that has gotten to a critical point in the area of operations."

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So the rich are getting richer while the poor move to Pennsylvania? Have I got that right?

I am undoubtedly a Big City Girl. The smallest town I've lived in til now was Washington, D.C., population around 500,000. But like lots of people who didn't catch the real estate wave at the right time, I've been priced outta Dodge. I moved to a small college town on the West Coast (but one with an airport at least) and live in a style I could only have dreamed of in any big American city these days.

And that's a pity, because cities need all sorts of people -- even ones like me.

Cities used to be mosaics of ages, races, and economic levels. Neighborhoods were built by people with things in common, set in the middle of the vast raging masses. If you don't know New York City, you might think it's a cold, hard place, and it can definitely be that. But I've never lived in a city where everybody was so aware of their neighbors. People in New York care about what goes on around them and they don't mind raising their voices to tell you so. And they come together in a crisis like no place else. I was there for the subway strike in the early 1980s and all I remember is what a good time I had hitchhiking in Manhattan, getting into cars with interesting strangers - everyone a goodwill taxi driver - crawling along at 10 or 15 miles an hour on Broadway.

You are both anonymous and very famous at the same time in cities. You can blend in with the crowd, but will almost certainly run into the only person among that 100,000 nearby that you were hoping not to see. Especially looking like this.

There are some people you're forced to crowd next to in cities, not always with your wishes. You learn things about other people's personal habits... you hear them tell their innermost secrets to friends... you watch parents discipline their children right there in front of you and learn to say nothing... and you avoid men spitting.

Car cities are a little different. In L.A., you drive around in your own personal pod. The crowds are bumper to bumper, not butt to butt. But the fundamental things apply, as the song says.

So I mourn the loss of our cities to the very wealthy. Who ARE these people who can afford $800,000 for a condo these days? Are there that many incredibly successful people who just beat me to the punch? Are there that many trust fund babies? Or is everybody maxed out on the credit cards of life?

All I know is that the cities are getting drained of their color, their life, and their uniqueness. And you know where it might be going? To small college towns like this.

posted by dcnative @ 4:01 PM