How The Bronx Came Back (But Didn't Bring Everyone Along)
November 20, 2015 9:39 AM   Subscribe

 


Counterpoint in the Awl.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:54 AM on November 20, 2015


“We’re developing about two thousand apartments along the waterfront in the South Bronx,” Keith Rubenstein, founder of Somerset partners, told WWD. “Tonight is an amazing opportunity to introduce a whole new world to the South Bronx, and celebrate its heritage.”
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:55 AM on November 20, 2015


Huh. I thought everyone left the Bronx back in 2000.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:55 AM on November 20, 2015 [4 favorites]


Jokes on them when the Bronx is blown away and Manhattan sunk out at sea in 2017 as foretold by the Prophet Joel.
posted by dr_dank at 10:02 AM on November 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


Somewhat related: If you want a primer on where the Bronx was, Rubble Kings (currently streaming on Netflix) is a great recent documentary on life in the Bronx in the 70's, gangs in the area, and the birth of hip-hop. Highly recommended.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:21 AM on November 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


First they came for the Brooklynites...

Gentrification is so baffling. We don't want all the poor people to live together in one place; but we don't want them scattered amongst us; but we still want them to be near enough to clean our houses and man our convenience stores. Do we ever listen to ourselves?

Interesting reading about the public subsidies vs. the developer subsidies, and how tons of money has been cut off from the state and feds. Apparently we've forgotten why we needed this money in the first place.

Ninety-nine-cent stores abound, but 99 cents is apparently too costly: The store windows invariably feature 59-cent specials.

Jesus.
posted by Melismata at 10:41 AM on November 20, 2015


From Potomac Avenue's link:

"I think you will find this area becomes Williamsburg meets Dumbo."

Good lord, deliver us.
posted by Melismata at 10:46 AM on November 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


Picking on New York is easy, but not fair. It's like napalm, faster and cleaner as it burns is all. Whereas I'm in an office building in Boston right now that's 1 block from the biggest homeless shelter in the city, in a historically black neighborhood that they stuck with this shelter until slowly but surely more warehouses were replaced by condos and now the nervous jogging residents and art gallery owners eye the homeless men women and children warily when they pop into the single corner store left, where the roast beef has gone up 50c/year, like they, the homeless, are interlopers. "Just go away" our eyes plead, or "Ooh look at this one" we eye roll to each other. Not sure where they'll move them, but you know one day they will-- knock down the whole sordid village and probably put in a park, at least a concrete park, with hard attractive benches where you can eat Chipotle.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:17 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Potomac, I live in the Boston area, and grew up in Cambridge. My childhood home is now worth at least 2 million dollars. Believe me, I am totally not just picking on NY. (Not sure you were addressing me, but I just wanted to say, I hear you, and it's my experience in Boston that makes me so angry about other areas.)
posted by Melismata at 11:29 AM on November 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm curious where everyone thinks people who are moving to these neighborhoods are supposed to live? The alternative choices are pay exorbitant rents in already crowded neighborhoods or move further out to the suburbs. Should everyone just pay a minimum of X% of their income and not be able to rent below that?
posted by kokaku at 11:30 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's been argued pretty convincingly that gentrification is a consequence of bad housing and transit policy. As long as public transportation and affordable housing aren't expanding to match the rate of population increase, gentrification is a thing that's Just Going To Happen, because housing within reasonable distance of transit will be more and more in-demand over time. People's good intentions about not wanting to be a gentrifier, or good old-fashioned fear of people of color, will only go so far to keep down rents in historically black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the face of forces like that.

In other words, like a lot of things, we make the mistake of putting too much weight on individual choices. So when people complain about gentrification, we miss the point — we hear "Individual gentrifiers should feel bad / should go away / should live elsewhere / should act differently / are racist / are hurting this community / whatever," and not "These shitty housing and transit policies that make gentrification inevitable are a component of structural racism, are harmful to communities, and need to go away."
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:15 PM on November 20, 2015 [19 favorites]


These things aren't that surprising when you compare US cities to cities around the world. Everywhere else, the wealthiest are in the middle and the poor are on the edges. US cities are now shifting to match that pattern. It will be tough to prevent such a broad-sweeping trend with policies, unless they are also broad-sweeping.
posted by jilloftrades at 12:32 PM on November 20, 2015


Problem is, most international cities have public transportation, right? Also they are tiny. Also that sucks for them too.

NYC has a chance, in the Bronx, to do things differently. To preserve housing for the poor that already live there while making things more affordable for the people who want to move there in other boroughs. The Bronx as we know it was created by shitheel urban planning by the shittiest urban planner of all time. Maybe it can be unmade in a way that isn't shitty?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:42 PM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


The link between transit and gentrification is tenuous at best.

There's been plenty of gentrification in cities where few people with gentrifier-level incomes use transit (Los Angeles, Minneapolis, the big cities of Texas and Atlanta, etc.) The latest wave of gentrification in San Francisco was led by people who swapped 5-15 drives down in the Valley for hour long bus rides -- the antithesis of transit convenience.

The gentrification process in New York has consistently favored neighborhoods with poor transit connections over those with good connections. All jobs that pay good salaries are in midtown or downtown, and Wiliamsburg, for example, doesn't have a direct train to either, and Green Point you have to get to Williamsburg first before you get to Manhattan. And Red Hook? Far better transit from the South Bronx (subject of the article), Washington Heights or Jackson Heights, all of which are 10-15+ years behind the gentrification curve.

Also -- preserving affordable housing in gentrifying cities becomes counterproductive at a certain point. San Francisco is a town where baristas have graduate degrees -- are you doing high school dropout single mothers any favors by encouraging them to stay there, as opposed to moving to places where costs are lower and their skills are a better fit for the job market? New York could net $60 billion repurposing 60,000 or so well-located project apartments as market rate condos, which would dramatically reduce the market rate of housing by increasing supply and still fund huge buy-outs for senior citizen and leave $50 billion left over to cut taxes and improve services.
posted by MattD at 2:00 PM on November 20, 2015


The problem is that NYC honestly can't fix its transit problems. It has a population of almost 9 million, and the subway routes that exist are mostly already dug. Buses can't really fill the need - there are only so many streets, that already have vehicles on them. There is simply no way to give everyone in NYC a thirty minute commute to Manhattan. It is physically impossible. It's not just people not wanting to fund infrastructure. It cannot be done.
posted by corb at 2:29 PM on November 20, 2015


it has taken them literally 500 years to build the fucking 2nd avenue line and it definitely will not be done before skoll swallows the sun
posted by poffin boffin at 3:05 PM on November 20, 2015 [5 favorites]


We can take the lanes in the streets away from private automobiles/private automobile storage and give them to Bus Rapid Transit. That would rapidly speed surface transit. I don't really understand why so much of our street space is given away for free for long-term storage of private property, e.g. cars.
posted by GregorWill at 3:31 PM on November 20, 2015 [6 favorites]


San Francisco is a town where baristas have graduate degrees

This is the part I don't get, and maybe where to start attacking this. I'm hiring a barista, I don't need, don't want, and actually want to AVOID hiring someone with a graduate degree. I want to give that job to someone who needs it, is appreciative to have it, and wants to do a good job. Maybe stay a while, although I don't pretend anyone is ever going to OMG LOVE a low-level service job.

These are the jobs that are FOR the less educated and less skilled. It's the overqualified who need to go where their jobs are.
posted by ctmf at 9:30 AM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


oh okay.

- a barista
posted by floweringjudas at 4:19 PM on November 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


Picking on New York is easy, but not fair.

But, like San Francisco on the west coast, it's the starkest most exaggerated example. It's something that if it wasn't real, and was written in to a TV or movie script would be seen as heavy handed and ridiculous the way the futures from demoliton man or dredd are.

I'm living in a city following that same path, like what you described, but that doesn't make new york an invalid example. It's a portrait of where a lot of other major coastal cities are headed as the fire burns outwards.

These are the jobs that are FOR the less educated and less skilled. It's the overqualified who need to go where their jobs are.

Which is where? When i worked at a coffee company, a lot of people there had degrees. Advanced degrees even, at times. Some of them HAD other jobs... that don't exist anymore. But through their network they knew people at the coffee shop and applied because a job is a job... and then nothing else really ever came along.

And they enjoy it more than doing some menial lower-mid-level stuff in a cube because they get to hang out with their friends and talk to people rather than type on a computer.*

There are people there who have been there for 10 or even 15 years. They liked it. It was stable. The tips are decent.

I could say the same thing of people i know with degrees who tend bar.

*I'm not dumping on that either, just saying it's not for everyone.
posted by emptythought at 5:45 PM on November 21, 2015


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