Spider-Man
Member
We have the Bronx Zoo and Pelham Bay Park which is the biggest park in the NYC area, it's all good.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Has New York City been 100% gentrified?
- Thread starter HOMEBOY OVER HERE
- Start date
- Status
crooked spin
Member
Sociopath, libertarian; potato, potatoe 
I do not, but going down that route, you don't see your stance that the people who inhabit an area now should be protected from any potential displacement from people who would like to move into said area because "they were there first!!!", as the least bit irrational and couched in emotional pleas, rather than logic or fact?
You serious? Yankee Stadium? The Bronx Zoo? Arthur Ave? City Island? Orchard Beach? Botanical Gardens? Wave Hill? Plus a ton of great public parks, museums, bars and restaurants. Plenty of shopping too. The Bronx has plenty of shit to do. Nothing compares to Manhattan but you can argue that the Bronx has more attractions than any other borough outside Manhattan.
fredrancour
Member
Any possible idea about the right to reside someplace is based in some kind of emotion. "People with money should be allowed to spend it how they please regardless of what it results in" is no more objectively true than the plea you're arguing against. "Your argument is based on emotional investment in something" is a completely worthless criticism because any possible human preference at all is based on emotional investment in something.
I think having compassion for people who should have been protected by their government is far more logically rooted than saying everything should be a merry go round of money and that if you can't afford it (even if historically you were always able to) than you need to peace out because money is the sole proprietor of all things logic based.
The fact that you are seeing this as a simple game of gotcha just tells me you don't really understand that these people have value that the city saw, and businesses abused.
I think it's wonderful if new people move in. I think it's wonderful if they clean up the streets, but I shouldn't have to feel like my livelihood is at stake when I see a white person jogging in the Bronx at 1:00am.
Thank you.
When it comes to home, I tend to speak in hyperbole. Yeah yankee stadium and the parks and zoos are nice (idk why you listed orchard beach, that place is trash), but I find everything to be really sparsely placed in general. It also doesn't help that the trains kind of crap out after passing 125th street.
Splash Wave
Member
As a relatively poor white person who lives in the neighborhood with his girlfriend, you're probably right. I've seen the area change at an alarming rate over the last 8 months or so.
I pay $300 to rent a bedroom in a five bedroom house in Dayton. That's a flat rate and it includes all utilities, digital cable, and internet, so I don't envy the rents of places like NYC and SF. That being said, I would love a chance or a reason to move there and try it out for a few years at least.
Still confused about what the anti-gentrification crowd wants. They dont seem to want a shithole neighborhood to stay shitty. They also don't want people with money to move in and change the feel and "culture" of their shithole neighborhood. It seems like the hope is that the ghetto remains the ghetto but all of a sudden the streets are paved with gold for some reason, crime goes away, and their granny gets to keep paying $500/month to live there.
You misstate my critique. The argument isn't merely based on emotional investment, it's the totality of the argument. There's nothing else proffered.
"These people" are people. I don't give them any more or less value than the people moving into the neighborhood. You do, on the basis of their current residence in an area that has become more desireable to the world at-large. I find this line of thinking absurd.
Basically, all the improvements attendant to an influx of capital come to the neighborhood, but the current residents retain their same cost of living despite the vast improvements to the area, and...
those pesky wealthy white folk stay away.
crooked spin
Member
The ideal is simply affordable housing in neighborhoods regardless of how the area shifts economically.
Air's got a good point, though. Gentrification would be cool if it was simply improved conditions for the community, long time residents included. The problem is that it also brings with it ridiculously hiked up costs of living (rent, food, etc...) while flushing out minorities. So in one fell swoop a neighborhood becomes unaffordable and much less diverse all because as a society we privilege the power of money over all else.
I've seen this happening in my neighborhood over the years. The wealthy families that have moved into the area in droves don't go to the local parks, don't participate in block parties we have, etc...
Edit: Slo and Cagey, wow. So the poor can't have clean and safe neighborhoods without being displaced?
I've seen this happening in my neighborhood over the years. The wealthy families that have moved into the area in droves don't go to the local parks, don't participate in block parties we have, etc...
Edit: Slo and Cagey, wow. So the poor can't have clean and safe neighborhoods without being displaced?
I want the diversity that allowed the city to be what it is. I don't need a wholefoods here, but I would like to know that the people living here are safe. Anybody, should live here and the price should be reasonable. $3000 for a closet in Spanish Harlem is not reasonable. Are you telling me I can't have a competent police force, that doesn't exclusively patrol well off neighborhoods or neighborhoods 'on the rise' and a litter free environment? Really, isn't this what the government should be doing anyway without pushing people who already lived here out?
Orchard Beach off season is actually quite beautiful. Of course any urban beach during the summer is gonna be less desirable. Even South Beach, Miami beaches are a shit show during Spring Break.
As for transportation, I hear ya but that's really a problem anywhere outside of Manhattan and gentrified Brooklyn. The sparsely placed points of interest really are also not exclusive to the Bronx. Ever try to chill in Queens? Iol. You wanna talk about sparsely placed.
rokkerkory
Member
Bay area hit bad too 
(
Hoping my house purchase made 5 years ago will pay off in spades 5 years from now.
Theres lack of housing big time here.
1bedroom condo rent is like $2k for a nice one.
I hope to profit and bounce to live a more simpler life elsewhere.
(Hoping my house purchase made 5 years ago will pay off in spades 5 years from now.
Theres lack of housing big time here.
1bedroom condo rent is like $2k for a nice one.
I hope to profit and bounce to live a more simpler life elsewhere.
DoktorEvil
Banned
You know what pays for a competent police force? High taxes.
Honestly, if you need a police force patrolling your neighborhood 24/7, then I can't say you live in a safe area.
It really sounds like you don't want anyone who isn't a POC to live where you live, and I can't agree to that.
The city is large and vast with 5 boroughs, each with their own pros and cons.
There are plenty of places to find cheaper rents that aren't parts of brooklyn, parts of queens, or manhattan.
Im not telling you that you can't have any of those things. What I'm telling you is that as soon as your neighborhood has those things then people will actually start wanting to live there.
Places that suck are cheap. Places that are awesome are expensive. The grass is green. The sky is blue.
crooked spin
Member
Our lord and savior Capitalism has decreed it, what are we to do? Feel emotions towards marginalized people?!
But the problem is that while you don't, the people moving in are by and large MORE VALUED than the people staying, because they have a surplus amount of money. You sound like your saying the market should dictate if people should live in their homes, which is insane. Why do we have a government if we can't keep our property?
White people, unfortunately are harbingers of gentrification. That said it's not a race thing in this context. White people tend to have more money than blacks and Hispanics so when you see an influx of white people in a neighborhood you say 'the neighborhood is accommodating a wealthier class of people. However I think it's kind of obtuse that's all you got out of that sentence. White people aren't the problem, it's the system that allows them to move and displace others, who probably haven't had the same opportunity as them that is the problem.
Well, duh, but in a place that has historically been diverse with people of every walk of life, why is it that only a certain type of person able to move in and live in the city? Why isn't the city doing better to address this? They sure as hell have the money.
Again, I never said that. All I'm saying is that the less you neighborhood sucks, the more likely I am to try to buy a house in your neighborhood.
What?! Not at all what I said.
Sociopath, libertarian; potato, potatoe
Demonization of someone's opinion based on a mischaracterization of said opinion is needless shitposting. You're contributing nothing. Please stop.
I don't care if white people move in. Like I said before, it tends to be white people because they have more of what these businesses want. Money. It could be anyone really, but the city isn't helping because they could have more apartments that are rent stabilized, people can have higher wages, etc.
If anyone reading these comments think I have a problem with white people or whatever, read my posts again or don't bother responding. It's an ethnic in so far as whites generally are more well off than blacks or hispanics, but I am not using that as a way to say 'these devil white people are taking my homes'. I encourage you all to read about the 'Jeremiah's vanishing city' blog I posted earlier (I'm pretty sure it is a white British dude who moved here in the 70's or 80's).
Edit: I even remember an article talking about Mayor Bloomberg trying to turn the city into Silicone Valley 2.0. I'll try to look for it. The outcome of that plan would lead to NYC being increasingly homogenized. Like it is in those areas in California.
Which is exactly what happens.
DoktorEvil
Banned
This is so much bullshit. Get over yourself. You don't "own" your neighborhood.
Those same white people were at one point a mass influx of immigrants; Irish, Italian, and Eastern European Jews that had very little money to their names and have to live in decrepit enclaves that offered no service from the city of New York.
Now, Tenants have much more weight than any landlord in NYC could ever hold.
The right to property doesn't extend to the right to a person to keep renting an apartment without increases in said rent beyond what the tenant can afford (edit: there's laws regulating rent increases, of course, but I'm speaking to rent increases within said laws). Nor does it extend to a person unable to pay increasing property taxes. Take issue with eminent domain seizures of land for private development (Columbia in "Manhattanville" springs to mind); that would be a proper invocation of the right of property in this instance.
I noted the white people, in part, as a joke. But not in full. There's clearly a racial component to the argument you and others espouse pertaining to whose neighborhood it is, the culture in the neighborhood v. "homogenization" (meaning, what... the neighborhood goes full on StuffWhitePeopleLike?), and leaving it unspoken does no good.
Ingueferroque
Banned
I know exactly what I'm talking about, I live in an area of Manhattan that is changing daily. I literally see something new/renovated/improved every time I head out. It's crazy. I don't see how it is a bad thing, this area is just as much of a melting pot as it ever was. Except that it's becoming a better place for families.
I get you, but NYC has been crazy with rent since the late 90's.
NPR has a decent piece worth listening to regarding San Fransisco.
I keep going back to it, but really if you want to see gentrification in action, it's basically ground zero for a hyper accelerated cycle of it. Landlords outsting or trying to oust longtime tenants. And I don't just mean poor folk, we're talking people who still make upwards of 60k and can't afford it.
I keep going back to it, but really if you want to see gentrification in action, it's basically ground zero for a hyper accelerated cycle of it. Landlords outsting or trying to oust longtime tenants. And I don't just mean poor folk, we're talking people who still make upwards of 60k and can't afford it.
I never said anybody should own a neighborhood. Read better.
What I'm saying is that if the government isn't doing anything to give poorer people a chance to live in a home they've always known, they aren't doing their jobs. Why is the minimum wage so bad in the city? Why aren't there more rent controlled areas. You may not know but even if you don't value the people, the city claims it does. Which is why it has artist housing and rent stabilization in the first place. Why isn't it expanding that program? There are a lot of problems with how the city is handling all of this.
I agree with that, but as far as this conversation, the racial component isn't important to me. I used that White people at 3 am sign as a means to illustrate what Gentrification is in the city. Not as a reflection of what I think about white people.
That's true, and that's where the problem starts.
Where I currently live in Bushwick I would consider to be the main point of interest for the gentrified western part of it(aka a few blocks east from flushing ave between Metropolitan Ave and Broadway Ave). It's been that way for the past 3-4 years. It's also heavily patrolled by police still to this day to the point where if I walk one block down to Wycoff I'm greeted with police cameras.
I'd argue my neighborhood at this point is extremely safe to the point where I still don't believe it. I also argue the reason it's like that is because of the active police presence that so far hasn't missed a beat with constantly being around in one way or another.
You know what the neighborhoods that many consider to be unsafe don't have? That level of police presence and attention.
It's funny hearing stories like that and then stories like the ones in my neighborhood where landlords only rent to people they know (aka black people). That's kind of how I got my place. There are some areas where there's an attempt to maintain that sense of community.
It's all so fascinating when you think about it.
captmcblack
Member
I want anyone - everyone - who wants to, to be able to live with me in Crown Heights.
I want it to be just as safe as any other neighborhood in New York City, which means it should have just as many (or just as few) NYPD walking around/patrolling as any other neighborhood does.
I want it to have apartments that are as reasonably renovated and affordable to all people who want to live there, whether it's the 47-year old substitute teacher who has lived there for 34 years on 40k a year, or the new 27 year old general counsel for a startup non-profit that just moved there 2 years ago on 65k a year, or the 32-year old mortgage broker for Citigroup that just got there making 120k a year.
I want there to be properties that are "more awesome" for people who want to pay more for "more awesome" amenities, but I want them to exist without requiring buildings that already exist for lower-income people who can't afford and don't want or need "more awesome"/more expensive amenities to be torn down, forcing them out of the neighborhood.
I want there to be room for impromptu drumlines outside of Medgar Evers College Prep HS, and milk crate basketball on Nostrand Ave, and also room for boutique BBQ restaurants, and gastropubs on Franklin Ave. I want everyone to share the space without leveraging the power of money to displace anyone else that doesn't fit your idea of what "safe" is, or what "profitable" is, or what "cool" is. I want everyone to feel welcomed, but not for that welcome to mean that the neighborhood's existing cultural tenor/flavor can't be there.
I want white people, black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, young people, old people, religious people, non-religious people, all the people to want to live in Crown Heights.
I want everyone to be able to make and run whatever kind of business they want to - a little baptist church, a grocery store, a restaurant, a muffin/coffee shop, a laundromat, a bar and grill, a pharmacy, a Caribbean beef pattie place, a Korean-Mexican fusion tapas bar, an organic dogwalking business, a day care, a kosher deli...whatever. I just don't want it if it means that demanding these things means that everyone's rent needs to be $5,000 a month.
If that's unreasonable, that's fine - I accept that. I just don't see anyone in this thread explaining why that's unreasonable short of, essentially, "money talks" - which if the people who had that opinion just said that instead of trying to explain how gentrification is really about not wanting certain ethnicities (in either direction), I'd at least be more okay with.
I want it to be just as safe as any other neighborhood in New York City, which means it should have just as many (or just as few) NYPD walking around/patrolling as any other neighborhood does.
I want it to have apartments that are as reasonably renovated and affordable to all people who want to live there, whether it's the 47-year old substitute teacher who has lived there for 34 years on 40k a year, or the new 27 year old general counsel for a startup non-profit that just moved there 2 years ago on 65k a year, or the 32-year old mortgage broker for Citigroup that just got there making 120k a year.
I want there to be properties that are "more awesome" for people who want to pay more for "more awesome" amenities, but I want them to exist without requiring buildings that already exist for lower-income people who can't afford and don't want or need "more awesome"/more expensive amenities to be torn down, forcing them out of the neighborhood.
I want there to be room for impromptu drumlines outside of Medgar Evers College Prep HS, and milk crate basketball on Nostrand Ave, and also room for boutique BBQ restaurants, and gastropubs on Franklin Ave. I want everyone to share the space without leveraging the power of money to displace anyone else that doesn't fit your idea of what "safe" is, or what "profitable" is, or what "cool" is. I want everyone to feel welcomed, but not for that welcome to mean that the neighborhood's existing cultural tenor/flavor can't be there.
I want white people, black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, young people, old people, religious people, non-religious people, all the people to want to live in Crown Heights.
I want everyone to be able to make and run whatever kind of business they want to - a little baptist church, a grocery store, a restaurant, a muffin/coffee shop, a laundromat, a bar and grill, a pharmacy, a Caribbean beef pattie place, a Korean-Mexican fusion tapas bar, an organic dogwalking business, a day care, a kosher deli...whatever. I just don't want it if it means that demanding these things means that everyone's rent needs to be $5,000 a month.
If that's unreasonable, that's fine - I accept that. I just don't see anyone in this thread explaining why that's unreasonable short of, essentially, "money talks" - which if the people who had that opinion just said that instead of trying to explain how gentrification is really about not wanting certain ethnicities (in either direction), I'd at least be more okay with.
I remember that from the thread about the lady who was attacked for wearing Google Glass in a bar. Just looking at the ridiculous situation in San Francisco shows us what happens when you let the market do whatever.
captmcblack said:
Wow, well said man. Especially the bolded part.
Again, what do you want? You seem to want lower income areas to all of a sudden start being all middle/upper classy but you also want middle class dudes like me to stay the fuck away.
Ingueferroque
Banned
It's going to take a LOT of gentrification before English becomes the primary language in my area.
NYC is a melting pot. Some of you seem to WANT there to be ghetto's. I'm a first-generation immigrant.. so what if I'm white and from Europe? Do I not have a right to live here, and should the larger Dominican community in my area have to suffer with shady illegal cabs, downtrodden subway entrances, and garbage littering the streets like it's Mad Max?
This area doesn't belong to anyone but everyone.
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Preach it, brotha. Ups and Downs on Castle Hill was a summer staple for a minute. Dive bar with great music/dancing and cheap drinks. I'm talking giant glasses of Bacardi and coke where the coke was semi-optional. Good times. Plus the Parkchester strip. I miss Jimmy's on Fordham though. And do house parties count? Cuz those were always fun/crazy. *sighs wistfully and pines for the good ole days*
SF is unfortunately bound by regulations that force housing space to be fought over like scraps at a table. Can't build? No space, when there's no space everything shoots through the roof.
Curious to see how SF ends up being 10 years down the road if new tech guys simply pack up and start going elsewhere.
Read captmcblack's post. It seems like no matter how much I clarify you guys aren't getting it. No one wants ghettos and bad neighborhoods. I want you to live in the city, but I want to live in the city too.
.
DoktorEvil
Banned
We don't need more artists. We need more blue collar service workers. We need the city to actively enforce regulations that allow people to live in NYC and afford to make a living. One of Mayor Diblasio's initiatives has been to keep Uber out of NYC and I can't be happier he's enforcing that.
Companies like AirBNB and Uber don't add value to the city. They diminish service industries that existed to provide livings long before the Internet existed.
Rent control, if you read the link I posted earlier, doesn't exist anymore. 38 to 39K apartments are the last to be rent controlled. The provisions for limited rent increases are gone. I'm glad they are, since that now allows a property to make enough of an income that it has to compete with other landlords to provide more amenities/competing amenities. A more open market forces landlords to get better and offer more/renovate buildings.
Rent Stabilization will still exist and I hope it provides for government & civil service workers to afford living and working in NYC.
Ingueferroque
Banned
How is this not what I am saying? That is exactly what I'm saying.
Airbnb allowed me to be able to pay the rent here, for the first two years. Worrying about the hotel industry or corrupt taxi coin maffia should not be a primary concern.
The same thing anyone else wants: A safe and clean neighborhood to live in. Which means the city government and police giving a damn about an area well before money moves in. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Taking the long view, I think it'll only hurt the city if landowners are allowed to jack up prices on housing and everyone who's not a white collar worker can no longer afford to live here.
DoktorEvil
Banned
You're part of the problem, then. I don't know what else to tell you.
It's not your concern, because it's not your business to be concerned with.
Ingueferroque
Banned
Wow, really?
1) I saved a ton of people money who otherwise wouldn't think of visiting NYC
2) Who all had a great time and recognized this quite unpopular area of Manhattan
3) I brought business to local places because of my guests
4) It allowed me to stay here, I grew out of having to do Airbnb and now I have my own business, paying lots of taxes to NYC
Part of what problem, exactly? Do you work for Hilton?
You're being an idealist. Im being a realist. Im simply stating cause and effect. If its safe for me to start walking in your neighborhood without getting shot, then Starbucks is probably going to open up and try to sell me a coffee as I'm walking around your neighborhood. One thing leads to another.
There shouldn't be a limit to who we need that can live in the city. I don't think we need more of one or the other, but if someone wants to get a job in a certain field, they should still be able to live in the city.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. I'm also not sure if your theory of landlords making income to compete is a good thing. I don't care if my landlord can compete with another, I care about if I can live here. I'm also not sure about your uber slight. Having these new business coming in compete with the older models. Isn't that what you want? Why does that apply to housing but not taxi service. You do know taxi's in the city are awful right?
I looked at the 'some of you want there to be ghettos' line, which I don't think anybody is arguing for.
This is only happening because the city isn't doing a good job. There isn't always only 'one logical' endpoint for something to happen. I don't think you're being a realist, I think you're being a defeatist.
DoktorEvil
Banned
So you are an AirBnb person. You are illegally subletting your apartment?
No I don't work for Hilton, but I work for a brokerage office.
Ingueferroque
Banned
Read number 4. I haven't done Airbnb in a long time. What's with your poisonous attitude anyway? Read up on the Airbnb NYC thing, the big issue with it are large-scale operators that have tens to hundreds of units on Airbnb.
What makes an Uber driver less worthy of a fare than a Yellow Cab driver anyway?
- Status
Similar threads
- Poll