Hotel Handout, Few Affordable Phase 1 Units at AY

It is unfortunate that so many people think there's economic sense in spending a lot of money to build housing for people who can't afford it.

After building the unaffordable housing, the occupants who cannot afford it are then given other discounted services which they cannot afford.

The people people who earn enough to pay taxes, pay their won bills, and the bills of the people who live in the unafforadable housing.

It would be far better if everyone in NYC were able to cover his/her own expenses without impinging on others to pay their bills.

However, though some will disagree, we are a generous society. Generous to a fault.

Thus, we can afford to subsidize some lives.

But the source of all revenue is the taxpayer. Hence, the city can do far more for some of its less fortunate citizens by attracting as many taxpayers as possible.

However, those who live by economic myths, think we need to build unaffordable housing to attract an increasing number of people who pay no taxes.

A line a mile long will always form around a give-away in this city. The real work is attracting people who can go anywhere, live anywhere, work anywhere -- and pay taxes anywhere.

Those people with choice will gladly tell you why they live or NYC. And those who have chosen to leave NYC will tell you why they packed up and left.

For those who leave, the reason very often reflects the difficulties of living in a city that too often welcomes the people who cause problems while shunning the ones who pay the bills.

However, the recent building boom is a step in the right direction. Excellent new buildings are springing up everywhere. Market-rate rehabs are occurring all over.

Incredibly valuable water-front property will begin to look like valuable water-front property when currently planned projects are complete.

All of these projects are aimed at people who can pay taxes and contribute to the betterment of tne City. They will not provide refuge for the people whose lives deplete city resources.

Who makes

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 1:25 PM

anonynous 2:47, you wrote:

"City Boy's post MIGHT be relevant if any of the owners of the "un-affordable" housing in Atlantic Yards paying property taxes. But they won't be."

Wrong. NYC is one of those unfortunate city's so desperately in need of tax revenue that we pay a NY CITY income tax on top of everything else. That tax is largely earmarked for raising funds for the public school system. In other words, the property tax that is the customary source of public-school funding is supplemented by the NYC Income Tax.

That means if the Property Tax Department doesn't get you, the Income Tax People will stick their hands your pockets instead. If you do not enjoy a deduction for the payment of property taxes, the extra income you report will increase you NY City income tax. You're trapped.

People who pay taxes in NYC, pay the highest rates in the country. It matters little which revenue-seeking government entity is peeling cash from their pockets.

There is virtually no escape from high taxes in NYC if you are are truly a taxpayer. But too many low-income people are not taxpayers, despite the forms they fill out and the papers they push around each year. In fact, they often pay negative income tax. The Earned Income Credit creates tax-recipients. A nice subsidy.

That's okay by me. But we have a substantial number of people in this city who are net recipients of government-orchestrated wealth redistribution.

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 3:21 PM

anonynous 2:47, you wrote:

"City Boy's post MIGHT be relevant if any of the owners of the "un-affordable" housing in Atlantic Yards paying property taxes. But they won't be."

Wrong. NYC is one of those unfortunate city's so desperately in need of tax revenue that we pay a NY CITY income tax on top of everything else. That tax is largely earmarked for raising funds for the public school system. In other words, the property tax that is the customary source of public-school funding is supplemented by the NYC Income Tax.

That means if the Property Tax Department doesn't get you, the Income Tax People will stick their hands your pockets instead. If you do not enjoy a deduction for the payment of property taxes, the extra income you report will increase you NY City income tax. You're trapped.

People who pay taxes in NYC, pay the highest rates in the country. It matters little which revenue-seeking government entity is peeling cash from their pockets.

There is virtually no escape from high taxes in NYC if you are are truly a taxpayer. But too many low-income people are not taxpayers, despite the forms they fill out and the papers they push around each year. In fact, they often pay negative income tax. The Earned Income Credit creates tax-recipients. A nice subsidy.

That's okay by me. But we have a substantial number of people in this city who are net recipients of government-orchestrated wealth redistribution.

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 3:21 PM

anonymous 4:02, you wrote:

"Once again, City Boy would be right if the owners of the rentals and the condos were paying PROPERTY taxes..."

I see. So if PROPERT TAXES are disguised as NY City INCOME TAXES, they're not really PROPERTY TAXES.

Meanwhile, how much PROPERTY TAX revenue is collected from the residents of public housing projects? Is it ZERO dollars? Or is it a big NEGATIVE number? Go with the latter.

You wrote:

"...which they won't be for at least 25 years, and according to the city that would be $300 million in lost property tax revenue just on the condos."

I gather you also believe that economies only develop when government collects revenue and distributes it.

One added bonus from postponing the distribution of deeply discounted apartments to residents who can't afford the neighborhood is an improvement in the character of students in the public schools that will serve the AY community.

This benefit is particularly striking when you look at public school expenditures.

For example, the Average Per-Pupil Expenditure in NY City is about $14,000 a year. The school system is almost 80% black and hispanic.

However, the Annual Expenditure per Stuyvesant High School student is about $9,000 a year.

In other words, it costs much less to educate kids who are not discipline problems. Schools individually report their annual budgets. It's all there.

Therefore, if the entire city were populated mostly by middle-class families who embraced WHITE and Asian middle-class sensibilities, the education bill for this city would drop by BILLIONS of dollars.

While you see only a tax shortfall -- a mythical shortfall -- you fail to understand that when problem communities are replaced by functioning communities, many social costs plummet.

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 4:26 PM

Sterling Silver, you wrote:

"Do you have solutions, or are you just going to continue to bitch? Or is your preferred solution a little more final?"

Solutions? Sure.

Here's some news for you. The student population at Stuyvesant is 50% Asian, 45% white, and 5% everybody else.

Students are admitted based on ONE competitive exam. Why the huge racial imbalance? The NY City public school system is 75% black & hispanic, 15% white, 10% asian and a few others. Yet blacks and hispanics don't pass the test.

Somebody must be doing something wrong at home. It's not the asians, who often don't speak English when they get here. It's not the whites.

Problem. How do you improve the school system?

Answer: Get better students.

How do you do that?

Make the city more attractive to people who TRULY value education. If attitudes and practices toward education were similar across racial lines, Stuyvesant's student body would include at least a large minority of black and hispanic students. It doesn't. If you can't learn something from that, well...

By the way, would you like to place a bet on the race of the shooters who nailed the two cops yesterday?

Perhaps you should examine the crime statistics for the city. Roughly 90% of violent crime is committed by blacks and hispanics. But they account for about 50% of the population. Somebody is working overtime in that department.

Additionally, the population of NY City is heading for 9 million by 2020, but possibly sooner. I hope we get there. And I hope the new residents are people buying the new condos that are under construction or soon to be under construction all over the city.

I'd like to see an increasing base of tax-PAYERS over tax-RECEIVERS.

If you search the public housing projects, you will find few white residents. People often need a little help. But you need enough people with enough income to help those in need.

That means attracting more people who are able to help. That means more tax-PAYERS.

One big contributor to problems is Rent Stabilization. It chokes redevelopment of property for generations.

Safeguarding rents may be fair for the person who signs a rent-stablized lease. But I know people who are over 50 who were assigned the leases of their parents' apartments on Manhattan properties. This has got to stop. I really don't have any sympathy for someone who must give up a $400-a-month Upper East Side rent-stablized unit they received from their parents to move to Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx for a new place.

The existence of tenement buildings in some of Manhattan's best neighborhoods deprives the city of better use of the real estate. Rent-stablized leases give occupants all the benefits of ownership but none of the responsibilities. That's a bad deal from every angle.

Regarding rent stabilization, it is best to end lease transfers. If a person's name is not on the lease at the time of the original signing, then it should never appear on the lease.

The city should move as quickly as possible to wind down the rent stablization program. It is, unfortunately, an expensive giveaway to whites to keep them in the city.

The fact that there are some black homeowners who have prospered is good news. But the fact remains that goofballs like Charles Barron aren't really interested in encouraging blacks to prosper in the same manner as non-blacks when it's so much easier to simply peddle some anti-white racist sentiment to explain the differentials.

Long story short -- build as much housing as possible for tax-PAYERS. That's the smartest solution.

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 7:39 PM

Sterling Silver, you also wrote:

"So now you are also saying that Black middle class and above families don't value education, either.

Why do you capitalize "Black"?

That aside, the black middle class is small, but growing. Wealthy blacks in NY City are a very small number. Out of 2 million blacks in this city, few qualify as middle-class or above. I wish this were not true.

Meanwhile, the results of the school system speak for themselves. You can pretend the faults lie everywhere but on the black culture that rejects the white middle-class sensibility about education.

You spewed:

"Forget Hispanics and every other group, as well, and the black poor? Nope. What sensibilities would those be?"

Bottom line. Blacks and hispanics do poorly in school. The problems are not with the schools. However, the schools have been stripped of all powers to address the problem of "minority" underachievement.

Of course, in this city, asians are the true minority. But asians, as a group, are the best students in the city these days. Why is that? We should all practice their methods.

You blabbered:

"Hmmmmm, what have white folks/kids done in our educational system that black kids have never done? Oh yeah - Columbine, and every other case of white disaffected teen school shootings."

I see. You had to look back 8 years and extend your search to Colorado to find TWO crazed white kids who committed murder. And on that basis you find equivalence between white and black academic achievement. I see you are a true student of logic.

You grasped:

"Looks like some of those white middle class values haven't quite taken hold, have they?"

Aha. In other words, because whites have not achieved perfection, mentioning the social pathologies of the black community is not permitted.

Why don't you put aside your outrage for a moment and tell me why there is many times more violence in black and hispanic communities compared with white and asian communities. And tell me why black and hispanic academic achivement is so dismal.

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 8:09 PM

Beeotch, you wrote:

"Maybe if some of you stuck your heads outside of NYc you might be surprised to see the number of white people on welfare, committing crimes, living in trailer parks..."

Living in a trailer park is not a criminal offense. Neither is living in limited circumstances in New York City.

But the crime statistics are available for everyone to see. However, Beeotch, you have decided to ignore them.

Violent crime is many times higher in the black and hispanic communities compared with white and asian communities. It's that simple.

Your next sentence reveals much more than you would like:

"If you think Black people are so bad, white people taught them everything- slavery, inquisitions, discrimination, holocausts, decimantion of native populations..."

In other words, you are claiming that blacks are so weak-minded and so lacking any sense of morality that they embraced the worst parts of life learned from whites. That's quite an indictment, and quite a statement of black inferiority.

Do you realize you've said that blacks don't know right from wrong?

Moreover, since violence is prevalent in black communities but scholarship is not, despite massive efforts by whites to educate blacks, you are also stating that the only knowledge blacks seem capable of acquiring relates to violence and self-destruction.

In any case, your original statement is ridiculous. As you will probably claim, blacks were the first humans on Earth. Meanwhile, Africa was untouched by whites for centuries.

If you think black tribes weren't slaughtering and enslaving each other for centuries before they ever saw a white man, you're dreaming.

Meanwhile, why does this insanity continue today? Could the madness that drives virtually everything in Africa persist if reasonable people were running the countries there?

Posted by: City Boy at July 10, 2007 8:54 PM

Beeotch, you wrote:

"City Boy probably never even heard of Harriet tubman, let alone Langston Hughes."

Wrong, as usual Beeotch. But you bring up a good point. Black writers. Because there are so few, and because only a handful have ever shown serious literary talent and skill, they get their own section in Barnes & Noble and Borders. A little literary segregation. Like the cheese -- standing alone.

Do black writers need a separate space within book stores?

Is this segregation an accomodation for black readers? Does it relieve them of the headache of having to search through all the sections of the store to find black authors?

Is grouping all the works by black writers in one area a way to say to the world "Hey we write books too. Just look over here."

That aside, you should wonder why there are so few good black writers.

Though I admire the marketing drive of Zane, Zane is average, at best. Ralph Ellison is the best, in my view.

There was once a string of black writers including Donald Goines, who wrote about the hard life. Goines and others, like Iceberg Slim, were okay writers. A little talent and a little skill. But most of them died in bad ways, some in jail, some on the street.

I recall one Goines novel I read titled "Swamp Man", a truly ridiculous tale of one black man's revenge for the rape of a black woman by a white man.

Beeotch, you wrote:

"But look at some of these posts- they're not about that at all. city Boy ? I wouldn't be surprised to know he has a few white sheets in his closet."

The sheets on my bed are white. Covering my bed is the only use I have for sheets.

You babbled:

"They don't look at the Black community and see the potential or the incredible history..."

Sorry, but if there's one statement that sums up black history, it's that blacks have had virtually no impact on the intellectual advances of the world.

You claimed:

"...or the great achievments"

Like what?

You assumed:

"...they see people who aren't up to their supposed high standards and need to be shoved out of the way."

You're really worried that blacks have done little for the world. You should wonder why there's been so little intellectual achievement and why black societies in every part of the world lag.

Sociologists and anthropologists look at this problem every day. You should too.

Posted by: City Boy at July 11, 2007 12:31 AM

Sterling Silver, you wrote:

"For every ignorant numbnod who thinks getting an education and speaking correct English is “white”, there is a child who wants to learn, who wants to get out of the ghetto mindset."

You should really spend a little time in the public school system. Your statement isn't true. What's more you are determined to ignore the tragedy staring you in the face.

High school graduation rates of blacks and hispanics are much lower than the rates for whites and asians. Worse are the college statistics. And even worse than college statistics for blacks and hispanics are those for graduate school. These are facts. But you want to argue from some goofy emotional base that it stems from some unfairness that was brought about by non-blacks. Really, you need to grow up.

You wrote:

"For every unwed teenager with kids watching tv all day, there is the single mother who has 2 dead end jobs, one just to pay for babysitting while she goes to night school to learn a skill. You may only see that she is an unwed ghetto mother, and pass her by."

You seem to have overlooked the fact that your hypothetical teen mother is receiving state assistance already. And you show no objective sense about the situation. The illegitimacy rate among blacks is stunningly high. This one factor accounts for more lousy outcomes in black America than probably any other. It all starts here. Not that you seem to care about changing things for the better.

You wrote:

"City Boy only sees the numbers, Since there are so few blacks at Stuyvesant HS, then blacks don’t care about education?"

Why then, are there so few blacks at Stuyvesant, when blacks account for a huge percentage of the public school population? Your refusal to acknowledge the factual explanation for this shows that your head is in the sand.

You wrote:

"You can only draw that conclusion if you somehow believe that everyone is starting from the same, equal beginning, and we know that our schools are neither equal or the same."

Like I said, 50% of the students at Stuyvesant are asian. Some did not speak English when they arrived in the US. Some of the asian parents of Stuyvesant students do not speak English. The same statements can be made for the Russian students at our top city schools. Yet the kids are there. How did they do it?

Nevertheless, your response suggests that a conspiracy against blacks has kept them from achieving and attending the city's best schools. You claim blacks must cross more hurdles than whites to reach the academic promised land. What you don't understand is the subtext of your own claims. You don't understand that you are stating the reason for black educational underachievement is black inferiority.

However, this is bizarre. If growing up in deprived circumstances is such a defeating experience, why are the vast majority of hugely talented, massively paid, black athletes from the same neighborhoods as the underachieving students? Why are the NBA and the NFL populated mostly by blacks up from youths spent in poverty? Does this success originate in some force outside the black community?

You wrote:

"That is the problem with his entire argument on all points, whether here, Africa, or anywhere else. History has made the starting points all very, very, unequal."

Now you are showing even more contempt for blacks. You are attempting AGAIN to explain black underachievement by claiming that since the dawn of man, blacks have had higher mountains to climb -- and were never able to catch up. You are the spokesperson for black inferiority.

By the way, you said:

"History has made the starting points all very, very, unequal."

You have made "History" into a noun with physical power. Despite your claim, "History" didn't make anything. History is just the record of the past. Nevertheless, you make History sound as though it is a relay race in which blacks were positioned far at the back of the pack and prohibited by the rules from catching up. Your devotion to the idea of black inferiority is shocking.

You wrote:

"He can pull out an item here, a failing there, but seems to know no history to tell him the back story, or help him understand why we are where we are."

Look, black history is brief. Sorry to tell you, but black contributions to the advancement of the world are close to zero.

You wrote:

"It is not excusing wrongs or injustices to know how they came about."

That may be true. But analyzing the past is only a step toward solving problems and changing a self-defeating culture.

You wrote:

"I come from educators. I know the power of knowledge and education in making people better in every way."

Your statements reveal only that blacks have troubles they can't overcome. You should reconsider your views.

Posted by: City Boy at July 11, 2007 8:54 AM

Beeotch, a few points:

Philip Emeagwali is a fraud. Apparently everyone but you knows this.

A more important point. Virtually every notable black you mentioned lived in the 19th century. Why is that?

Moreover, if you list the names of ALL notable blacks, you will find they lived a long time ago. And, that there were not many.

Furthermore, as Mark Twain might have said, some of the stories about the blacks you mentioned are "stretchers."

But, assume all the credit you want. The fact remains that very few patents are awarded to blacks. This is an unfortunate reality, but no matter how angry you get, the facts will stand.

Meanwhile, it's also worth noting that the handful of black innovators in the world have lived in the US. Not Africa. Thus, it's quite clear that slavery had its upside.

Did you notice that your list of black innovators does not include anyone who lived before the 19th century? That makes it obvious that black innovation was non-existent before blacks were forced to the US.

You cited:

"Matthew Alexander Henson (1866-1955)
Arctic Explorer with Adm Peary"

Whoa. A hiker. Yeah, that's an achievement. Edmund Hillary was the first person to reach the summit of Mt Everest. In the course of human existence, reaching that mountain peak means exactly NOTHING.

You cited:

"A. Philip Randolph :an African American labor leader (in 1937). In 1941 he conceived a march on Washington, DC, to protest exclusion of African American workers from defense jobs."

Wow. An activist. Once again, inconsequential impact. Not an innovator. A fine person, no doubt. But organizing a march isn't much of anything.

YOu cited:

"In 1875 the first Black physicist graduated from Yale university."

So what? One? I hate to break it to you, but almost no blacks receive Ph.Ds in math, physics or chemistry. Some years not a single Ph.D. is awarded to a black candidates in those fields.

You mentioned:

"(Perhaps not as major as Hitler..."

There are 15 million Jews in the world today. Hitler exterminated 6 million. Have you ever heard of Jews claiming they're unable to achieve because Hitler almost wiped them out?

If you need examples of how hardships are overcome, and how to climb the intellectual ladder, check the Jewish experience throughout history. For more recent examples, see the advances of Asians in this country. Their achievements should make every American proud.

Posted by: City Boy at July 11, 2007 1:33 PM

Beeotch, you may be black, white, Jewish, Christian or a mix of all of the preceding. I don't know. But I do know you think that it's national news if a black obtains a patent or engages in an interesting pursuit that attracts the attention of the press.

Look, the fact that America has put men on the moon is a monumental achievement. In fact, I think today might be the anniversary date of Neil Armstrong's famous moon walk.

But Neil Armstrong is the least important component of the lunar landing. How many patents to you think NASA scientists obtained as we prepared to land on the moon? In relative terms, a couple of hundred times the number of patents issued to black innovators.

It's irrelevent that Armstrong walked on the moon. Sure, he puts a human face on the moment, though he has NEVER given an interview since returning from the moon.

The achievement was in the execution. Thousands of highly trained engineers and sci