The New Gentrification
The Friday Times took another look at the work of Jane Jacobs, who “waged heroic war against planners who dreamed of paving the Village’s cobblestone streets, demolishing its tenements and creating sterile superblocks.” According to Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places,…
The Friday Times took another look at the work of Jane Jacobs, who “waged heroic war against planners who dreamed of paving the Village’s cobblestone streets, demolishing its tenements and creating sterile superblocks.” According to Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College sociology professor and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, saving the cobblestone streets and old architecture may retain a neighborhood’s character superficially, but is doesn’t do much for the community who gave the neighborhood its soul. Zukin paid a visit to Williamsburg (“the East River gold coast”), where she pointed out “a low-slung old granary with a MacBook-speckled coffee bar” and said, We’ve gone from Jacobs’s vision to the McDonald’s of the educated classes. Are you buying what Zukin’s selling?
A Contrarian’s Lament in a Blitz of Gentrification [NYT]
Wait, all these three-family brownstones around me used to be single-family homes for fancy people, right? And now they’re cut up into three-family homes for less fancy people. So, honestly, a little gentrification wouldn’t be totally foreign to the history of the ‘hood.
My neighbors are a bus driver and a post office clerk. They love their brownstones.
It used to be cheap to live in the city!
Housing was crappy but cheap and you could save on not owning a car. There was also the amusemet of horrifying your friends and family by living in the “inner city”. Now the city is mainstream again and real estate prices in the desirable brownstone areas are higher than in the ritzy suburbs.
I have an idea. Let’s outlaw cupcakes. Of course, then only outlaws will eat cupcakes. Or we could just say “let them eat cupcakes.”
Unfortunately, I’ll have to agree with benson on this “Do you think a Con Ed worker has the money and time to deal with keeping up a brownstone,once any exterior renovation has to be approved by the LPC? Do you think he or she has the money to buy LPC-approved windows or doors?”
The statement could apply to me, well in the UMC but not able to waste money on landmark approved doors, windows, paint, lights etc.
While I applaud the concept of landmarking to prevent major structural changes and to promote preservation, the implementation is way too picky and onerous.
So, MM and others, while landmarking may not create gentrification, it absolutely caters to it. I don’t see how you can say that an owner with marginal disposable income could not be negatively affected by landmarking.
As a simple example, I’m always railing on about the overstated $ estimates posted here for renovation, as I tend to spend 1/2 to 1/3 of the average. I do this because that’s what I can afford. If I had to spend $300/ft on my place, it would not have gotten fixed up. And I’m glad I can replace my windows next year without having to file for LPC approval.
I wish I had a better solution, but I don’t, except to suggest landmarking should be only to prevent destruction of the building.
*Rob*
I have to say that I am impressed you are reading City Journal. It’s truly a great journal.
I agree with FSRG’s take on the “authenticity” of bodegas and all.
I don’t understand this whole business of the search for “authenticity”. As I said above: just be comfortable with who you are, and what you have acheieved.
I haven’t seen many “characters” on my block or at the Dunkin Donuts or the corner bodega or the laundromat.
Demographics for Park Slope >West Village>Upper W side
Race:
ZIP 11215 10013 10024
Hispanic/Latino: 26.6% 4.7% 11.1%
White*: 57.2% 41.7% 77.7%
Black*: 6.9% 4.6% 4.9%
Native American*:
Asian*: 5.4% 45.8% 4.2%
HI/Pac. Isl.*: 0.1%
Other*: 0.6% 1.2% 0.4%
Multi*: 3.1% 1.9% 1.6%
* Does not include individuals in this racial group
who identify as Hispanic/Latino.
Household Income:
ZIP 11215 10013 10024
<$10,000: 9.4% 14.7% 8.5%
$10,000-$14,999: 4.5% 9.0% 3.5%
$15,000-$24,999: 8.9% 12.1% 5.9%
$25,000-$34,999: 10.0% 10.7% 6.3%
$35,000-$49,999: 13.3% 11.3% 9.9%
$50,000-$74,999: 20.4% 10.7% 14.6%
$75,000-$99,999: 12.2% 7.2% 10.7%
$100,000-$149,999: 12.0% 8.4% 13.6%
$150,000-$199,999: 4.2% 4.2% 7.9%
$200,000+: 5.0% 11.6% 19.2%
Median: $53,313 $38,304 $78,066
You can play with the zip codes at this site
http://www.zipskinny.com/zipcompare.php
quote:
But because they are different from you (and your ‘regular’ peers)
lol. no. i am very much like them.
*rob*