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]
quote:
“Why is shop after shop of Boutiques, coffee shops and gourmet markets all with a similar aesthetic any less “authentic”, or more boring or “same” – then a neighborhood with shop after shop of check cashing places, liquor stores, overpriced bodegas and Chinese take-out selling chicken wings and French fries?”
because the type of people who shop in boutiques, coffee shops, and gourmet markets ARE most of the time inauthentic, bland, and the same.
the cast of characters one meets in check cashing places, liquor stores, and bodegas are often quite intriguing, funny, and sometimes off the wall straight out bonkers. i will take this group any day over the other group.
*rob*
Bleecker St is fabulous. I can get a 5 dollar cupcake, 500 dollar sneakers and a 5,000 dollar raincoat all on the same block. That’s what NYC is all about people.
“Oh, Benson doesn’t care about the working classes. He just doesn’t like all the arty liberals who don’t go to church because they’re out late fornicating and having abortions — often at the very same Burning Man-inspired Bushwick parties.”
Holy $hit!! Man, I’ve been called just about everything on this site, but this one takes the cake!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
FSRG;
If you want to understand her points, see the discussion we had above about self-loathing.
“benson, you live in Park Slope. Seems you find it desirable.
But before it became “discovered”, there was a great mix in PS. Same with Brooklyn Heights. ”
and before that they were economically and socially homogenoeous….you know in the summer it is hot and the winter it is cold but in the Spring and Fall sometimes it is hot and sometimes it is cold and sometimes it is in-between….its called LIFE
Rob, free higher education would be great, so we could inculate the masses with the godless heathenism values Benson decries and they wouldn’t have to repay their student loans!
Benson, I don’t pretend to know every section of New York City, even of Brooklyn, well enough to list. Also, at least in Brooklyn, half of the districts have not been around for 25 years, so the point is moot. Your demand also does not allow for the natural change in most neighborhoods due to other factors.
I would propose that the gentrification of neighborhoods now landmarked has little to do with landmarking, per se, and more to do with those neighborhoods’ proximity to Manhattan, and therefore perceived desireable alternatives for Manhattan living. Bklyn Hts, Fort Greene, etc, would have gentrified, or simply gotten more expensive anyway, whether landmarked or not. Most people, even in landmarked areas, are not that interested, they just like the neighborhoods, or can afford them. Landmarks preserves part of the reasons they like living here, but for most people in all neighborhoods, who are renters, not buyers, landmarking may be the icing on the cake, but is not the cake itself.
“Gentrification on steroids is not what Jane Jacobs thought was healthy. That sort of change comes out of greed and arrogance. It is not the result of organic growth or change.”
What does this even mean??? arrogance? – it all sounds enlightened and all, and it is possible I am just retarded, but I’d say it effectively means nothing
Oh, Benson doesn’t care about the working classes. He just doesn’t like all the arty liberals who don’t go to church because they’re out late fornicating and having abortions — often at the very same Burning Man-inspired Bushwick parties.
benson, you live in Park Slope. Seems you find it desirable.
But before it became “discovered”, there was a great mix in PS. Same with Brooklyn Heights. People moved there not because the neighborhoods were landmarked, but because they were beautiful, and BH is the most convenient public transportation neighborhood in the city. Maybe people with money feel entitled to live in the most convenient, beautiful neighborhoods but I have yet to hear anyone say I want to move there because its landmarked. What a bunch of baloney.