Hm…
Schulman argues that the gentrification of NYC was in part made possible by the mass wave of death from AIDS in the gay community in the 1980s and early 90s.
Also, chasing the homeless out of NYC and sending them to Jersey isn’t particularly helpful for the homeless. He’s also stop and frisk was a racist disaster.
Yes. As noted above, a lot of the anti-crime initiatives Giuliani takes credit for actually started under Dinkins or earlier – the clean-up of Times Square and of the subway are good examples. But kicking the Mob out of the Javits Center and the Fulton Fish Market and the commercial carting industry was definitely Giuliani, and no-one missed the gangsters once they were gone.
Those two policies (along with his establishing an atmosphere where the NYPD felt free to perpetrate horrors like that in the Abner Louima case) can also be legitimately credited to him, representing the darker side of his anti-crime (in some cases anti-homeless) campaign.
The homeless policy was enacted almost as quickly as the anti-Mob one. It was a really weird and sinister “they ‘disappeared’ overnight” vibe in the city between 1994-95.
The mode du jour of some cities with large homeless populations has occasionally been to give them bus or plane tickets to other places so it is no longer that city’s problem. While they claim they mainly send them to places where they have family to take them in, they can’t all live in California, Hawaii, Florida, Arizona, and other warm states. Every year in the winter and early spring, we notice an influx of new houseless people that we don’t recognize; if we ask, they sometimes say they were given a ticket.
Tony Soprano was in the waste management business.
Maybe 25 years ago, I attended a public lecture at MIT by an artist whose name I can only recall as starting with the letter U - Ursula? She presented a really interesting slide show on the subject of her collaboration with a major city’s trash department – NYC? Her projects involved public art on the largest possible scale, for example, diverting tons and tons of recycled glass pellets into the city’s supply of sidewalk concrete. Whenever I’m in NYC and see a sparkly sidewalk, I wish I could remember her name.
Sure, I’m aware. It’s not actual dealing with the problem, of course. More bullshit neoliberalism that puts profits ahead of human beings, which highlights why housing/land should not be a commodity.
It seems like the pandemic has made some face the problem. I know here in ATL, they’ve now housed some of the homeless community in hotels not currently in use due to the pandemic (other cities have done similar things). And there is a new housing program that’s housed about 400 or so people so far, and wants to house a total of 800:
It seems like Utah had success with a similar program not too long ago.
They did that with one of the hotels here that used to be directed at business travelers, but mostly shut down during the pandemic. I think they are winding down that program, but while it was going, it was a raging success. I don’t know why they don’t learn from it and find a way to keep it going, especially since housing is at a ridiculous premium locally. Lots of people and families would love a place that simply had 4 walls, a roof and door for a reasonable (or subsidized) price, it wouldn’t have to be big or fancy.
They might, of course. ATL seems to have done. But they have to have the political will to do so, as there will be a big backlash against such programs from some quarters.
Sure. But if land is seen as a commodity, then that’s far more difficult. When housing is understood as a right we’re all entitled to, that is a change in perception that makes it possible.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
