231–240 of 346 posts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_boards_of_New_York_C...
- Vote in every election
- Donate generously to local nonprofits
- Liberate your mind from techie libertarianism. Problems surrounding education, job training, climate, housing, homelessness and public transportation all need massive public investments at all levels of government.
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> Fight for just housing/zoning policies and against NIMBYism With you on that one. But this is a problem of successful, growing cities and it sounds like OP is in a city in the opposite situation that is lacking in economic opportunities. > Join orgs supporting the homeless and fighting against the criminalization of homelessness. When most people complain about homelessness, they're talking about the homeless on th…
I have to concur. In general, gentrification is the clearest path to improving neighborhoods that have probably suffered as a result of "NIMBYism" elsewhere in a city. Being opposed to gentrification is a form of "NIMBYism". Gentrification is not the enemy of affordable housing.
You won't care how "great" the new neighborhood is with its SoulCycle classes if you cannot afford to live there anymore.
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Also in a very objective way, I don't understand this reasoning. I've never brought up the question before and hoping that HN can explain it in a logical way that I might understand. Let's say that a neighborhood is rated 3 out of 10 - not very good. There is a mix of people that live in this neighborhood. Some people own property and some do not. Then the community makes the neighborhood better and it rises to a 7 o…
This is a fair point except that neighborhoods are not fungible and are in short supply. You’re assuming that there is another 3/10 neighborhood available for the people who are displaced to move to, and therefore they gain a short term benefit and eventually end up back where they were. In practice it’s typical that older areas which have become run down have ample city services, such as transit, parks, and librarie…
The wealth of yesterday created that situation. At some point someone will invest in that older area because of the location value.
The only way to artifically control that is through low rent units. Which create other barriers because one can never leave or they give up something even though it might make sense to move somewhere else for family or job reasons. When they always take 1/3 of gross getting a raise and taking on more responsibility seems counter-productive. Hard to break dependence.
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I think your concern is valid but unfounded. This is fortunate - otherwise the way to help the poor would be to vandalize their neighborhoods, which is a strange conclusion. It's true that increasing quality of a neighborhood will increase its housing price. This will have disparate impact: (1) it will help people who enjoy higher quality, but (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price. Howe…
> (2) it will hurt people who would prefer low quality and lower price. Uh... poverty isn't a preference. Sure, at the margins people can choose to spend the money they have on different things, but you're positing an equivalence here between things that aren't remotely equal. It's not like suburban professionals simply choose to spend their money on expensive housing and infrastructure where their inner city compatr…
Once you walk enough roads and knock enough doors you get to know everyone in the area. You can at least find comrades who are either politicians already or would be politicians so that you can team up to bring improvement to the community.
Sometimes this may danger you life if gangs control the local area so prepare to go dirty or just leave for some place at least decent enough.
The single best thing you can do is pick a neighborhood - not the whole city - and invest deeply. Get to know everyone in the neighborhood and understand what they want and need, then try to find ways to bring that. When you have a strong network of neighbors and a little bit of cash, you can ramp up investment by cleaning up dirty corners and getting the basic services that a neighborhood is missing. Here’s an examp…
I mean this in the most objective way possible. The risk with urban improvement is making the area more desirable eventually prices people out of the community. So, the real question is do you help the land or current residents? When you own property it’s seriously worth considering local improvements for several reasons, but it’s also easy to confuse the two. Further, if most people in the community own property the…
I think this is a total non-starter. Trees are good, not bad. Good things are good, not bad.
It is good to do good things. If doing good things reveals something bad, then we should work on fixing that bad thing, not on avoiding the good things that uncovered the bad thing.
We want a politics where poor people can live in neighborhoods with trees, not a politics that says trees are bad because they make neighborhoods too desirable.