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| Re: Housing Projects Re: Jane Jacobs Re: Cross Manhattan expressway (465957) | |||
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Re: Housing Projects Re: Jane Jacobs Re: Cross Manhattan expressway |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Wed Jul 25 05:48:15 2007, in response to Housing Projects Re: Jane Jacobs Re: Cross Manhattan expressway, posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Tue Jul 24 20:22:09 2007. Sure, the furnishings and number of people to the size of apartment aren't exactly great, but that isn't actually a problem with the building: the issue is that the people were too goddamn poor to afford anything better.Housing projects, if anything, made the quality of what was affordable worse. At best, you're just moving the slum around at vast public expense. At worst, you're reducing the supply of affordable housing, creating even more overcrowded slums. But if those people ultimately get priced out of the city, we can all live in some upper class fantasy land invented by Le Corbusier (or worse still Ebenezer Howard). Woo fucking hoo. Never mind that the trash won't get collected -- there won't be any shopkeepers to buy the trash from in the first place. And if you do catch some horrible lurgy from all the rotting trash, at least you'll die quickly with there being no nurses. If people had been serious about tackling slums, better (and likely cheaper) policies would be: (1) To densify surrounding neighborhoods by gradual infill, if needs be subsidized (it would still be cheaper than a housing project), and with the last resort of using eminent domain to buy out people who think that they live in the country. This would increase the supply of the housing type that was obviously in too high demand, reducing its price in real terms, raising the square footage that a poor family can effectively demand. (2) To address the causes of poverty: e.g. by increasing the minimum wage, granting tax rebates to large families, etc. (3) Where necessary, offer landlords a subsidy on installation of gas, electricity, hot and cold water, and central heating. But then again, I've read Jane Jacobs' books, and I largely agree with her... |
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