Guaranteed to Make You Bawl

Children are our future. Okay, not all children. Just the children of PS22.

Lesser-Known Subway Rules

As someone who rides the NYC subway nearly every day along with millions of other riders, I fancy myself a sort of connoisseur of the subway. I have identified the factors that should determine where and how I stand on a crowded train. I have perfected the art of pulling my card out of my wallet well in advance of bellying up to the turnstile. I am a master of slipping out of a rush-hour packed car without physically harming other human beings.

And most of the commuters I (literally) rub shoulders with on the subway have done the same. After 2.5 years of riding, I have identified four levels of subway ridership: 1) folks with years of riding experience that have etiquette and strategy down pat, 2) people in the intermediate phase who know the unspoken rules and mostly don't piss people off but who still slip up in more challenging situations (me), 3) people who don't know the rules but make a valiant effort to be considerate, and 4) jackasses.

As I strive to climb the ranks into that first category, I'm developing a mental list of subway rules you won't find on the MTA website. Here are three of them.

1. Do not use your offspring as a battering ram to get past another rider to a seat. Most people will let a kid sit down, and you do a disservice to your alleged mission, the comfort of your wee babe, by deploying him/her as a weapon. It can only be assumed that you are doing this to get not only your child, but yourself, a seat, which is very unsavory behavior.

2. When you are standing, reading the Jack Welch self-help book, using the top of another rider's seat as an elbow rest is ill-advised, as your elbow inevitably slips when the train jerks and rocks that rider in the shoulder - so, so hard.

3. Please, for the love of God turn your tunes down when you get into the train. It's not as loud in here as it is outside, and some of us don't enjoy Vampire Weekend/salsa/Natasha Bedingfield at all, let alone at full blast at 8 AM for 45 minutes straight.

Caroline, All the Guys Would Say She's Mighty Fine

I also get freaked out when I find myself agreeing with Charles Krauthammer just when I least expect it. But his little screed today on Caroline Kennedy made some sense to me. As a New York resident, I love that she doesn't have to raise money and it's kind of cool that Obama drew her out of the woodwork. Furthermore, Kennedys tend to be pretty reliable, which I guess is...good...mostly? However, Krauthammer's point that

"[...] in a country where advantages of education, upbringing and wealth already make the playing field extraordinarily uneven, we should resist encouraging the one form of advantage the American Republic strove to abolish: title"

rings pretty true. Not that the other potential candidates - Carolyn Maloney, Andrew Cuomo - are hardscrabble urchins pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Still, there's the scent of entitlement all over this potential appointment. And creepy the way that Bloomberg is really twisting Paterson's arm on this one. I could be convinced that Kennedy representing me and my family in the Senate is ultimately a good thing, but I'd like for the argument to include something besides, "but she's a Kennedy!"

The More Things Change

One of the more interesting (and readable) books on the urban environment is Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place by John Logan (currently at Brown University, formerly at SUNY-Albany) and Harvey Molotch (currently at NYU). I was reminded because of this article on Atlantic Yards Report about the New York Times' inconsistency between its "tough analysis of the post-Katrina recovery" versus that covering the Atlantic Yards Project. As Logan and Molotch note in their introduction, the ideas in Urban Fortunes are the combination of Logan's ideas on social stratification in the urban sphere and Molotch's ideas of power and politics in urban development. The latter's ideas on the growth machine politics are particularly instrumental to the AYR article.

Molotch argues that the goal of "growth machine politics" is to increase the size of cities through strategic alliances and contests between different actors so that each can try and capitalize on the maximum exchange value for their land over the use value of current residents. The "growth machine" is particularly powerful because it often contains some of the most powerful political actors: developers, real estate agents, building trades unions, etc. Those opposing the "growth machine" (i.e. those whose use value is greater than their exchange value) are only successful through the organizing necessary to oppose the growth machine coalitions.

But, for Molotch, newspapers play a particularly important role in the development of the growth machine. For them, the ultimate goal is to increase the size of the entire metropolitan area (thus, increasing both readership and the importance of the city to gain more national prestige) and they arbitrate disputes between actors at the local level to encourage the best plan for the development of the entire area. Thus, Logan and Molotch write:

Although newspapers may express concern for "the ecology," this does not prevent them from supporting growth-inducing investments for their regions. The New York Times likes office towers and additional industrial installations in the city even more than it loves "the environment." Even when historically significant districts are threatened, the Times editorializes in favor of intensification. Thus, the Times recently admonished opponents to "get out of the way" of the Times Square renewal, which would replace landmark structures (including its own former headquarters at 1 Times Square) with huge office structures (New York Times, May 24, 1984, p.18). Similarly, the Los Angeles Times editorializes against narrow-minded profiteering that increases pollution or aesthetic blight—in other cities. The newspaper featured criticizm, for example, of the Times Square renewal plan (Kaplan, 1984:1), but had enthusiastically supported development of the environmentally devastating supersonic transport (SST) for the jobs it would presumably lure to Southern California. [pp. 72-3]

Logan and Molotch go on to talk about how the two papers then fired two columnists that were too critical of interests in their own cities.

Maybe it would be better to direct the information to the Los Angeles Times to try and get critical information of the Atlantic Yards project published!

Consumer Cities

Part of the reason that I got interested in studying gentrification is its importance in shaping American (and, as I am finding out world) cities. It is a fascinating location of a whole bunch of fundamental theoretical debates. And I don't mean "theoretical" in the sense of academically removed ivory tower stuff, but real fundamental debates about the underlying social issues facing American society. Gentrification, and the debates surrounding gentrification, narrow in on fundamental questions about the role of public financing for housing, jobs, education but also issues surrounding the environment, diversity and the role of public and private institutions in the development of new political ideas.

But, there are times when I find it uncanny how well timed things are. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I was discussing Lance Freeman's book in the context of the paper that I was am writing when the next day the AYR published a review of it. But, today I found something that is probably even more directly relevant. From the Creative Class Group (Richard Florida's consultancy business), there was a link to this article in the International Herald Tribune. It is discussing the role of demand-driven location decisions in the economic development of cities and how cities can cater to those demands. There was one particular part that caught my attention, however:

The number of these "consumer immigrants" - those moving back to the city seeking a better quality of life - is relatively small compared with the hundreds of thousands of poorer economic migrants who traditionally head to the inner city.

But the "consumer immigrants" have a special significance because they are rich. They are the wealthy, educated, creative types that Bloomberg wants to engage with in his PlaNYC, his initiative to ensure that the extra million souls he predicts will arrive by 2030 do not produce an unlivable crush in Manhattan.

He is pushing for a congestion charge to cut traffic and pollution, plans an all-hybrid taxi fleet, wants to plant one million new trees, and would like to make sure that every New Yorker lives within a 10-minute walk of a park. These are all innovations that the upper-middle classes increasingly take for granted.

In his reinvention of New York as a greener city, Bloomberg may have drawn comfort from the cover story of New York magazine this week. It showed that, despite the city's grime and noise, New Yorkers are among the healthiest in the country.

Interestingly, this is precisely the conversation that I am responding to in the paper that I am currently writing (vainly, it seems — though seeing this gives me hope that the issue is important). There are several critiques that I have of this and I outline them below.

First, it is true that the number of "consumer immigrants" is vastly outnumbered by the number of "economic migrants" nation-wide. But, the thrust of this argument assumes that assumes that the "poorer economic migrants" are not simultaneously consumers or may desire nice places to live^[1]. And, wouldn't the economic payoff of those vastly numerically more numerous migrants be, overall, a greater economic boom to the city if it captured that demand?

Second, the initiatives that Bloomberg is proposing are seen, in many ways, as very progressive causes. And, I would argue that they are in fact very progressive causes. The problem is that the solutions are not. They reflect, in a certain way, the return of a New York tradition: the Rockefeller Republican. The effect of congestion pricing is also going to mean that places like Home Depot, Costco, etc. are going to be able to write off the extra overhead costs, but the smaller business person who relies on delivery to Manhattan is going to face a signficant reduction of profits. I in principle I agree with the fact that we need to reduce the use of cars; however, the recent subway problems after the flood indicate that money might be better invested in the mass transit system. Same with the "greening" of the taxis: Bloomberg ain't payin' for it - he's making the taxi drivers do that.

Finally, and I think that this made me the most irate, it might be true that New Yorkers as a whole may be becoming more healthy. But, let me offer an alternative explanation beginning from the premise of this article that more rich people are moving to the city. More rich people are moving in. Rich people tend to have better health than poor people and rich neighborhoods have better health than poor communities (net of individual differences in income)^[2], therefore, it may simply be that the sick people are dying or being pushed out. The implied assumption in that statement is that all New Yorkers are healthier but, in fact, it may just be that New York residents are richer - which is the very point of this article.

There are reasonable debates to be had about whether the "consumer city" is good or bad public policy and I would be interested to hear what people think about these proposals. While the environmental effects and social mixing of diverse cities are important, we also have to think about policies that are fair to the service-workers and current residents that provide the cheap labor that makes the "consumer city" possible. Furthermore, we also have to see that the demands and needs of all city residents are met and not necessarily pander to the few rich "consumer immigrants" that might move to the city.

Ah, so much here -- so I am going to go finish this paper now and let you know what I find out about these issues...

Related:

• The "Tolerant" Creative Class
• The New Class Struggle
• Race & Redevelopment I: Gentrification

^[1] On another note of language, it is interesting how this argument might be able to recast the immigration debate — or if it will be used to recast the immigration debate.
^[2] A. Diez Roux, 2001. (For propriety's sake I should mention that I work on a project on which Ana is a co-PI)

Live from New York!

It is official. I am not a resident in the fine borough of Brooklyn; land of the Dodgers, hipsters, corner delis and overpriced housing. Having only lived here for a total of five days thus far, with the packed boxes possibly still more numerous than the unpacked ones, I have to say, I &hearts BK. I am sure that there will be plenty more posts about the BK and NYC in general, but I wanted to share some lessons I learned from moving here:

• Budget trucks are sometimes not considered trucks (they are allowed to use the car speedlimit in OH, PA, and NJ) and sometimes consider trucks (see Holland Tunnel).


• I have confirmed my severe dislike for NJ - and this is based on experiences OFF the Turnpike, thank you very much (although the Turnpike also sucks)


• Nothing makes you feel like a packrat more than moving to a one-bedroom apartment in NYC.


• Despite what people from NYC want you to believe, NOTHING runs more efficiently here -- it is all a big lie


• I am very luck to be marrying E. (alright, I already knew that &mdash moving here just confirmed it)


• Cleo likes long rides in trucks even less than she does in the car. I think that she might possibly like it even less than getting her fingernails clipped, which may be the doggie-version of the inner-most ring of Hell


• I have the best friends in the world! No, seriously, I do.

My internet access is still sporadic, but I wanted to reconnect - even if temporarily - to my comrades in the 'osphere.