Posted on 03/25/2015 4:53:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
No matter what you do, modern liberals will tell you you're wrong.
For decades, liberals complained that American society is segregated because rich, white people don't want to live in ethnically mixed neighborhoods. Sometimes, liberals had a point.
From the 1930s to 1960s, as rich white people moved into New York City, urban planner Robert Moses got city bureaucrats to condemn and destroy busy black neighborhoods. The city called the neighborhoods "blighted" and moved many of the poor into rent-subsidized apartment complexes called "projects." Many quickly became slums.
Now times have changed. Some rich, white people want to move into poorer, non-white neighborhoods because they like diversity (and cheaper real estate). So today the newcomers are attacked by liberals because they cause "gentrification."
Movie director Spike Lee, who lives in Brooklyn, said gentrifiers behave almost like "Columbus and kill off the Native Americans." Of course, the new gentrifiers don't actually kill anyone, but because their arrival often leads to rising real estate values, critics complain that they drive poor people out of the neighborhood.
Two women in Brooklyn got so angry about it, they pulled out a gun, forced two white people out of an apartment and moved in (they were later arrested).
Columbia urban planning professor Stacey Sutton calls gentrification a "manifestation of inequality" that may "fundamentally alter the culture and character of the neighborhood" in ways that hurt the poor.
Yet her own school did something worse. Columbia colluded with politicians to use eminent domain law to take pieces of the Harlem neighborhood that surrounds Columbia. In court, the school argued that it had the right to take neighbors' land because it would "benefit West Harlem."
Who owns the land is something that ought to be decided not by government but by free people making their own decisions about where they wish to live. When gentrification happens that way, spontaneously, price rises are often accompanied by drops in crime, new job opportunities and better connections to the rest of the culture. What the left calls "gentrification" is often called "improvement" by people who live there.
Another Columbia urban planning professor, Lance Freeman, found to his surprise that gentrification didn't even mean significant displacement of the previous population. In his book "There Goes the 'Hood," Freeman writes, "poor residents and those without a college education were actually less likely to move if they resided in gentrifying neighborhoods."
That's because gentrification often means the neighborhood gets safer and more interesting. That's something the old residents enjoy as much as new ones.
The Economist reports that a 2008 study of census data found "no evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods" and found that black incomes "soared" in gentrifying neighborhoods.
That doesn't stop some people -- often rich, white liberals -- from complaining that gentrification destroys the quaintness of the neighborhood. They sound almost like the people who think that the developing world should never be sullied by modern technology. Actually, sometimes the same people make both arguments.
In San Francisco, some longtime residents got so angry about Google employees moving in that they surrounded Google employee shuttle buses, waving protest signs.
It's a fight between hippies and tech geeks, with the hippies calling for regulations to prevent change. Such regulations have perverse effects, however. They lead to long waits for building permits and subsidies for housing that end up getting used by the well-connected and rich.
When regulation makes it harder to build or to alter old buildings, the effect is higher costs and reduced choices, which only makes things harder for the poor. Regulation saves some old things people like, but those people will never even know what new things they missed out on.
If nothing like gentrification ever happened in the world, we all still would be living in the same caves our ancestors lived in thousands of years ago. I say, let free people keep transforming the neighborhood.
All the more reason to simply ignore liberals.
Hmmm, I wonder why?
Because liberalism is about emotions and control. It doesn't need to be logically consistent because it's a religion. It's a belief system that relies on smoke and mirrors to make its unnaturally selfish and greedy adherents feel good about themselves.
AKA a mental illness.
Very well said
No he doesn't, he lives on lilly white Park avenue in Manhattan, I use to see him there all the time. Right down the street from Bloomberg and Client #9 Elliot Spitzer, you know, those two guys from the ghetto. Lee is just another massive hypocrite like most liberals not to mention a punk ass who almost got an elderly couple killed when he posted their address as George Zimmermans address on the internet.
Big Br’O did actually accomplish something before his Cinderella, Media Monopoly debut in 2008. He got off with only a $75 fine, the Real Estate Reverend who kicked out into the siberian Chicago winter, 5 black families that subsequently disappeared off the face of the earth.
What makes me laugh is how liberals think they are so smart.
I have been around them and sat with them at lunch in my past jobs and they just tell each other how smart they are and how they understand minorities. Yes they all live in their white areas, have used racist language and are so far up their own ass they fail to see how people laugh at them for being so dumb.
The one thing that Stossel doesn’t mention in his article is that gentrification is not an option in many cities, well not a sane option. The taxes, particularly property taxes, make it cost prohibitive for many. I guess there are those that are willing to pay high taxes, but why would someone want to pay substantially higher taxes when they could live a mere five miles away with lower taxes. In addition there is less crime, garbage, traffic, etc. The only way this works out is when a city has a program that provides a waiver for part or all taxes for a period of time. That is hideous and unfair to other taxpayers.
I’m always amazed at these low income (or no income, only our tax dollars for EBT, Section8, etc..) areas, and how they are littered with garbage and debris all over the sidewalks, and in empty lots. These people have no pride in the areas in which they live, to pick up a broom and clean up. No personal responsibility to try to go out and get a job to better themselves. No understanding of the concept of work ethic. It’s unreal. Oh, they must be typical Obama voters.
> No matter what you do, modern liberals will tell you you’re wrong.
All the more reason to simply ignore liberals.
Most conservatives have become inoculated against the Alinsky virus now that we know what it is and how to identify it when we see it. They are good at groupthink but not thinking for themselves or crtically. If you encounter a group of them take out the head shrieker and they will scatter. Sort of like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oKwg6W05MU
The area that I lived in next to Atlanta went from
crackville to Yuppie heavean between 1997 until the present. The votes didn’t change.
It voted D when it was 85% black, and it still votes
D. The demographics are roughly 65% white. Most of the gentrifiers are gays (D) and hipsters ( the same). The crime and grime HAVE been lowered dramatically. The sad thing about the area is that nobody but 2 income households with degrees past a bachelor’s can afford to buy in anymore.
My home sold for 97k in 1995, to an unpleasant,
militant lesbian. She neglected it to the point that it
was declared “condemned” 10 years later. It still sold for 200k. The average 2 bedroom box now goes for 325K.
If I’d stayed a few more years I’d have been set.
It’s worth the lost money when you don’t have to worry anymore about stray bullets coming through your windows.
You can say that again.... ignore Liberals...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsBta25OGQ
Bushwick 2015
You aren’t suppose to tell that Spike lives on White Park Ave. He doesn’t want to be seen as a hypocrite, but someone who cares about his people...and they knew he lived on Park Ave., they might want to move in with his family.
Is this not what liberals claim of conservatives??? Hypocrite much?
Not so sure about that...the new families move in with Zerohisseff stickers on the back of their Pwe-uthses.
Your comment certainly doesn’t apply to NYC. Besides, property taxes are actually lower in the city than on Lawn Guyland and Westchester, although the purchase price of housing is also higher than both suburbs.
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