Can't create discussion w/NYT link

Maybe because this site probably destroyed the NYT real estate section.

If the Times were half smart they'd buy streeteasy.

Maybe with all that revenue they won't get when they start charging for access to their site. I don't where these companies get off, expecting people to pay for information and entertainment.

But anyway NYCHA is tearing down a housing project.

I assume you mean this one..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/nyregion/06demolish.html?hpw

"But now, for the first time in its 75-year history, the New York City Housing Authority wants to knock down an entire high-rise complex, Prospect Plaza in Brooklyn — a move that has surprised and angered a number of former tenants and advocates for low-income housing. "

Sad that the ONLY awful housing project that NYC will ever turn down is only because it got so problematic structurally.

Other cities are way ahead of us in remedying this failed experiment.

"Philadelphia tore down 21. Chicago leveled 79. Baltimore took down 21 as well, and when six of them came down in one day in 1995, it threw a parade."

you should not have mentioned Chicago. Now Rufus will appear.

Thanks, somewhereelse. I was off trying and trying to get the thread created (it would only work if I linked in a reply ... ?)

New York's housing projects are very successful (despite corruption and administrative incompetence) in that they're full and have long wait lists ... the supply/demand equation supports them in NY, and not in any of those other (shrinking) cities.

It's sad for their tenants that they get such poor value for their money (let alone the taxpayers for their money). The condo I last lived in had CCs of about $600 for a 2/2, >1000 sf. Someone I knew lived in a classic NYCHA housing project 2/1, probably around 750 sf tops, and paid pretty much the same amount in rent. The apartment was fairly similar, except for finishes. But the lobby (such as it was) and hallways were grim and decades late for refurbishing, and one or both elevators were often out of service for long periods of time. Meaning that taxpayer subsidies had been disappearing into a black hole for decades, probably resurfacing in McMansions in Old Westbury owned by well-connected construction company owners (so to speak).

"New York's housing projects are very successful (despite corruption and administrative incompetence) in that they're full and have long wait lists ... the supply/demand equation supports them in NY, and not in any of those other (shrinking) cities."

And breed additional poverty, drugs, etc. Great that they're in demand, but figure ANYTHING that isn't $2k is in demand in this town. People rent 5 foot high basements in Williamsburg.

Thats not a sign of succes, thats a sign of *desperation*.

If I were to agree at all that projects breed additional poverty, drugs, etc., it would only be where there's a gigantic expanse of projects. And I don't necessarily agree. Lots of low-rise, privately-owned areas have been crime-breeding grounds historically. Five Points, Canarsie, the Upper West Side, etc.

The projects specifically are what killed Canarsie. And you don't think the UWS has projects, really?

though if your point is, there can be crime without projects, I'm not sure why you think thats relevant...

Fact is, many of the areas that gentrified were able to do so specifically because they weren't turned into projects. The ones that were were pretty much permanently established as crap places.

Yes, the projects on the UWS helped revitalize it. Before that it was all West Side Story.

your evidence is based on periods 50 years ago, really?

I'll even give you that, sure.

But something that worked 50 years ago stops working, and your only evidence it works is, 50 years ago, and you call that "successful"?

"The ones that were were pretty much permanently established as crap places." ... while I'm not particularly a fan of the LES, it has massive blocks of projects, and seems to be holding its own economically -- even with perfidiotz bringing it down.

> Yes, the projects on the UWS helped revitalize it. Before that it was all West Side Story.

Though you seem to be confusing neighborhoods now.... WSS wasn't the upper west, nor were the westies...

And if you think the UWS was always bad....

> "The ones that were were pretty much permanently established as crap places." ... while I'm not
> particularly a fan of the LES, it has massive blocks of projects, and seems to be holding its own
> economically

It certainly doing well in parts, but those are the parts furthest from the projects. It gets quickly worse when you go just an avenue or two extra over, even now, even when the neighborhood was hot and the market was hot for years.

If THAT wasn't enough to offset the problems with the projects, it just goes to show how much of a really, really bad thing projects can be for a neighborhood.

and, again, the example I gave...

when the projects went welfare in Canarsie, it took a LONG TIME middle class neighborhood, which was supersafe, into something completely different. The turn was quick, and it hit crime, schools, and the general cleanliness of the neighborhood awful fast (much, much faster than the encroachment of east new york into canarsie).

Alan: limousine liberal that I am, don't you think at least a teeny-tiny part of the deterioration of NYCHA buildings (30 year shelf life!) have to do with the respect the tenants pay to the property.

Agree with rampant corruption. Ain't that the story with the public purse.

My parents live in not-very-well-built tract housing circa 1988 and it's held up wonderfully because they are anal with maintenance.

I think public housing has the best chance of success when it's well-integrated and has enough of a "tipping" point about it in terms of demographics. When it's all cradle-to-death unbreakable cycle of teen parents, dropouts, poor health, blablabla, it doesn't work even if you pour all the $ into making living environs beautiful. Mixed-income housing with a good dose of urban planning is the way to go.

There is also a specific problem with high rises... in that gangs / drug dealers can control a building by controlling the lobby / elevators. Yet the same buildings stay... while other cities figured out replacing them with low rise was much better.

But here, too many whiners to allow anything productive.

"Alan: limousine liberal that I am, don't you think at least a teeny-tiny part of the deterioration of NYCHA buildings (30 year shelf life!) have to do with the respect the tenants pay to the property."

Yup. And alan himself pointed out a few months back that this used to not be the case, and the change came from when the liberals got rid of the interview requirements and introduced "fast-tracking".

Which meant that many folks who needing good housing and used to have it essentially lost it.

No, Eddie, I pointed out that for a very very brief time they fast-tracked homeless families. Not long ago enough to make a dent. I think it's just your fear that gets much worse when you walk a couple of blocks over. And the fact that the private housing stock near projects is more downscale -- it's like the stuff that was torn down to build the projects, not like the grand buildings on RSD or CPW. And of course other cities tore their large projects down before NY -- they had dwindling populations and the need for LESS housing ... this article's announcement has only to do with embezzlement and palm-greasing, not policy -- you can be sure of that. Lastly, when were the projects built in Canarsie? Was it around the time the Verrazano Bridge opened? That suctioned off half of Brooklyn, projects or not.

nyc10023, I'm not talking about particular apartments, although I have no reason to believe that the tenants are hard on them. I'm talking about elevators that break repeatedly, and lobby areas that were built with cheap materials, and badly slapped together, that have had no refurbishments since the 1960s -- unless you count replacement of small sections of tile with radically mismatched tile. I'm not saying they're free of graffiti and litter, but people aren't really punching their fists through the walls either.

I do agree that ginormous areas of nothing but projects create a cloistered mindset and attendant problems, but in the end not much different from the vast areas of poor people in other cities -- all the same cycles of social problems, maybe worse, and all in private housing.

"No, Eddie, I pointed out that for a very very brief time they fast-tracked homeless families. Not long ago enough to make a dent"

Alan, you are just wrong here. Canarsie went to craps, and it happened when the projects changed, because the projects changed.

If you don't think there wasn't enough time to make a dent, you just weren't there.

" I think it's just your fear that gets much worse when you walk a couple of blocks over"

Nope. I'm talking about the same exact locations... what happened to the stores on Roackaway Parkway, what happened to the schools (where a family member taught).

Not sure how valid your take on the effect of the projects is if you don't have the ability to see change....

Rockaway Parkway is a couple of blocks over from the most booming parts of the LES?