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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
 
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Try looking at the noise and filth outside Lucky 7. And the roving packs of young assholes in Hoboken made that town as bad as any bad neighborhood in JC. Brooklyn took decades to gentrify, and did take a sizable increase in transit and infrastructure development, and remains mixed and interesting due to rent stabilization and tenant protection.
If you want a good model to look at, try further in, like up past Cole, toward Brunswick. It's a vital area with a mix of ethnicities, income levels, businesses, eateries, bars, a thriving art community and incoming music venues. It's a much more interesting and dynamic neighborhood than Paulus Hook has become. The latter has no life to speak of and is full of people that barely venture anywhere further west than Grove, let alone Jersey. The proprietor of Maxwells closed and moved here due to Hoboken becoming and uninteresting monoculture, and you guys want to duplicate that boring sh** here.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 22:34
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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I've been here 17 years, I make no assumptions, I speak from experience old and new. I agree that it's not a rule, exceptions go both ways, but the generalizations hold true, even when applied to local bars. No one complains of noise at the White Star or Hamilton Inn, but constantly of the Music Box. Patrons of the former don't dump beer bottles all over the neighborhood and scream at each other in the street like patrons of the latter. The typical middle class exception is a young male jerk ala Hoboken, but they typically grow out of it, I did. I also think your assumption that DTJC would not have developed without subsidy is flawed, the similar areas of Brooklyn did so without massive new development. It was a natural response to the middle class being priced out of Manhattan but being reluctant to head to the burbs like their parents. In most of those areas the new development followed the gentrification rather than led it.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 22:23
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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That's a full on elitist assumption of anti-social behavior based on income, as well as a belief that you have no obligation due to being the beneficiary of public subsidy by way of developer abatements that built up DTJC.
I know plenty of loud and rude upper income people, and people living in little secluded enclaves do nothing for the greater city.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 22:04
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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How come no one's offering me a home on Park Ave or in the Hamptons? Because having a right to live wherever you like is absurd. I would hazard a guess that the majority of JCListers would live somewhere else if money were no object. Who wouldn't? But reality is otherwise, except, apparently, if you're sufficiently poor, or a lucky middle class NYer with a rent stabilized unit. I know a number of the latter, many of them bought vacation homes with their windfall. Was there a rational reason why them and not me or anyone else? No.
This discussion further muddies the issue of class and race. There's no valid argument for racial segregation, but economic integration is pretty unnatural in modern human experience, except in areas in transition like DTJC. It DOES create friction. I'll even go further out on my limb and say lower class disrespectful habits like noise and trash bother both middle class people and homeowning working class people. Why should it make me a bad guy to feel that way? I'm on the verge of losing great middle class tenants because the lower class upstairs tenants make their lives miserable with hours of bedlam every day and their crap in the hallways. BTW, they're all Latino.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 21:45
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Consider it a cost of maintaining the segregation of whatever boring town you own in. Aside from that, you benefit from the lower taxes on building you live in, which makes you rent cheaper, and has built up the area you now want to make exclusive.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 20:16
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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You would be very surprised to know that people are doing that already. There is an artist enclave there. There are ordinary residents. People have bought homes.
I know that it would surprise some folks who rarely go further west in this town than maybe Coles, or Monmouth. I even know several long tome DTJC residents that have never eaten in Little India, or been to Lincoln Park. Fear is for the weak and the boring. Especially when you can get robbed at gunpoint on Warren.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 20:14
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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I own in the burbs, and rent here-the only subsidy I do is subsidize JC schools. (My real estate taxes have to cover almost 90% of my local schools, unlike JC taxpayers, who cover 16% of their local schools). So yes, I do get to have an opinion on whether JC giving out PILOTS and abatements keeps money away from supporting JC education, as well as where they should go. I'm helping carry your freight, aren't I?
Posted on: 2014/6/24 20:13
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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if the city/state could get the crime rate down in greenville and bergen lafayette, there is no reason why more affluent people would not want to live there....but as it is now, it is just too scary/dicey
Posted on: 2014/6/24 19:56
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Where the hell did I say that? I said that development should include plans for mixed income. And it's your burden to show that a segregated ghetto is better for anyone, yuppy.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 19:13
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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So you'd rather help fewer people by socially engineering neighborhoods to match your idea of how hip they are?? How elitist indeed!
Posted on: 2014/6/24 19:10
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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I earned mine as well. And it's interesting that you mention Paulus Hook, which is quickly becoming one of the blander neighborhoods in town.
The town will improve and remain vibrant if everyone benefits from development dollars coming in at the cost of reduced tax rolls. The abatements were not written so you could have a subsidized condo.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 19:07
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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First, I earned mine, I didn't 'get' mine. Second, I believe that it would be better to help 20 families in Greenville than helping only 10 families by having them live in Paulus Hook. Only wannabee social engineers who want to earn their 'progressive' creds would prefer the latter.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 19:01
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Nice little free market aphorism mean little to me. Your attitude is usually accompanied by hostility to broad based economic stimulus. It;s a nicely dressed version of "f*** you, I got mine", and really doesn't fool anyone.
But that is neither here nor there in this topic. The goal of government should not be to encourage only development of luxury housing. It's to provide for the entire population, not shut them out once an area has been gentrified through tax abatements and other sunk subsidies. You know.. "welfare for me, but not for thee."
Posted on: 2014/6/24 18:57
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Sorry, social engineering hasn't worked. Forcing inclusion is a pipe dream. The way to economic parity (since that seems to be the goal by many) isn't to lower the top, it's to bring up the bottom.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 18:48
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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And that leads to ever greater stratification by neighborhood, until even middle class people can't live in the entire downtown area, and we get a bland copy of Williamsburg. All hipsters and finance workers. Full on homogeneous vanilla. Dull and boring. No flavor, no texture, no hipness.. just all fancy coffee and overpriced pizza.
To some people in this board, anyone making less than $50K a year are to be seen only behind a sandwich counter, and should not share neighborhoods with them.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 18:28
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Wouldn't you be able to build more affordable housing units in areas that currently have depressed housing, rather than downtown? I know it might satisfy some self serving politicians to drop affordable housing on the waterfront, but it would be better to build them in Greenville and try and rebuild an area that way.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 18:08
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Can you elaborate what you mean by a "sanitized mecca"? Do you think people move to DTJC thinking there are no poor people here. Do you think they really don't see the panhandlers by Grove Street Path, Paco & Taco, or the riff raff at the Newport Mall? Sorry to disapoint you, but no one's system is going to be shocked by some affordable housing downtown.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 18:00
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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No, but you don't need to be an effete, scared little person, who shies away from the "lower classes" either. I am easily in the top fourth or fifth percentile in income, and have no issues sharing the streets with any sort of income class. Elitists can choke on a bag of dicks. Quote:
The old days have their own shit show of bigotry as well. I remember the days of the "dot busters" when packs of Irish-Italian-Polish kids from the Heights would drive around looking for easy targets to beat up. My little group by the Square kicked the tar out of a carload of them one night when they jumped one of our friends. "Cut from the same cloth" is just a call back to that old racist shit. Just the sheets were missing those days. --- It's a simple idea. People should be judged as individuals. The poor are no better or worse than some of the sociopaths working on Wall Street or the tech sector. I'll gladly lift a beer with anyone that has a funny story at the bar, or a can have a good time without being a douche, and if I'm lucky enough to buy an extra round or two, then good for me. People often mistake a lot of luck and circumstance for intelligence and talent.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 15:19
Edited by papadage on 2014/6/24 15:40:22
Edited by papadage on 2014/6/24 15:40:52 |
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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It is only diverse when "they" act up and cause attention. I liked it years ago when all of us came from the same cut of cloth. We knew what was expected of each other. Today the common ground is property taxes.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 14:40
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Get on your bikes and ride !
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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You have to be poor to be an actual city person? ha
Posted on: 2014/6/24 14:36
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Duplicate
Posted on: 2014/6/24 14:30
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Bigots among the transplants.. who would a thunk it.
As a life long resident of this town who has been in my little Journal Square neighborhood "among the poors", I will be gratified to see uncomfortable looks on the faces of some of the people downtown when they have to deal with actual city people, and not the sanitized mecca they think it is.
Posted on: 2014/6/24 14:30
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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The point you are missing is that Chelsea, like most of Manhattan and Brooklyn is resurgent and an example of "new" urbanism due to many factors not discussed in the original HuffPost article, drawing the affluent, the creative, the strivers, etc. back to city living. "Affordable" housing needs to be created, to keep the balance from tilting entire away from poors in the projects and the affluent everywhere else. DTJC may be changing in that direction - with wealthier people come the amenities and destination business they expect, presumably increasing everyone's 'happiness' factor since these are right nearby, and giving an old neighborhood its "new" appeal. Other neighborhoods - like the Heights - are already "inclusive" as most of the population is poor/working class and I don't suspect a lot of working class people are being forced out of the Heights, but then again its an example of the"old urbanism" - static and unchanging, with little appeal for newcomers.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 20:05
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Not too shy to talk
Joined:
2013/10/7 14:36 Last Login : 2017/2/28 21:45 From The Heights
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I've debated replying here...I was a HUD lawyer for a very long time. Then at some point being a Fed killed my spirit and I doubled my paycheck in the private sector.
Anyway, I didn't handle the CPD funds to the Housing Authorities, which is how I think HUD funnels money for mixed use RE development. I focused mostly on hospital and healthcare real estate financing-but having worked in parallel regulatory programs for as long as I did-the main issue is that a lot of MF housing stock is built using a complex combination of local, state and federal funds-and in some instances, even private sector funds. However, when HUD disburses funds they issue programmatic requirements and part of that includes mixed use development. Simply put, HUD has largely turned its back on the old school Cabrini-Green style developments, and it's pretty unlikely that cities will be able to build housing stock with federal assistance if they insist on developing it using the older model of huge, ghetto-ized developments. Maybe JC is building these largely on their own, I don't know, but I also know that almost all the local and state regulations tend to model themselves on HUD, so whether or not federal dollars are being sought here, chances are that there's been a trickle down effect in the regs anyway. Also, when people talk about mixed income developments, I do believe they're largely talking about building MF housing with a mix of market rate and subsidized units. That might slow the stream of poors that are apparently going to overwhelm DTJC and giving some of you the shivers. Really, has Fulop said there's going to be an exclusively low-income housing project that is being relocated to DTJC or Newport or something?
Posted on: 2014/6/18 19:06
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Jersey City, for instance, we created an Affordable Housing Trust Fund policy that establishes criteria for and incentivizes the development of affordable housing throughout Jersey City, particularly in areas where affordable housing has been under-developed.
You don't need a trust fund. You need to revisit how property taxes are structured and the rate and the zoning laws. R-1 zoning + property taxes makes renting out a new construction 2 family home at lower rents impossible. Landlords aren't exactly interested in rents. The interest is in rates of return. It is a lot easier to rent a 2 bedroom for $1,000 than $2,500. Plus, the cheaper units are far more vacancy-via-recession resistant. If you want lower cost, you need higher density. With property taxes, 1-4 family homes are taxed based on re-sale not rent income. During the Fed induced housing bubble, tax increases (via re-assessment from renovation work) far outpaced rental income because the resale values were so out of whack (I know.. I got nailed and was lucky to have a successful tax appeal). One possible out of this trap would be to shift more of the tax burden over to the value of the land instead of on the improvements. Frankly, I would rather see property taxes eliminated. Cleaning house at State and City level agencies (i.e. our Building Department is hellish to deal with) would also go a long way to encourage individuals to build new or renovate existing property.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 18:55
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
Joined:
2012/1/11 18:21 Last Login : 2019/12/26 15:30 From GV Bayside Park
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I am guessing you just arrived to JC, when I lived downtown pre ugly towers many of my Hoboken buddies would laugh when I would tell them all the new development happening dtjc and they would say exactly what you said... Why build in that ghetto? ... Many people are leaving GV just like they left dtjc because the fact is rents are going up all over the metro area. Only three years ago you could rent a 1 bedroom near Richard street light rail for $600 a month but not any longer, rents are starting at $1100, and the famous Ocean ave. that many of you are afraid of rents are starting @ 1700 for a two bedroom which was unheard of just a few years ago. I think this is the point of the article, many working families are being pushed out of Jersey City.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 18:15
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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last time, i went to harlem and bed-stuy and crown heights, things seemed to be on the up and up dsespite racial and income diversity. east new york still seems like hell on earth.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 17:44
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
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Maybe it could work if criminal background checks were required on the "income diverse" residents the government wants to artificially force into the neighborhood.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 17:42
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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User beat me too it, but I was also going to say that development of mixed income neighborhoods has worked for NYC, why not here? I know consolidating projects in one area of city did not work for Chicago.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 17:38
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Re: As American Cities Grow, New Urbanism Must Be Inclusive
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Home away from home
Joined:
2005/6/8 3:24 Last Login : 2022/11/28 0:04 From New Urbanist Area
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I haven't yet seen significant steps to implement the policy in the article. One possibility is to require abated properties to have a certain percentage of units set aside as a condition of the abatement. New York has done this with its 80-20 program. Last time I checked, people were not fleeing Manhattan in droves because of it.
Posted on: 2014/6/18 17:35
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