Thursday, September 27, 2007

Losing the city we love

As it resumed its schedule after the summer, the Dutch Kills Civic Association welcomed Melissa Katz of the Pratt Center for Community Development as a speaker.

'Losing City We Love' Planner Tells Dutch Kills Civic Assn.

She said that while New York remains a great city, she believes it is being taken away from a solid citizenry that should be able to afford it but is being constantly priced out. While the price of everything, including housing, health care and energy, is going up, income for a good part of the working and middle classes is falling, she observed. She added that the current generation believes the next one will be forced to move out of a New York that has become unaffordable. "We're losing the city we love," Katz said.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good speech.

Anonymous said...

The decline of the middle class in New York is the dirty little secret the Giuliani administration and now the Bloomberg adminisration have kept quiet for some time now and have even done extensive research about and is now finally rearing its ugly head onto the public. The overdevelopment policies set forth by both of these losers are now having disastrous effects on average New Yorkers (by average, I DON'T MEAN INVESTMENT BANKERS WHO LIVE IN 2 MILLION DOLLAR CUBBY HOLES IN LOWER MANHATTAN AND HAVE PRIMARY RESIDENCES IN DARIEN, CT). These special interest give backs for the real estate lobbiest 'elite' have caused a steady stream of middle class to finally say enough is enough and leave for greener pastures.

Without the middle class, there IS no New York. Detroit and Trenton found that out the hard way in the 80's. New York will be next because the losers that have a strangle hold on this city will never learn from history.

Concrete equals death.

Anonymous said...

Both culprits....Pratt Institute and Hunter College....
breed people like Susan Meiklejohn
who are nothing less than accessories before the fact !

These "institutions of learning" haven't yet learned
that by pimping over development
through their often flawed academic "urban studies"......
they've become the very accomplices of those
intent on destroying the city we love !

Anonymous said...

Pratt - oh yes, those guys Goodwill got in to rebrand Old Astoria to 'Two Coves.'

Old houses, what old houses? This is a community with special (tweeded) needs.

Anonymous said...

"the Giuliani administration and now the Bloomberg adminisration"

Yeh, i know, one bad person causes all our troubles, particularly if they are not members of the clubhouse.

OK, so what is city council doing about this?!?! (more 'affordable hosing' is not an answer - mispell intended)

Anonymous said...

'affordable hosing'

a new word for the Democratic Dictionary.

Anonymous said...

This is sad...a planner telling a civic that they should downzone, instead of the other way around.