From The American:"Ultimately, in good times or bad, cities have to want a middle class to have one. And politicians, if asked, will genuflect to the idea of maintaining a middle class, yet their actions—on taxes, regulations, schools, development—suggest otherwise.
Indeed, in reality most urban areas have focused on creating what New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg famously dubbed the “luxury city.” To pay for often inflated public employee costs, the luxury city can only survive off the wealthy and on other groups—empty nesters, singles and students—who demand relatively little in the way of basic services like schools and public health facilities.
City planners and urban developers favor the unattached: the “young and restless,” the “creative class,” and the so-called “yuspie”—the young urban single professional. Champions of the unattached suggest that companies and cities should capture this segment, described by one as “the dream demographic,” if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain."
3 comments:
What seems always omitted from these pieces; the fact that the middle "woikin'" class has, repeatedly voted for people whose true masters are -against- their interests.
Case in point: The 1997 rent stabilization war. The "middle class" had provided the landlords with exactly the trio required (Giuliani-Pataki-Rep st Senate) to kill one of the last tethers to working class New York.
The resultant weakening of these laws has accelerated the economic polarization of our City.
I live a block-and-a-half from our current mayor. While this area has long been upper-mid, it was well within recent memory that teachers, clerks, and other typical middle class could avail themselves of this area. Now, with every old person who moves goes another slice of opportunity for people to live in a fine convenient neighborhood -not exiled to the dead 'burbs.
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"To pay for often inflated public employee costs, the luxury city can only survive off the wealthy and on other groups—empty nesters, singles and students—who demand relatively little in the way of basic services like schools and public health facilities"
Bullshit.
This neighborhood is awash with strollers and toddlers. I see -far- more babies here than I do in my frequent trips to the outer boroughs.
The Dept of Ed has added hundreds of new schools during the last ten years.
"City planners and urban developers favor the unattached: the “young and restless,..."
Sure, landlords love poor saps like the one paying $1500+ for a closet on the west side.
Bottom line: If you vote based on your fears and prejudices you'll get f'ed -everytime.
The have it down to a science.
And when those young unattached people want to start families? This idiotic dream ignores basic biology, as well as the reality that personal fortunes wax and wane.
Whatever happened to the fines that the bovine bitch Shulman should be paying for her illegal lobbying activities?
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