We can do this!

[econ expat]

Koyaanisqatsi --

Harlem -- $250,000 to $1.5 million for an apartment there! That's amazing. Where do the poor people go?

Same dilemma with a gentrified Cass Corridor.
The real 'pioneers' now spend a mil for a condo and brag "I live in Harlem"

[wolverine]

Seen the movie, Fort Apache, The Bronx? It was a good reflection of your twenty years ago pix.

So, what made people want to move there?

How is Harlem doing with the renaissance.

What happened with the anti-gentrification movement in both places?

Here's a few present day photos of Harlem I took. I really love this neighborhood












In 2008, I found 1 abandoned building. In 2009 it was renovated.

[wolverine]

More

[EastsideAl]

Where do the poor people go?

Pretty much the same place they always go in this country - to hell.

At least in NYC they have rent stabilization and tenancy laws that protect a lot of people from simply being evicted or having their rent raised immediately to ridiculous levels. But those laws have been greatly weakened in recent years, and there are certainly other ways of getting low-paying tenants to leave. A lot of the public housing in NYC is extremely over-crowded, with people doubling and tripling up with extended family members.

Of course, another thing that has helped in NYC has been a reasonably healthy economy, which meant, until recently, that there were fewer of the truly destitute. Certainly a lower percentage of the population, even in poor neighborhoods, than we see here in Detroit.

[Detroitnerd]

Of course, another thing that has helped in NYC has been a reasonably healthy economy, which meant, until recently, that there were fewer of the truly destitute. Certainly a lower percentage of the population, even in poor neighborhoods, than we see here in Detroit.

I'm not so sure, Al. When I was living there, during Giuliani Time, one of the untold stories was how the ungentrified ghettoes [[like East New York) were getting rougher and rougher, filling up with the poor people who'd been kicked out of the nicer neighborhoods. Maybe different now?

[EastsideAl]

I used to go through East New York [[the furthest east section of Brooklyn) rather often in the early 2000s. East New York is far from the nicest place in the city still, but in recent years it also saw a significant amount of new construction and an influx of immigrants from the West Indies and Asia, as well as inflow from other parts of the city as you note. Like the South Bronx, pretty much all of the areas that were once abandoned in the '70s and '80s were filled in with new construction, either private, public, or non-profit, in part due to those people coming in from other gentrifying areas of the city.

Like almost everywhere in the NYC area, its small business strips along major streets are quite active and pretty safe, at least during daylight hours. And even having been hit with one of the largest waves of foreclosures in NYC over the past couple of years there is little or no abandonment due to an active rental market. The crime rate is high for NYC, but like all of the city crime has largely been on the decline for more than a decade now. So, while it is probably the poorest section of the City of New York at present, and there is undoubtedly a fair amount of social and economic misery there, it is also pretty densely populated, and still nicer and much more active than much of Detroit.

[EastsideAl]

Google Streetview of a fairly typical street corner on New Lots Ave. in East New York [[found by searching on "East New York, NY" and scrolling a couple of blocks away into a more residential area). You can see new infill residential construction, access to mass transit, and, although the pictures were taken outside of business hours, a clearly active business strip with mostly occupied storefronts. Scroll down New Lots a little to the east and you run into a very active corner with lots of people changing between subways and buses.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...12,173.31,,0,5

[Gsgeorge]

Just found an "urban garden" in East New York, undoubtedly platted on some land that formerly had rowhouses or apartments.

link here