The way to kill a complex city is to chase out all the poor people – and their food

[marmar]

The way to kill a complex city is to chase out all the poor people – and their food
Samantha Gillison

When greed makes a place like New York, London or San Francisco unaffordable, the non-wealthy leave, and the city loses the smells and tastes that made it great

(Guardian UK) Once upon a time, as Gore Vidal observed, New York City was a delightful place to live – especially if you were an impoverished foodie. Legendarily delicious eateries abounded, everyone had a favorite dive bar and, if you got bored of the local places, endless interesting, tasty yummies awaited discovery throughout the five boroughs. But the past is a foreign country: things are done differently there.

Here in the present (where we’re stuck) New York is the most expensive city in the world and much less delightful. Although, with an enormous amount of disposable income you can eat quite good food and, with an obscene amount you can dine adventurously – even, I’ve heard, sublimely.

Anthony Bourdain, professional authentic and globe-trotting foodie, is seemingly trying to address the Zurich-ification of Manhattan by converting one of the largest shipping piers on the Hudson River into a mega-food market. “Think of an Asian Night Market,” he described, attempting to help The New York Times’ reporter envision the incipient 155,000 square foot “Bourdain Market”. “Eating and drinking at midnight.” You know, fun? Remember that?

When economists discuss formerly-great American cities like New York and San Francisco, they use terms like super-gentrification, extreme gentrification and hyper-gentrification but, to put it simply, the way to kill a city as thrilling, complex and alive as the New York of Warhol and Basquiat, of Duke Ellington and the Ramones, of James Baldwin and Susan Sontag, is to unleash the hounds of unchecked greed and chase out all the poor folks. And when they leave, the city loses its savor: it loses its intoxicating smells, its unique flavors, its ability to interrupt your long night of the soul with life-affirming, belly-filling, joy. ...................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/01/kill-a-complex-city-chase-out-poor-people-their-food

[Octafish]

1. Hey! Something like that is happening in Detroit.

Except at Midwestern prices. I'm sure that will catch up, no?

[marmar]

3. Yep. Lots of new restaurants downtown with $20 designer hamburgers.....

...... and $40 dishes with goat cheese.

[Octafish]

22. Opa!

People are seeing rents skyrocket in Eastern Market, for crying out loud.

[NOLALady]

2. They are trying to kill

New Orleans in that manner. They are trying to finish the job that Katrina started.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Yep. And with intent, starting right after the hurricane.

They tried it in Seattle, more than once.
The famous Pike Place Market ( used to be Fish Market) is on the waterfront, huge place with lots of levels, and the city wanted to tear it down, but so far the people have always stopped it.
sadly, Seattle, a place I have lived several times over many years,is now being priced out of reach of most folks.

[jwirr]

15. Young middle class couple (friends of mine) were moving

back to MN from Seattle because of that. They did finally find a little place they could afford and are staying for now.

I am not sure what these cities hope to accomplish by this trend. Huge gated community? Who is going to do their work?

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. The reason we moved here to retire.

Both of us are from the West Coast, at one point or the other, and simply cannot afford to live there anymore.

I am amazed at the number of East/West coast people I run into who are living in small southern communities now.
Oh, and Houston refugees...that place is on a permanent boom and bust cycle.

[7962]

21. Thats a great thing about the west coast; sell & you can retire to a LOT of places easily

I live in Ga. A realtor friend told me about a guy from Boston who was coming for a job. He told her "well, my house needs a little work but its on a good spot, so I think I can come down with about 400K. What can I buy with that?"
She answered, "Pretty much anything you want and still have 150K or more in the bank"

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. You can buy one of 2 houses on my block for 100 K

3 plus bedrooms, 2 bath, lots of room, nice yards, well kept, swimming pools, on 1/2 acre, set back from road, nice quiet neighborhood.
And no property taxes if you are are 65 or older.

[jwirr]

23. Interesting situation - I really feel sorry of the poor. They

probably have no place to go.

[ryan_cats]

4. I've been inside the

I've been inside the modest place the spendthrift Gore Vidal was forced to exist in, in Ravello and am amazed at how he writes so tenderly of the little people.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Not sure why this provoked an attack on Vidal.

He never pretended to be other than what he was, an entitled gay outsider analyzing a world gone mad from a detached perspective.

[Laughing Mirror]

13. It's called empathy

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes. And it's what Gore Vidal wrote should be mandatory teaching in school.

[tenderfoot]

20. Wonder what they think of FDR

eom

[backscatter712]

7. Happening in Denver too.

Real estate prices are skyrocketing. If you've got lots of money, there's lots of places to eat, but all the quirky little mom-and-pop restaurants are going away.

Pro tip: Try the food trucks. Restaurants are out of reach of the average would-be small business owner, so they've taken to making food trucks with all sorts of awesome cuisine.

[wilt the stilt]

8. I grew up in NY

and I always said "Best cheap food ever".

[mrmpa]

9. Happening in Pittsburgh too...........

I do Uber & Lyft for income. The 'burgh I grew up in doesn't exist anymore. Nothing but new rentals at obscene rates being built, restaurants are price ridiculous.

Nowhere for moderate or low income persons for entertainment or housing. Had the husband of a local African American politician in my car, who said his wife has no idea where the "poor" will go, once those in power complete their vision of Pittsburgh.

[jwirr]

16. I wondered that also - where are those who are being pushed

out going?

[flamingdem]

10. Good for Bourdain

He knows what he's doing. The worry would be what happens if / when he sells.

That area of NY is pretty attractive, not much of the Meat Packing biz left, the Whitney moved in and there are some great clubs.

[malthaussen]

11. There are, broadly speaking, two theories on how to make a buck:

High-volume, low profit margin, in which obscene amounts of money are made shovelling stuff out to everybody, and low-volume, high profit, in which obscene amounts of money are made shovelling stuff out to a limited clientele at outrageous profit-per-unit. The first model was "what made America great," but has a serious flaw: it relies on continued growth and increases in productivity, plus vast expenditure of resources human and otherwise, to make enough margin to generate the obscene mountains of money that are the purpose of the exercise. Today's entrepreneur, though, realizes that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is gonna get you sooner or later, and so he is opting more and more for the second model, hoping to generate and offshore sufficient obscene amounts of money to ensure a comfortable future existence for himself and those dear to him when the crash inevitably comes. Hence the increased gentrification of our cities, and the phenomenon of the $100,000 timepiece (or the $20 burger, if it comes to that).

-- Mal

[WestSeattle2]

12. They're trashing Seattle too - by design. A generation from now

families will be scarce, middle class greatly diminished, those with lesser means will be almost non-existent in the city limits. It will be the sterile, corporate city that the mayor and city council are striving to achieve. Retirement is a few short years away, and we can't wait to get the hell out of here.

[pangaia]

14. NYC subway in 1960 was 15 cents.

Now it is $2.75.
That's 18.3 times as high.

"Average" male income in 1960 was about $4000.
Now Average individual income is about $41,000.

That's just after a small amount of research, not exactly 100% accurate. but it sure says something.

I sure don't make 18 times as much now as I did in 1968 at my first job after grad school.

[whereisjustice]

17. Report: Nation's Gentrified Neighborhoods Threatened By Aristocratization

WASHINGTON—According to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, the recent influx of exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats into the nation's gentrified urban areas is pushing out young white professionals, some of whom have lived in these neighborhoods for as many as seven years.
Multibillion-dollar castles like this one have been popping up all over Brooklyn.

Maureen Kennedy, a housing policy expert and lead author of the report, said that the enormous treasure-based wealth of the aristocracy makes it impossible for those living on modest trust funds to hold onto their co-ops and converted factory loft spaces.

"When you have a bejeweled, buckle-shoed duke willing to pay 11 or 12 times the asking price for a block of renovated brownstones—and usually up front with satchels of solid gold guineas—hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year simply cannot compete," Kennedy said. "If this trend continues, these exclusive, vibrant communities with their sidewalk cafés and faux dive bars will soon be a thing of the past."

http://www.theonion.com/article/report-nations-gentrified-neighborhoods-threatened-2419

[ancianita]

19. Cities gotta preserve Da Funk.