Jeremiah Moss has an opinion piece in the Daily News today. Here's an excerpt:
Supposedly, all of New York City is suffering from a mass collective malaise, a dark cloud of shared pessimism. But the truth is very different. In reality, many of us are feeling giddily optimistic about this city for the first time in a decade.
Who are these crazy optimists? Head-in-the-sand deniers of the economic calamity? No, just people who welcome the possibility that the unique character of New York, sanitized in the Giuliani and Bloomberg years, may finally return.
As the writer of the blog Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, where I catalogue the city that's being lost to hypergentrification, I have heard hope rising from many vocal readers -- hope that we'll at last have our beloved, wild, creative, eclectic city back.
Since the boom began approximately 10 years ago, many New Yorkers have watched with grief and anger while the city we love was crushed by overzealous development, the all-encompassing renovation plan of Mayor Bloomberg. This plan has gutted countless mom-and-pop businesses and landmarks like Coney Island and Yankee Stadium. It has extended to the use of eminent domain to seize private property from its owners. What we have received in return has been a city of glass, cold and calculated, built for only the superrich seekers of safety to enjoy.
[Image: dboo/Flickr]
2 comments:
Jerimiah forgot to mention the scourge of students in the city. The massive student population in NYC adds to the transient nature of the city. Creating a suitcase city. The type of city Bloomberg likes because he thinks it's healthy.
I'm with Jeremiah. I want stable communities for everybody and not protected enclaves for the wealthy.
Manhattan is becoming a tourist/college town much like Berkeley, Boston, Austin, etc. Hardly anyone lives in those places for very long.
http://timesqueer.blogspot.com/
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