SPLIT: speaking of haves and have nots&quo

and on the economics of housing in NYC (a perpetual part of the have/have not cycle)
here's a meaty piece on the quest for affordable housing in NYC, with a tidy history of housing development
I posted it in Brooklyn'n'Beyond http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32309

JANNY SCOTT in the NYTimes wrote:
As Prices Rise, Housing Groups Face the Need to Alter Tactics
Published: January 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01.....ei=5087

Much of the rebirth of New York City neighborhoods in recent years can be traced to a force that many New Yorkers barely know exists: a sprawling network of community-development corporations and other homegrown nonprofit groups, which developed some 100,000 moderately priced apartments out of the ashes and abandonment of places like the South Bronx, central Brooklyn and parts of Harlem.

Now those neighborhoods are flourishing; private developers are back, and rents are rising. The city has exhausted its supply of properties taken in tax foreclosure, which were passed on to nonprofits to make into apartments that people of modest means could afford. As a result, the country’s largest network of community development organizations is at a crossroads: The groups can retool themselves or fade away.

Pitu, the truth behind the figures can always be debated, but it's interesting to note that freelancers and the self-employed are most often referred by those arguing that unemployment figures are overstated. This is because the normal figures cited are of the employer survey, but the household survey (which includes freelances and the self-employed) usually shows far greater job growth, and never more so than in the past 10 years.

I suspect frankly that the real reason many people think that the middle class are suffering or that economic times are bad is not b/c of their own experiences or because of the evidence out there, but rather because of their hatred of the Bush administration and more broadly the Republican congress of the past 12 years. Of note, in polls a large majority of Americans report their own situations as quite good, but their impressions of the economy as a whole as bad, revealing a distortion of perceptions. I sympathize with the anti-Bush sentiment, but not with letting that feeling skew interpretation of every facet of society. I strongly suspect that if the numbers were exactly the same but we had a democratic president and congress, most people on this board would be singing the economy's praises. This kind of backwards thinking really ought to be avoided.

My pass, you said that this country sucks for middle class professionals. I think the stunningly low unemployment figure for the college educated is a relevant counter argument to that assertion. You then said separately that a 2nd group, the unskilled/uneducated, don't have access to basic needs like healthcare etc., and that they have an especially tough time in NYC. My point directly addressed this, if you care to reread.

mypasswordwontwork wrote:

I don't see where you addressed my concerns/comments.

Like I said, I never said that there was high unemployment. I said that the basics are often not accessible even to those with college degrees, advanced degrees and "good jobs"

Would you care to provide some data to support this? What % of people with undergraduate or graduate degrees and "good jobs" (white collar?), do not have "basics" (health insurance, food, shelter, public education, security, etc.)?

mypasswordwontwork wrote: EVERYTHING here is about money. Obviously New York is an extreme representation of this.

Much of my post was rejecting this point of NY being an extreme example. I think the city is far less of an example of this than many other places in America.

doctorj wrote: [quote=escap]
Fair enough. Certainly greater access to higher education is a worthy goal, but with just one caveat: primary and secondary education in the US is really horrible by international standards, but our costly, private university education is widely recognized as the world's best. It is the one bright spot in our education picture, at the unfortunate cost of being non-egalitarian. I would like to see greater access in the form of more scholarships and student loans available, but would never want to see us wipe out our Harvards and Princetons as a tradeoff for universality, which is what most of the rest of the developed world seems to have done (as an example my school is full of European students who would apparently gladly pay egregious sums to study here rather than accept the free education they could get in their own countries). Our private universities generate immeasurable benefits to our society at large and shouldn't be threatened in the name of egalitarianism.

Do state or federal governments provide significant funding for these top tier private universities (other than through the competitive granting system, e.g. NIH etc.)? If not, how could funding more places at public universities hurt the private ones? Only by competition for grant money and the best students, and we like competition. Again, my ideal would be somewhere between the US and much of the EU. A blend of public and private universities, and a blend of publicly and privately funded students at public institutions. Despite your Harvards and Princetons, the country currently imports about half its scientists, technologists and engineers, so something's not quite right with the status quo.

Agreed.

pitu wrote: [quote=escap][quote=pitu]

a pet peeve of mine . . .
USA Dept of Labor employment figures are under-reported. Basically, only people drawing unemployment insurance are counted as unemployed.

Not true. The two most commonly referenced figures are based on a household survey and an employer survey, not unemployment insurance. There are certainly problems with this method and I agree that the number is understated, but the problems are consistent over time and across populations, so the fact that 1.8% represents a relatively low figure compared to most previous periods, and to the population at large, is significant.

I just don't know about those numbers. It's been a couple of years since I did any research on the subject, but anecdotally, I see lots of highly educated freelancers adversely effected by this economy . . . the under-employed, the given-up on finding employment. I disagree that the problems are consistent over time since the structure of employment in America has radically shifted.
ditto here. super ditto.
i know plenty of people who are barely scraping by
who are severely underemployed to unemployed

those unemployment numbers are just poppycock
pure balderdash
bullshit even... [-X

look, I eat out at places like craftsteak, babbo, lupa, and aliseo several times a month. that's one of the issues. I like good food, and in this stupid country, it's often tough to find good food in certain cuisines without paying through the nose.

pitu wrote: [quote=escap]I strongly suspect that if the numbers were exactly the same but we had a democratic president and congress, most people on this board would be singing the economy's praises. This kind of backwards thinking really ought to be avoided.

when YOU get on the fast train to ideologyargueland and start accusing others of doing that . . . =;

haha. Yeah, I may be an ideologue (I like to think idealist, but whatever), but is hatred of Bush an ideology?? :-k

alafairnadia wrote:
and let's not even discuss my OT.

Right, that's what the scientology thread was for.

doctorj wrote: Invite people round and cook for them. Or go to their place. It's cheaper, I get to pick the music, we can make an evening of it without pushy NY waitrers/esses wanting us out on the street. Only downside is the washing up.

I believe this is what everyone used to do.

Good times - more people should do this sort of thing. To help get the trend going, I'm going to invite my wife and myself over - should we bring a bottle of red or white?

Having people over is more satisfying than just going out, for both the guests and the hosts, in my experience. Sadly, we rarely have people over other than holidays and the odd brunch. Maybe a new year's resolution is in order.

alafairnadia wrote: [quote=WhyFi][quote=doctorj]Invite people round and cook for them. Or go to their place. It's cheaper, I get to pick the music, we can make an evening of it without pushy NY waitrers/esses wanting us out on the street. Only downside is the washing up.

I believe this is what everyone used to do.

Good times - more people should do this sort of thing. To help get the trend going, I'm going to invite my wife and myself over - should we bring a bottle of red or white?

Having people over is more satisfying than just going out, for both the guests and the hosts, in my experience. Sadly, we rarely have people over other than holidays and the odd brunch. Maybe a new year's resolution is in order.

I had a resolution last year to do this more often but it didn't end up happening for multiple reasons. but now that I have my new fridge and stove and all of my lighting issues are resolved, perhaps it's time to actually follow through ...

I'm in!
O wait, I haven't been invited. Yet.

Entertaining at home is exactly what I do too -- it started when people were too broke to get together as often as they'd like at a restaurant...or there was income disparity and we still liked each other.
But mostly it's more relaxed and time-unconstrained.
I've been having more informal smaller gatherings more often, on top of much less frequent dinner parties where you have to really do some work.
We meet up after work at bars occasionally. I even have friends that meet me in the park to walk the dog!
That, and art shows. Why live in NYC if you're not going to enjoy what's here . . .

Following up on this topic, I read today that Columbia University economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin claims good news on the haves vs. have-nots front in his recent essay "Global Inequality Fades as the Global Economy Grows". Basically, he reports that dramatic growth in the economies of Asia--especially China and India--has led to a shrinking of the global income gap. Africa is unfortunately still faring very poorly and holding the gap wider. Also interestingly, global inequality decreased, even as inequality within nations increased. Below is an excerpt and link.

First, global poverty rates, defined as the fraction of the WDI below a certain poverty line, declined significantly over the past three decades. We have documented this claim for the four most widely used poverty thresholds. Poverty rates were cut by a factor of almost three, according to all four poverty lines, and the total decline in poverty head counts was between 212 million and 428 million people. We have shown that this is also true for all conceivable poverty lines.

Second, the spectacular reduction of worldwide poverty hides the uneven performance of various regions in the world. East and South Asia account for a large fraction of this success. Africa, on the other hand, seems to have moved in the opposite direction.

Third, after remaining constant during the 1970s, inequality declined substantially during the past two decades. The main reason is that incomes of some of the world’s poorest and most populated countries (most notably China and India, but also many other countries in Asia) converged rapidly with the incomes of OECD citizens. This force has been larger than the divergence effect caused by the dismal performance of African countries.

Fourth, the decomposition of inequality into "within-country" and "across-country" components reflects that within-country inequality increased over the sample period. However, the decline in across-country inequality more than offset the first effect and delivered an overall reduction in global income inequality.

Link Here