NYC General Discussion - You Hear That Giant Sucking Sound?

[bedstuy]

What does this actually amount to?  Nothing in my estimation.  The horse carriage thing was sort of the cost of doing business during the campaign.  At least we haven't banned foie gras like San Francisco.

The complaint over appointing liberals is just a bunch of hot air.  You don't have to be a McKinsey & Company consultant to run a city agency.  Wait until he's actually done something before you criticize him.

[bedstuy]

de Blasio stands by park fund-redistribution scheme
http://observer.com/2014/03/de-blasio-still-wants-conservancies-to-share-money-with-poorer-parks/

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That proposal is completely reasonable, considering how much cash the Central Park Conservancy has.

I don't think I agree.  For one thing, there are a handful of parks in NYC that matter in terms of tourism.  Reducing their funding could hurt the entire city, not just the rich people who live next to them and contribute to their upkeep.  And, if you think about it, there is no reason that the money for small, poor parks needs to come from the big, rich parks.  You could write more traffic tickets and pay for the overall parks budget that way.

[bedstuy]

The gross inequity in parks funding is a real issue, and one which materially harms poorer and outer-borough New Yorkers, even if one were to accept the argument that Central and Prospect Parks deserve more money because they bring in tourists.  I suspect that this particular approach won't pass legal muster, but I do support efforts to try focus more attention on the smaller and more outlying neighborhood parks.  I'd start with a PR blitz to try and get people to shift their donations to the smaller parks, as well as moving the Parks Dept. operating budget in that direction.

(Also, this is a great example of how and why private charity is a pisspoor substitute for public spending.)

It's also interesting how much charity ends up being: "I live on 5th Avenue, I want that park right next to me to be really nice."  It's almost like the $200 a month gym membership and the ridiculous common charges people pay for access to apartment amenities as opposed to giving money to a cause you care about.

[bedstuy]

Not everyone who wants carriage horses banned is a member of PETA so I think we can give that talking point a rest for a while guys.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying the alternative of effectively enforcing laws requiring the horses be well-cared for should satisfy all but that extreme element.

The problem is that they've tried enforcing those kinds of laws already and they don't really work. Many of the horses are still being overworked in extreme conditions and they're still out in the streets causing traffic accidents. It's also not uncommon to see them treated cruelly by the drivers. Anyone who spends a lot of time in NYC (like me) will likely have seen this with their own eyes.

It's an antiquated aspect of life in the city that really just needs to be removed permanently at this point imo.

And, they smell bad.  But, in any case, we're still going to have police horses, right?

[bedstuy]

People complaining about Stuy and similar schools never really make sense.  Their process is fair because it's based on one objective, fair metric, an entrance exam.

It's not fair that our city is failing to educate black kids.  It's fair that black kids who don't bubble in enough correct answers don't get into Stuy High.  This is just lowering the standards for a few token black kids so we can trick ourselves into thinking we're doing a good job educating black and latino kids.  The high school in my neighborhood is 25%-40% truant every day, doesn't send anyone to a 4 year school and our average SAT is like 600.  They should be focusing on that high school and wondering why it's such garbage. 

[bedstuy]

I said 600, because I knew it was in the 300s for each and I subconsciously ignore the writing section.

Here's the breakdown:

30% took the SAT
Mean score:

Math: 372
Reading: 377
Writing: 362

Nobody scored well enough for college readiness in math, 1-2% in reading and writing.  That's straight up pathetic.

[bedstuy]

As far as I'm concerned, 99% of the students at my local high school are functionally illiterate and none of them understand how to do math.  And, those scores are from the studious upper 40% who are graduating in 4 or 5 years.  You and I were more prepared for college when we were 8 than they are at 18.  What's the point of anyone even attending that high school at all?  As far as I'm concerned, every single student would be better off getting a job or learning a trade.

[bedstuy]

That really pisses me off as well.  I suppose there's some broad definition of racism that could encompass every reason these kids have no chance.  But, it's sure as heck not because white people consciously hate black people. 

I do volunteer work in this community here in Brooklyn.  To me, the problem is basically just that nobody has a stable family and work life.  There was a generation that grew up in the 50s and 60s which had that and found some success.  But, in my neighborhood, black people have actually gotten poorer and more stuck in poverty as overt racism has diminished considerably.  Kids and their parents and often grandparents never really had that 2 parent income household or even a one parent income household.  These kids grow up constantly on the edge, with horrible economic stress and with parents who are often super young and poorly educated themselves.  Whenever people get the chance to catch their breath, all they want to do is forget the horrible pain and trauma of their lives.  That leads to drugs, drinking and dumb behavior and makes people too wonked out to sit down and plan out educating their kids or engage in behavior where you give up short term pleasure for long-term gain.  There is no thought for the long-term because it's this constant life on the edge. 

That's the basic problem of black poverty in my eyes.

[bedstuy]

To me, it's more of a problem of black masculinity.  I think black masculinity sort of developed in America as a way of being proud and confident in what black men could have, as opposed to what they couldn't have.  If you can't realistically go to college, being proud of education is a recipe of feeling bad about yourself.  So, black masculinity prioritized physicality and menace, and a rye sense of humor and artistic creativity, over the traditional markers of American manhood that we denied black men.

[bedstuy]

Tensions Over Park Behavior as Homelessness Rises in New York City

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Why has there been a reversal... I do wonder. Just last night I saw some homeless inside a bank! I think there are more beggars than there were a year or two ago. Police need to do something. The state of the shelters needs to be looked at.

There also was a good piece in the City Journal calling for reinstitutionalisation, which would obviously help and is something I've supported for a long time. If there are shelters and people are not going to them either they're worse than the streets or the people... are not quite right. Having been to Ethiopia, where you can hardly wave a stick without hitting a beggar, I can say most street homeless in NY do seem to not be well in a way that beggars elsewhere don't.

Isn't that normal?  At least after hours in the ATM part, it's perfectly normal to get a homeless guy acting like a doorman.

As for the shelter system, I would be in favor of fewer of these mega shelters.  Bed-Stuy has a few big homeless men's shelters in armories and it ends up being too many ex-cons and sex offenders congregating in one area.

[bedstuy]

Yep, totally agree.  Manhattan needs a lot more density and needs modern office space to attract and keep global finance in the city.   There are a few offensive mega skyscrapers going up, like the residential tower near CPS.  But, Manhattan is full of skyscrapers.  It's not a big deal.

It seems to me that new signaling technology and new train cars is a no-brainer.  I sometimes use the C train and its cars were built in the mid 60s.  That's ridiculous. 

How do you pay for it and how do you get Cuomo to care about New York City?  That's tough.  I would be in favor of a few things.  A higher gas tax and more metered parking for sure.  I don't understand why there's so much free parking in NYC.  You should have to get a yearly pass to park in a specific neighborhood, which would also discourage all the people who live in New York full time but drive around with out of state plates.  And, then, maybe you put in tolls on the bridges over the East River.  Theoretically, you could also use that money to lower tolls on the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge and encourage truck traffic to avoid central Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Congestion pricing would be nice too.

[bedstuy]

Brilliant!  The current system provides an incentive to drive through the most congested city in the country.  It's truly amazing.  If I want to drive to out of the city from Brooklyn, I can currently avoid tolls by taking the FDR.  Does that make any sense?  We should be trying to route traffic around Manhattan and Central Brooklyn as much as possible.

[bedstuy]

This whole Times Square thing doesn't make sense.   

The purpose of Times Square is to be an annoying place full of chaos.  They should just make Times Square a free-for-all zone where laws don't apply. 

[bedstuy]

It's annoying that politicians have to pay lip service to nonsense, like the Times Square plaza issue.  But, unless De Blasio makes really bad decisions, you have to let him pay lip service. 

But, Tish James would have to pay lip service to an entirely different set of cranks.  There's no side of NYC politics that doesn't have its ridiculous pet issues and unreasonable demands.  The great thing about Bloomberg was that he was independent of those concerns, so he could push for common-sense policy, even if it was tinged by his more conservative, upper class Manhattan perspective.   

De Blasio is basically solid on the big issues.  I would like someone less ideological, like Bloomberg, but De Blasio is about the best Mayor we could hope for at the moment.

[bedstuy]

Exactly. So let's bring Bloomberg back.

I'd vote for him, but he couldn't win an election.