Question by Tom: Should New York City do away with public housing units? Would it eliminate or decrease poverty in the city?
Please look through these four parts of the question before answering.
- If the U.S. is a capitalist nation, and New York City is one of it’s most primary cities, isn’t it contradictory to let people live for nothing? Isn’t it insulting to people who make a living? Does it contradict supply and demand? If someone else is willing to live there and pay a higher price for the land, should they be able to live there?
- Wouldn’t letting people live for free be modeling the Soviet Union or People’s Republic Of China putting people in subsided buildings? I believe rent stabalization is ethical, because you’re paying to live there. At one point, you started paying rent at a price you agreed to.
The common problem with that though is, buildings get sold off, knocked down and built up from scatch, people are told you leave when their lease expires (or are bought out at above market value if they own it) and the next ones don’t allow rent control.
- It’s one thing if this is a crappy neighborhood in Philadelphia, Cleveland or Detroit, where a common piece of real estate may only go for $ 50,000. The demand to live there is low. Throughout virtually all of New York City though, there’s public housing units scattered around the city. Little by little, it’s by taking down. In Manhattan, it’s had at a more rapid rate, because of the demand. On the lower east side, tenements, public housing units or even relics, in nearly all neighborhoods, are now just relics of the past.
- While New York City’s already a very safe city, ranked 136th in safest, tied with Boise, Idaho, for cities with at least 100,000 people. So, anyone who disagrees, because of some New York Post article that tells you otherwise, refer back to that. The only thing that’ll scare you in Boise is the cold. The poor people in New York City are probably as ”dangerous” as the middle class people in most major cities, contrary to what many Hollywood films would like for you to believe. Part of that is due to the extremely large population of the NYPD. However, NYC could become even more safe. Besides that though, this may be a way to eliminate or lower poverty in the city. There’s large gaps of wealth and poverty. Even if it doesn’t necessarily solve the question of poverty for it’s own cities residents, it’d prevent working class or poor immigrant’s, who do blue-collared work to wanting to move to the city, if they know they can’t afford it.
- Wouldn’t it motivate people to better themselves and get jobs? Many of the people who live in public housing units are people who’ve already had their children taken away from them. There’s many drug users. Wouldn’t it better the children who already do live there? I know a big question would be where would these people go, but the same answer would come about working-class people who used to live on the Lowe East Side, before transplants, ”hipsters” and ”yuppies” took over. They’ll scatter around the city, state and country.
You’re right. The thing is, I’m not necessarily for capitalism. I consider myself to be more supportive of a soical democracy, but in America, it’s apparent, the wealthy won’t have it that way. That’s why there’s such disproportional amounts of wealth. Still though, there’s a fine line to everything. My question is basically where does that line get drawn? Even in a socialist state, it doesn’t help to have non-productive workers sucking the system living for free. This is why a degree of people achievement is necessary for motivation. In other words, the ways for acquiring that opportunity, such as college education, should be fully available to everyone, but to say we’re all entitled to the same things, regardless of our choices, is non-motivating and could lead to the decay of a middle class. Being that this is a capitalist country though, I don’t see how having public housing units corresponds to that. If this were Beijing, I’d probably inquire on it differently.
Wouldn’t making it a fairer place honor fairness? I never said these people weren’t good people. I just said that they’re taking advantage of the system. I don’t care who it is, everyone has the ability to work or do something productive with themselves. If someone doesn’t want to work, they shouldn’t be living on very expensive land.
Best answer:
Answer by cardimom
Pure capitalism will lead to a lot of dead people, it also leads to human trafficking, corrupt banks, starving people everywhere. Some people in public housing are decent folk who need a leg up. And what is wrong with caring about your fellow human being and wanting to try to maje the world a better, fairer place? You do realize the founding fathers were complete pie in the sky idealists and several where the hippies of their time–Franklin, Jefferson, and Sam and John Adams, and the yuppies of their time–Washington,Hancock.
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