Incoming: Heavy use of scare-quotes to emphasize I don’t agree with certain framings which nonetheless get my point across.

It’s hard not to be suspicious of any new housing built in an American city. A new apartment building intended for low-income tenants was opened in the “poor side” of town in an area I used to live.

For op sec, I won’t share which city, but consider a typical American town with rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods, and guess where most of the crime and policing is.

Is this a progressive move?

On the one hand, lowering housing costs is always a good thing, especially when it helps people who have less.

On the other hand, it could be a cynical ploy to continue quarantining “the poors” somewhere far away from the “nice” neighborhoods.

My gut feeling is that some sort of mixed-income housing would be the best progressive stepping stone because, gradually, middle class (ie white) people would have an increasing stake in this neglected part of town. But then again, that could also become a form of gentrification which ends up displacing the poorer tenants, so this solution would have to include some sort of rent control to work.

  • Rojo27 [he/him]
    ·
    9 hours ago

    But then again, that could also become a form of gentrification which ends up displacing the poorer tenants, so this solution would have to include some sort of rent control to work.

    I think this is the big issue. For the amount of affordable housing needed in most major metro areas there's need to be a much larger scale of affordable housing being built.

    In NYC at least there's the 80/20 rule which states that new housing projects need to set aside 20% of units for low to middle income families. What happens when most of the construction is for low unit count luxury buildings though? More gentrification. Like sure technically you are mixing the housing to an extent, but if more of the unites are there for market rates, especially in a city like NYC, then you are really pushing out the poor because chances are that you demolished housing that was previously relatively affordable.

    The best thing that can be done is for the government to create its own housing development agency to construct and manage wholly affordable buildings physically located in various parts of the city so as to not segregate the population. Doubt it would ever happen these days though. There isn't enough political will for it to happen.