Does it really take a $250,000 report to learn that people aren’t happy when their neighborhoods are “discovered” by wealthier outsiders?
Someone at the New York City Housing Authority apparently thought so. The agency commissioned Abt Associates, a consulting firm, which in turn recruited five project residents to server as “interpreters,” interviewing other tenants.
The researchers, unsurprisingly, found deep, widely-shared discontent. NYCHA residents, the study found, suffering from higher prices, while rarely sharing in the job opportunities at new, higher-end stores, the New York Daily News reported.
Residents of Queensbridge Houses at 41st Avenue and 10th Street, for example, “felt that these improvements were meant to benefit new condo owners, often called the “runners and bikers” in the neighborhood, “rather than NYCHA residents,” the study found.
The researchers did find some silver linings. NYCHA residents in gentrifying neighborhoods experienced lower crime rates and better-maintained buildings and retail shops.
Either way, one group that’s clearly benefitting is city consultants. [NYDN] – Ariel Stulberg