4 ms·

I hear this a lot. I'm inclined to share the sentiment for the young student going to NYU, the intern at a museum/art gallery, or the actor waiting tables whil

by htag 4y ago

I hear this a lot. I'm inclined to share the sentiment for the young student going to NYU, the intern at a museum/art gallery, or the actor waiting tables while auditioning and doing off broadway. They made a choice, and clearly think the city can offer them enough to deal with poverty and desperation. I'm less inclined to share the sentiment about people that were born and raised in NYC and have their entire social network there. They had less choice in the matter, and they might be even more desperate if they lost connection with their social support group. In addition, many people born and raised in NYC are missing skills that would be considered essential almost anywhere else in the US, such as how to drive a car. Regardless of how/why someone arrived in NYC, the prosperity of it's population is a direct concern of cities. The income of it's tax payers directly correlates to a city's tax base, and we've seen what happens when a city's tax income falls short of projections. Poverty and desperation also seem to go hand in hand with expensive problems (for the city) such as crime and poor public health.

mattzito 4y ago
> I'm inclined to share the sentiment for the young student going to NYU, the intern at a museum/art gallery, or the actor waiting tables while auditioning and doing off broadway. They made a choice, and clearly think the city can offer them enough to deal with poverty and desperation. Perhaps I missed these personas in the original article, but these are very charitable examples of "poverty and desperation". Most people interning at museums and art galleries (in my experience) come from families who can at least afford to subsidize the cost of living in NYC. Waiting tables while auditioning and doing off broadway is actually a pretty decent way to earn a living - I had/have friends who have been doing that for 15-20 years and earn solid incomes, in some cases enough to raise a family. I went to nyu, and while it was a while ago, I'm told that if anything, NYU students are more privileged than they were when I went there. The real examples of poverty and desperation are the immigrants who are effectively forced to work in sweatshop conditions, or the women who pick up hours here and there in childcare in their neighborhood, or the security guards who live out of their cars or in homeless shelters because they don't get paid enough to end up in a stable living environment. In some cases, they don't have a network outside of NYC they could lean on, or don't have the resources to get to another city, or are (justifiably) scared of what would happen when they got there.

by htag 4y ago

mattzito 4y ago

> I'm inclined to share the sentiment for the young student going to NYU, the intern at a museum/art gallery, or the actor waiting tables while auditioning and doing off broadway. They made a choice, and clearly think the city can offer them enough to deal with poverty and desperation. Perhaps I missed these personas in the original article, but these are very charitable examples of "poverty and desperation". Most people interning at museums and art galleries (in my experience) come from families who can at least afford to subsidize the cost of living in NYC. Waiting tables while auditioning and doing off broadway is actually a pretty decent way to earn a living - I had/have friends who have been doing that for 15-20 years and earn solid incomes, in some cases enough to raise a family. I went to nyu, and while it was a while ago, I'm told that if anything, NYU students are more privileged than they were when I went there. The real examples of poverty and desperation are the immigrants who are effectively forced to work in sweatshop conditions, or the women who pick up hours here and there in childcare in their neighborhood, or the security guards who live out of their cars or in homeless shelters because they don't get paid enough to end up in a stable living environment. In some cases, they don't have a network outside of NYC they could lean on, or don't have the resources to get to another city, or are (justifiably) scared of what would happen when they got there.