Colors in a Row, originally uploaded by Ronnie R

People tend to think gentrification goes like this: rich, educated white people move into a low-income minority neighborhood and drive out its original residents, who can no longer afford to live there. As it turns out, that’s not typically true.
A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Pittsburgh and Duke University, examined Census data from more than 15,000 neighborhoods across the U.S. in 1990 and 2000, and found that low-income non-white households did not disproportionately leave gentrifying areas. In fact, researchers found that at least one group of residents, high school–educated blacks, were actually more likely to remain in gentrifying neighborhoods than in similar neighborhoods that didn’t gentrify — even increasing as a fraction of the neighborhood population, and seeing larger-than-expected gains in income.

Read Time’s article, Gentrification: Not Ousting the Poor? or read the paper by Terra McKinnish, Randall Walsh, & T. Kirk White: Who Gentrifies Low Income Neighborhoods?, with the abstract:

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long- Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990’s. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification.

Photographer Rachel Barrett is featured in today’s New York Times City Section regarding her NYC Newsstand Project, The City Visible: Yesterday’s News:

IN 2006, the photographer Rachel Barrett began documenting Manhattan’s newsstands, the makeshift sidewalk stores that sell candy, soda and lottery tickets, as well as newspapers and magazines. To date, she has photographed all 236 that she could find.
Ms. Barrett was drawn to the newsstands because they are ubiquitous and largely taken for granted, and because they forcefully demonstrate that New York, unlike cities whose streets have lost their vitality to car culture, still teems with on-the-run pedestrians.

Check out the Newsstands Slideshow and Flickr Newsstand Tag.

The New York Times reports that Park Slope residents complain about aircraft noise:

EVERYONE agrees that Park Slope is no Flushing or Howard Beach, not one of those neighborhoods where the whine of descending jets is as familiar as birdsong. But ever since 2000, its residents have complained of an increase in noise from low-flying jets bound for La Guardia Airport.
The battle has been fought on many fronts. A neighborhood group, the Park Slope Quality of Life Committee, posts pictures of low-flying planes on its Web site, along with a petition asking the Federal Aviation Administration to limit air traffic to La Guardia and vary the approaching flight patterns.

Good grief. Suffice to say I am not sympathetic to the stroller-set’s complaints.
Normal arrivals to LGA take one of three vectors:

1. The Runway 22 approach which aircraft generally proceed up the west side of Manhattan for a series of right-hand turns over the Bronx to land north-to-south.
2. The Runway 4 which takes aircraft over Brooklyn (Park Slope and my home of Greenpoint) landing south-to-north.
3. The Runway 13 approach is used when the wind shifts and vectors aircraft over the northern tip of Manhattan to land west-to-east.¹

All of this illustrates how immensely crowded New York Airspace has become, with arriving and departing aircraft from La Guardia, Kennedy, and Newark and from numerous regional airports throughout the region. You just can’t up and change approach vectors due to the stroller-set noise complaints. In fact the FAA is attempting to redesign the regional airspace, which you can read about here: New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Airspace Redesign.
But what of aircraft noise? On approach to Runway 4, aircraft descend from 2700 ft to 1700 ft over Park Slope – which is higher than the Empire State Building. La Guardia handles regional traffic (flights less than 1,500 miles)² with airlines generally using smaller Regional Jets or MD-80’s.
If the Park Slope Quality of Life Committee really wants to reduce aircraft noise, petitioning the FAA is a non-starter, and they should put their energy into supporting regional high speed rail initiatives which will take more planes out of the sky. Initiatives such as California’s High Speed Rail creating regional high speed rail is exactly the correct policy which will reduce aircraft flying over their delicate heads.
Or, they can get over themselves. You live in New York City. It is loud here and aircraft noise should be the least of your noise complaints.

1. Incidentally, out of all the trips in and out of LGA, I’ve only actually landed this way once. ↩
2. Due to the Port Authority banning flights longer than 1,500 miles in order to shift transatlantic and transamerican flights ↩

Zeppelin, originally uploaded by czak142p

While I am all for researching alternative transportation options, the idea of transit by a Zeppelin fleet doesn’t make sense from a holistic point of view. If private companies wish to research and develop future lighter-than-air aircraft, be my guest.
High speed rail, though initially expensive, is both a proven technology and is a cost effective means of transporting both passengers and freight. If you are serious about reducing carbon emissions per ton/mile or per passenger/mile the airship is a non-starter. High speed rail is the proved technology, not hot air.

Fireworks, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Hot off the press release:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced that after just eight months, the first of two 200-ton tunnel boring machines had completed its mile-long plus journey from the bedrock beneath the intersection of 63rd Street and Second Avenue to the terminus of what will become a new station and concourse underneath Grand Central Terminal. The second machine is scheduled to complete its parallel journey near the end of the summer.
…
Now that the machine has reached its destination, excavation will begin on what will become a cavern underneath Park Avenue between 49th and 51st Streets that will connect the newly built tunnel with parallel tunnels which will allow the future Long Island Rail Road flexibility in accessing all eight tracks in the new station under Grand Central. That work involves intermittent blasting and mechanical excavation that is scheduled to begin in mid-July and last for six to eight months.

I very much like the idea of tunneling a cavern underneath the existing Grand Central Terminal. I imagine commuters-cum-spelunkers entering and exciting Grand Central on their way to and from home.
Read more about MTA’s East SideAccess.

, originally uploaded by ( Tomàs )

The Garden, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Oh ever-delayed Moynihan Station, will the muses ever see you through to completion? Probably not, but the Two Steves continue to propose the Port Authority’s to buy off the Dolans with $2 billion:

According to multiple people familiar with discussions, the joint venture of the Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust wants the Port Authority to come in and buy the current Madison Square Garden, along with its hotly desired air rights, a task that would cost somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion. The developers have told officials that this purchase by the public sector, which would be effectively paid back by the developers should the entire project come together, is necessary to right the troubled large-scale plan. By the public sector taking a risk that the developers apparently find too risky and/or expensive—in the failed plan, billions in funding and numerous agreements for the entire project were needed before the Garden could get a new arena—the developers seem to be reasoning that the Garden would be given enough certainty to be lured back to the table.

Why don’t we just cut to the chase: Governor Patterson should use the power of eminent domain (which was used so well at Atlantic Yards) to take the current Penn Station, the air rights and the current Madison Square Garden in order to redevelop the parcels for the good of the region. In exchange, the western half of the James Farley Post Office can be purchased by the Dolan Family to rebuild Madison Square Garden. Instead of handing over large sums of money to the Dolans – no matter if the reported $2 billion will be repaid by the developers – the Port Authority can use this money for regional transportation.
While the Port Authority has a history of completing large-scale projects, this plan represents a wholesale transfer of risk to the quasi-public entity without any of the rewards (profits) when the project succeeds. Government is uniquely situated to lead and to shoulder risk, but that risk must be rewarded.

Traffic JAM !, originally uploaded by aapon

Besides the advantage of riding transit while intoxicated, there are many other advantages to public transportation over private transportation. One of the difficulties is how to sell the initial investment in transit to a skeptical crowd of Americans who see transportation policy as a binary zero-sum game. How to package transit in a way which would not only appease those of us who are pro-transit but those who just can’t live without their private transportation.
I don’t have a coherent slogan I could put forth to the Obama team, but one place to start is stressing the fact that every car you take off the street with mass transit becomes one less car you have to pass on the way to work. Making your pitch up with the iron-triangle of economics, sustainability and pure selfishness is the way to move the electorate over to a more evenly balanced transportation policy.