NMM The Running-Dog Rentier

Atlantic Yards Report: Housing displacement? The map points to Prospect Heights/Crown Heights. AYR is simply one of the best one-note samba public policy blogs I know of.

It was started by a fellow vigilante consumer of information services who thought the New York Times coverage of this massive Disneyfication project for the crossroads of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues was a little light on background research, historical context, and, er, any information not found in press releases from Forest City Ratner.

I sometimes think the New York Times ought to change its name to the Cosmpolitan Metrosexual and just be done with it, for all that it comprehends the world just a few stops away across the East River or north of St. John the Divine.

This is an issue that directly affects our livelihood, by the way, since US$-BR$l arbitrage, combined with renting our tenement apartment more or less around the corner from the Brooklyn Museum, is an important part of the hedge that lets us sit around and work only when we feel like it at the moment.

As Brooklyn College sociologist Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida recently reported at a panel in June, “Housing Displacement in Brooklyn: A Discussion,” there’s some stark evidence about gentrification trends, and they point directly to areas in the orbit of the Atlantic Yards proposal. It’s not common for areas of poverty to nudge up against areas of wealth, but when they do, the poorer areas are vulnerable to displacement.

I visited one of those new Web 2.0 services that Emily Chang tracks the other day — sort of an offshoot of Zillow — that lets you spy on the rents being charged for comparable properties. What was that called? Ah, yes, Rentometer.
Our current rent is below the median of $1,500 a month and well below the top market rent of $2,000. So I guess that means we are not gouging.

But $1,500 a month is $18,000 a year. How is the nurse who lives in our building and works at the local hospital, who rents from the majority owner of the condo, going to make that kind of rent on pre-tax earnings of, say, $40,000?

And why, if she provides essential services to us, should she not live in our neighborhood and enjoy whatever benefits the local school district theoretically enjoys from the growing tax base (our property taxes are amazingly low, in fact)?

Or less altruistically, consider this: The first time I locked myself out of my apartment, just after we moved in — I’m a complete absent-minded geek — I had my Blackberry with me and thought, “Wow, I’ll call that Internet locksmith I set up on my doodad!”

The guy was stuck in traffic, busy as hell, and could not make it in less than two, three hours.

It was about 98 degrees out. Neuza was in Brazil. I had just worked a 12-hour day.

So I went around the corner to the guy at the hardware store. Took care of it.

What am I going to when the guy at the hardware store can’t afford the rent anymore, like the Two Bros. Hardware in Fort Greene, our old neighborhood?

Sit on my stoop and play Tetris until the batteries run out, I guess. And blog about how miserable I am, and how short-sighted I was to hitch my wagon to Bruce Ratner, billionaire basketball humanist.