Making room for strangers
A Letter to the Editor published in the Jersey Journal:
We're being pushed out
We're being pushed out
Enough with condo conversions in Jersey City. Out-of-town developers are pushing good people, who were born and raised in Jersey City, out of their homes in order to bring in a new crop of people who want to live in high-rise apartments surrounded by cement and glass, and who do not care to have neighbors.
We have neighbors and friends. These developers have a lot of nerve calling our homes and neighborhoods "blighted" - simply because we do not have money to make our homes look like a fairytale gingerbread house, but they are clean and comfortable and more importantly, they are home to us.
Why do we have to be pushed out to make room for strangers?
9 Comments:
" pushing good people, who were born and raised in Jersey City"
thats like lotto stats..lol
SAS
Harsh SAS, but true. :)
I dislike the high-rise condos, but dislike the prior war-zone Jersey City even less.
SAS,
Be careful about dissing JC. Born there, not raised there.
BC Bob
My Father was born and raised there 70 + years ago.. Downtown.. Supposedly was very lovely
Anon;
9/15/2006 10:09:01 AM
It seems like if you are over 35, half of NNJ was born there. Stop in at Kelly's, Neptune on a summer weekend, mainly all former JC.
BC Bob
As a downtown resident, I can say that this is necessary. Also it doesn't push everyone out. I think the old residents are benefiting from the resurgance. There property is up in value, there are more jobs, and local businesses are sprouting up and there is a good customer base.
Listen, in JC you should have purchased your house/apt back in the day. I know my grandparents sold out in the late 60's because of the state it was in. They sold like 10 apartments for something like 10k, it was like 3 four family homes.
As for the high rise condos and such , it is good. It makes it possible to build these projects. Also given the amount money being given to affordable housing, it is quite possible that the good people might be able to afford a moderate income condo or home being built. While there are many fine regular people living in JC, there is also an element. What is the word for it, hmmm...low life. The sooner we push the low lives out the better it will be for all the residents. Fewer crimes, less violence, better schools will all be side effects of this development boom.
Hey as a side effect of the market conditions it should become a lot more affordable especially with the inventory.
My grandfather and his father where born and raised there, my mother was born there. My family had intended to stay there for a while. But when the decline hit in the 60's my family ran for the bergen county suburbs despite that my grandfather continued to work in Jersey City. Back in the day most parts of Jersey City where pretty nice and you can see by the workmanship and time that went into the buildings. These were not rich people but they were immigrants with pride in their neighborhood. These places had their problems but in general they tried to keep their homes nice even though they had a lack of money. These people even invested in the city and there were good shipping, railroad, and manufacturing jobs.
One day the jobs left, the property values stagnated, people became impoverished, immigrants moved in without employment and the area like most urban areas in NNJ slipped from being vibrant, to becoming a ghetto. This process occured in Newark, Paterson, Hoboken, Orange, Camden, etc.
Hopefully now with investment NJ can have real urban centers, with urban economies. Given the strategic location, and the high demand for land in the area, these places should turn around. I will say this, the issue in the NY metro area is not a shortage of land, it is a lack of good smart development and misuse of what we have. If NY/NJ/CT redeveloped urban areas into housing we would have more housing than we are likely to need. Even better if we developed it into office, and industrial space maybe we could revive our struggling economy in NJ at least.
"But when the decline hit in the 60's my family ran for the bergen county suburbs"
Same here.
BC Bob
"Why do we have to be pushed out to make room for strangers?"
I can't believe it. Weren't they themselves strangers in JC once upon a time?
I feel bad that they are being pushed out because they are not as rich, but I also resent that they talk as if they own the town simply because they got off the boat a few years/decades earlier.
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