...about the progressive mindset: the cloying yearning for expensive projects that have no chance of standing on their own.
I was a member of the board of directors for a small community theater group in Oshkosh, WI, in the early 80s. I was the Secretary and a close friend of mine was the Treasurer. Our group had done well with its productions so we decided to rent larger space in a strip mall owned by a fellow who had several businesses. He charged our group a very low rent.
We painted the whole interior black and put up curtains and got lots of folding chairs and we had ourselves a theater. We put on a couple of productions there but they weren't as successful as the others that we'd done at schools or churches. I was in one of those earlier productions while I was still employed at WOSH/WYTL radio: "Lysistrata", the classic war-between-the-sexes play, where the women go on strike.
Anyway, I have good memories of the plays we put on in our new digs. But very soon the Treasurer expressed concern to me about the state of our finances. Since I was then employed at a computer company, I sat with her one evening to construct a pro forma spreadsheet detailing the troupe's cash flow for the rest of the year (I think it was 1984). I remember that we used a DEC Rainbow computer running the CP/M operating system. We constructed the pro forma in Microsoft's Multiplan. It clearly showed that the group would run out of money in the fall and we'd be homeless. The rent was killing us.
My friend and I presented the pro forma to the rest of the board at one fateful meeting in the spring. That's when the cloying yearning burst forth in full force. The artistic director was adamant that we couldn't move. Another board member, a fellow who owned a business in town, actually leaked tears as he said that we just couldn't move. Of course, nobody came up with anything concrete to enable us to stay there. My friend and I were out-voted. The next day we both resigned.
What happened? Well, the artistic director was able to get a month or two rent-free from the generous building owner...but the group had to leave by the end of the year. I'm sure that there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but they had to pack up.
On a more recent note, I heard this story on NPR yesterday. That old cloying yearning came through so strongly that I it made me bilious. I had to write about it.
From the very first Margot Adler, the reporter, sets up the yearning for something that doesn't involve decent people having to deal with money:
Manhattan real estate goes for crazy prices: Condos and co-ops can cost millions. But the city also has a long history of affordable housing in the form of limited equity co-ops.
Today, many of these resident-owned buildings have become privatized by businesses that raise prices to open market rates. But a few of these co-ops are fighting to preserve a very different vision of living in New York City.
A very different and completely impractical vision of living, I might add. Adler has set up the privatized-bad / resident-owned-good duality quite nicely in four sentences. Those "co-ops are fighting to preserve" their way of life. They MUST be be better than buildings where "open market rates" are charged, mustn't they? I mean, who DOESN'T think the the market always fails us?
Adler goes on:
To address the urgent need for housing after World War II, unions teamed up with state and local officials to build new co-ops, though a vision of the good life after the war often meant moving to the suburbs, says Josh Freeman, a professor of history at the City University of New York.
"In New York and a few other cities, you had these alternative experiments and they were enormously popular. All these projects had huge waiting lists," Freeman says.
So the unions didn't seek out people who actually knew something about building housing; they sought out "state and local officials". This is the first reality check: going to politicians to catch a break because something costs too much. The "team" works to pay for a large part of the co-ops by making everybody in the city pay for it, not just those who are fortunate to live there.
Also note the passing reference to "a vision of the good life after the war often meant moving to the suburbs." Yer durn tootin', it did! Single-family homes on large lots in quiet neighborhoods have consitently proven to be the type of housing most people desire.
And the waiting lists! Another clue. That is, why would anyone want to go on a waiting list for YEARS for a one-bedroom condo? Answer? Because the price is artificially low compared to other housing. That question is never addressed in this article; the fact that New York is a rent-control town.
Lets continue:
One example is the Mutual Redevelopment Houses, known as Penn South. Sponsored by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the building complex was completed in 1962. Its 2,800 units were just a short walk to Manhattan's Garment District.
"They had lots of communal facilities. They had libraries, meeting halls, co-op buying schemes. So it was not just an economic program, but it was a vision of a different kind of urbanism that would take the form of co-op housing," Freeman says.
Since then, many of these co-ops have become private and are priced at market rates. But Penn South is holding on.
The ILGWU no longer exists. And Manhattan's Garment District? History, pretty much, even with the zoning changes and manufacturing use restrictions imposed by NYC. So what jobs do the residents walk to now?
This story could branch out into the reasons WHY the ILGWU no longer exisits and the Garment District is a hollow shell; but that would interfere with the narrative, the point the reporter is trying to get across.
Josh Freeman points out that Penn South was an "economic program"; that is, a government-subsidized housing development. Swell, isn't it? But notice that the article never mentions WHY many of these co-ops became private.
Debra Hockman moved into Penn South after 17 years on the waiting list. In her old apartment, she says, she knew two neighbors. "But in six months of moving to Penn South," Hockman says, "I knew every single person on my floor."
More than half the residents are over 50, and there is an active senior center. In a drama class, a man recites lines from Shakespeare. Next door is a gardening class. Harriet Finklestein has brought two plants to repot.
"We call this session our quilting time, but with plants," she says.
When she moved here more than 15 years go, she says, a neighbor told her, "Oh, you're going to love it here, it's like a kibbutz."
Several people in the class laugh. "It's not exactly a kibbutz," she says, "but there is a sense of community that is unique."
And here we have the reporter piling on the schmaltz and the cloying yearning. Oy! This way of life MUST be preserved somehow! O! How awful it would be to have to give up quilting time!
I'm sorry. I just can't comment in a straightforward way...because this story drives me crazy! The stage is set for the listener to be steered towards the conclusion that this "vision" of life in the co-op is worth preserving.
Is The Model Still Sustainable?
The average price for a one-bedroom apartment in Penn South is less than $40,000. Over the years, the co-op worked out deals with the city to remain affordable.
Yay! At least SOME time is given to the dark side. The co-op has been in thick with the city fathers to keep Penn South "affordable". That means continuing to receive either tax breaks or direct financial support from the city.
Again, there's no mention that New York City apartments are rent-controlled.
In the past year, the co-op has fought for a new deal for the city to finance some $80 million of needed repairs. A majority of the co-op voted for the plan, putting off any possibility of privatization to year 2030.
Only 13 percent opposed the new deal. One of them is Andrew Alpern, an architectural historian. "This is a small town," he says, "and it is a town with a multimillion-dollar budget."
Alpern says his apartment would now sell for about $75,000, which he describes as a discount of 90 percent over the open market price. An affordable price, he says, is about $150,000.
Alpern's main worry is that tax breaks will end, and even with loans and grants, rising costs in New York City may mean a future where the complex won't have enough money for maintenance and repairs. Most residents disagree.
"Most residents disagree." This is where memories of the old theater group came rushing back. A majority (87%) of the co-op voted for the deal with the city to finance $80 million in repairs. $80 million??!! That's over $28,500 per unit! Did they just notice that, oh! The roof is leaking in 1200 places! And the walls are crumbling! We'd better get help from the city!
So, does the story make clear that the city will help with the financing? No. I would think that an $80 million loan would have to pass the City Council at least. No mention of that here. Only that members of the co-op voted. Maybe in New York that's the way things are done. I doubt it, but who knows?
Then the sensible Mr. Alpern chimes in with the key point: tax breaks will eventually end and the low-cost way that residents have been living for so long won't add up to enough money to maintain the place.
Here's where New York's rent control intrudes just a little bit into the story. The residents are happy as clams to be living in Penn South because it cost so little to buy their condos and the monthly condo fees are also low because the city has been helping out. So, just because "most residents disagree", something will magically happen to allow them to continue living in Neverland.
Defending Their Community
Karen Smith, a retired State Supreme Court justice, is one of those who led Penn South's fight to remain a limited equity affordable co-op. She points out a nearby building that was privatized. It now costs about $4,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment. That's not affordable, she says.
The residents will "defend" their community so long as the city pays the lion's share of the cost.
I'm happy to know Ms. Smith's opinion (she's good at giving opinions seeing as how she's a former judge) that $4,000 isn't affordable. But that's all the story offers: her opinion. No mention of the fact that New York's rent control keeps prices artificially low. That means waiting lists and shortages ... shortages that are caused in part because people will buy more at a lower price than at a higher price. In the case of apartments, New Yorkers rent larger spaces than they would normally. Instead of sharing a small apartment with a roommate, individuals will rent multi-bedroom apartments because they're cheap; thus reducing the supply of housing for others waiting to rent.
The unaffordable places are the "luxury" apartments that are exempt from rent control rules. This diverts all the new construction towards luxury apartments for which "open market prices" can be charged, while existing buildings under rent control deteriorate because not enough rent money can be collected for repairs. This is what's happening at Penn South...besides all over the bloody rest of New York City.
So, a privatized two-bedroom apartment is "not affordable", Ms. Smith? It's only that way because of rent-controlled places like Penn South. How "affordable" will it be when Penn South has to be sold when the tax breaks run out and everyone living there winds up homeless?
Smith tells a story of meeting the former president of another Manhattan co-op, one that went private.
"We are no longer a community," the president told her. "They only care about having a doorman; they don't care about each other."
Smith says her community cares. "That is part of what we have built here, and that is part of what this is about," she says.
Of course! That justifies any and all political efforts to maintain this house of cards! People CARE!
Oh, gawd!
Finally:
Freeman, the historian, says the 1962 opening of this co-op was a big event.
"President Kennedy came; Eleanor Roosevelt came. It was an amazing triumph of labor liberalism. It is a world that really doesn't have that kind of power anymore or that kind of ambition," he says.
But, Freeman says, more power to those who are still trying to keep those principles alive.
"Labor liberalism". Says it all, doesn't it? Labor unions cozied up to the aldermen in New York and got these places built with gobs of public money. And it takes gobs more public money to maintain them and to keep them from being sold to the evil "market".
This whole story reeks of New Urbanism and Smart Growth; that is, the boffins of Smart Growth and New Urbanism continue to push their "vision" of high-density, mixed-use residences within walking distance of shops and jobs. But when the jobs disappear because union wages get too high...? I mean, when was the last time you bought a shirt that was made in America?
I guess that people, being people, will never stop trying to get something for nothing or to get something paid for with other peoples' money. It's just the idea that that cloying yearning suckers us just about every time to open our wallets to "preserve the vision".
Gag me! It makes me want to scream!!