Condo Craze
The author of the article Riversprawl, before criticizing development along the river, claims, "a riverfront housing boom is clearly preferable to a glut of smokestack industries." While almost anyone would prefer a park in their frontyard than a metal factory, this author, like many people in this country, is underestimating the value of industry in our country. The 31-county NY urban region held 1,109,500 manufacturing jobs in 1990. In 2005, this figure sunk to 606,900. It is projected at just 419,900. (New York Metropolitan Transportation Council)Obviously, more efficient means of production and the deindustrialization of our economy attribute greatly to this deprecration. However, what many environmentalists and every day people fail to realize, is that industry is what brings money in to the economy.
While the development of condominiums has proven to bring middle and upper-middle class people into a town, generate more tax money, and even increase the value of the property around it, developments do not bring many jobs into communities. Theoretically thinking, what would be more beneficial to the poor community of a lower-middle class town? A townhouse development that the residents could not afford, and would offer maybe 10 maintenence jobs, or a large factory that could employ 1,000 workers who were previously unemployed?
Environmentalist groups are currently working WITH industrial companies to produce factories and buildings that are environmentally friendly, while still economically feasible. This is evident in several projects along the river, including a plan to revitalize a large factory in Yonkers. While commercial development is beneficial to cities, we must remember that we need jobs so that the residents can pay their mortgages. We need products to build the companies. The more our American industries move overseas, the harder it will be for our country to sustain itself, especially for poor Americans who rely on blue-collar jobs. Therefore, we must keep industrial development in mind while attempting to revitalize the Hudson Valley Region.
posted by joebock97 @ 11:30 PM
1 Comments:
I agree that development that brings jobs to a community is preferable to expensive housing projects, because long-term new employment is the best economic stimulus to a community. However, as Joe mentions, manufacturing jobs in the New York City region have fallen drastically from 1990 to 2005, and there is no evidence that suggests American blue-collar industrial jobs will see a comeback. Sadly, the days in which a high school education would allow an individual to live a comfortable life working at a factory are over for the majority of Americans. In economic terms, it has simply become too expensive for companies to hire thousands of workers at their factories in the United States; thus, many companies have moved their factories overseas or have replaced jobs that used to be performed by human labor to mechanized labor. If the Hudson Valley is able to attract new industry that will provide many good-paying jobs to people with only high school educations, the river can help to bring its poorer residents out of poverty. As new large-scale industrial development that will employ many unskilled workers seems highly unlikely, I believe that the Hudson Valley, like America as a whole, will either need to retrain blue-collar workers or make higher education more affordable and attainable for these people.
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