Life in New York, Then and Now

Interesting mini-memoir from John Podhoretz about the Upper West Side, in his words, “the most affluent shtetl the world has ever seen.”

The only part I can’t quite follow is his offhand remark, “It is an expensive place to live, but then it always was.” I always thought that, before 1985 or so, the Upper West Side wasn’t so upscale. People at Columbia tell all sorts of stories about how things used to be in the bad old days.

I have one other comment. Before giving it, let me emphasize that enjoyed reading Podhoretz’s article and, by making the comment below, I’m not trying to shoot Podhoretz down; rather, I’m trying to help out by pointing out a habit in his writing that might be getting in the way of his larger messages.

Podhoretz writes the following about slum clearance:

Over the course of the next four years, 20 houses on the block would be demolished and replaced with a high school named for Louis Brandeis and a relocated elementary school. Of the 35 brownstones that lined the block, only seven remain today. While any such demolition of livable housing stock would be greeted with cries of horror today from poverty advocates and landmarking experts, the policy was strongly advocated by neighborhood clergy, who had high hopes that the struggling poor could make a better life in public housing.

And, as Podhoretz points out, “It went badly.” What’s awkward about the above paragraph, though, is the phrase “would be greeted with cries of horror today from poverty advocates and landmarking experts.” “Cries of horror” is the kind of thing you say to mock somebody, and it’s hard for me to imagine John Podhoretz having much of a good word to say about “poverty advocates.” So there’s a funny feel to this: on one hand, he’s mocking the opponents of demolition, but at the same time he’s saying demolition was a bad idea and represents “one of the most potent demonstrations of the law of unintended consequences.”

It’s possible to have it both ways–you can both oppose demolition while disagreeing with your allies in this opposition–but, if so, that’s an interesting tension that’s worth exploring. My impression is that Podhoretz did not think things through on that level, but rather got off a swipe at “poverty advocates and landmarking experts” without really reflecting on it. Perhaps if he expands this essay into something longer, he can explore these political issues in more depth.

P.S. See here for another example where a writer gets tangled up in political rhetoric. Both these examples come from conservatives, but liberals (and moderates) are certainly not immune to the problem either. My impression is that this happens if you get into the habit of seeing the world in terms of good guys and bad guys. How should we think about people who opposed demolitions of neighborhoods? Are they good-guy local businesspeople opposing Big Government? Or perhaps they are political radicals trying to use government bureaucracy to stand in the way of private enterprise? An admirable example of working-class organization? Racist Nimbys? Etc. Once you get into the habit of using phrases such as “cries of horror,” it’s hard to write sentences that aren’t in some way loaded with unintended meaning.

4 thoughts on “Life in New York, Then and Now

  1. I think the issue is the question of what counts as the Upper West Side.

    It used to stop at 96th st, or certainly 100th St. Now, it seems to run all the way up Broadway past Columbia.

    The Upper West Side was always expensive. As more of the Columbia area has gotten expensive, the Upper West Side has expanded.

  2. Well, the Podhoretz's of the world seem to me to be close to pure deadweight for threshold rational people like yourself.

    My best argument for their existence is that their value in making a segment of the productive middlebrow happy/entertained enough that they're aiding that segment's productivity outweighs the epistemological harm they cause by distracting segments of the public from better analysis and ideas. I don't if that's true or not. My gut tells me his class across the political spectrum and around the world fall under the category of deadweight.

  3. Hopefully: I think you're being a bit hard on Podhoretz! He's just a guy with a job. Not all of us are lucky enough to have found a niche where can be truly productive.

  4. Professor Gelman,
    Do you really think so?
    In the long run I'm not trying to be all dead.
    I feel like folks like you and I (and my archetypal example, Prof. Bostrom) make decisions every day to sacrifice things like audience for epistemological optimization. I specifically include myself in that category because like Mr. Podheretz the best evidence is I lack the cognitive ability to be a part of a productive, technocratic elite like a Professor Mankiw or an Hon. Chu. Nevertheless I try in good faith not to steal attention from who it should be going to by rallying anti-elite identity in ways that're not on the side of the angels. I feel he has numerous violations, and although all sort of arguments can be made that since he's part of a system that's somewhat functional, his role itself is optimizing -my gut tells me that he could be actually productive, but he'd probably have to be less famous and make less money. I like attention, an audience, and extra money too, but I hope I'll do something more harmless like strip than pander if I become more uncontrollably needy in the future.

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