Whose Quality of Life?
Quality of Life Campaign sought to reclaim and clean up the city’s public spaces by evicting those deemed undesirable and disorderly.
The Giuliani Administration did little to address the increased poverty rate in New York City during the 1990s. According to Giuliani, the campaign was meant to be “a change in vision to get the government out of the way of the economy and support the policies and programs that stabilize and expand the private sector." [1]
Mayor Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bratton were hailed as champions for reducing crime in the city to its lowest levels in decades but at what cost? The QOL shifted the city’s “urban social policy from improving housing, employment, social services, and fighting poverty, to using the police to control public disorder.” [2] By his second term, the poverty rate reached 27%, which was twice the national average.
The Giuliani administration slashed funding for social services, including municipal hospitals located in lower-income areas, because “low income people are poorly organized and a low voter constituency.”[3] In the same sweep, Giuliani increased the involvement of for-profit companies, like privatizing public assistance, like health care and homeless services. These shifts heavily affected lower-income and people of color throughout the boroughs. The NYPD became the underqualified and ill-equipped agency for upholding the order sought from the Quality of Life Campaign. Ultimately, this approach only focused the social disorder onto neighborhoods as a whole, rather than making an effort to help those who needed the help.
Protest against gentrification in Chinatown (New York City). CAAAV Digital Archive
Chinatown is a “community founded in response to the historical racist exclusion of Chinese people in the United States labor markets and residential neighborhoods.” [4]
Since its inception, CAAAV has fought to protect Chinatown residents from anti-Asian attacks, over-policing, and harassment by the NYPD, and encroaching gentrification tactics by developers. Chinatown is home to the densest population of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 150,000 residents living within a two-square-mile area of downtown Manhattan. [5] For decades Asian New Yorkers were corralled into Chinatown, viewed as ‘disorderly,’ but now face an even more grave danger in the gentrification of their community.
Damaged bathroom in Chinatown (New York City) apartment building. CAAAV Digital Archives
Poor Living Conditions in Chinatown. CAAAV Digital Archive
Poor Living Conditions in Chinatown. CAAAV Digital Archive
Poor Living Conditions in Chinatown. CAAAV Digital Archive
The number of subsidized housing units decreased from 17,696 to 16,236 between 2003 and 2006. Nearly 75 percent of Chinatown residents surveyed in 2005 lived with one or more serious housing violations in the past year. [6]
Mid 2000's protest against abusive landlords. CAAAV Digital Archive
Stemming from Mayor Giuliani’s push for pro-development in the 1990s to Mayor Bloomberg’s continuation of the big business model, Chinatown residents have seen their affordable housing market shrink. As developers purchased buildings around Chinatown, landlords purposely withheld repairs and maintenance, letting buildings fall into disrepair, forcing residents to choose to live in unsafe apartments or vacate. These ranged from no working heat and water to exposed electrical wires. The intent was to push residents out to sell the building at above market price, and the developer would renovate the building as unaffordable luxury apartments to former renters.
In 2005, CAAAV formed the Chinatown Tenants Union (CTU) to combat gentrification in their community. The CTU helped organize low-income residents, youth, and street vendors to know their rights against displacement.
Gentrification has also led to a significant decrease in Asian-owned businesses. A 2006 survey reported that only seven percent of businesses owned their property, facing increased rent by landlords and their customer base moving out, making it unsustainable. For decades, Chinatown has been the cornerstone of the garment and restaurant industries in the city; their decline means decline for the city as a whole.
[1] City of New York, 1995
[2] (Vitale, 2008)
[3] (Weikert, 2001, 367)
[4] CAAAV and the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, Converting Chinatown: A Snapshot of a Neighborhood Becoming Unaffordable and Unlivable, December 2008
[5] Ibid
[6] [Ibid]