There were many problems in the 1970s. The main problem was planned shrinkage. Many people lost their jobs because of this decision. These job losses were a disaster to the community of Brooklyn. A man named Roger Starr (New York City’s Administrator of Housing and Development) had something to say and do about the events that were happening in Bronx. He used a system called ‘planned shrinkage’. The proposal he conducted was to cut down the employment of public service employees. Such as: police officers, fire fighters, teachers, the people that help the city (sanitation, construction, plus other such occupations), and even the education field (teachers, and librarians). He may have helped the city become restored, but it was at a cost.
Roger Starr was someone who had an idea to fix this problems going on in the Bronx. He also had the guts to stand up about it and try to make his plan become a reality. He wanted to put in effect planned shrinkage. Planned shrinkage has to do with cut-backs on jobs. It also has to do with bringing people from where they live to a new town so they can fix up the deteriorating town they once lived in. The jobs that were cut were of: police officers, the fire departments, teachers, and the people that help fix the city.
On an interview with Roger Starr, conducted by Robert Fitch, Starr talks about his concern for the city. Starr began to speak about the problem with public housing. He thought rent control was a problem. Not just that but the problems of the people who were living in those apartments. His first problem is rent control. He stated that it was “destroying private housing stock” (Starr). Starr also believes that the problem was making sure the tenants that were in the rent controlled apartments, were good tenants, that would always pay their rent and take good care of the apartments by not destroying them.
Starr talks about the different programs (FAJ 236 program, Section 8, etc…) and mentions a man named Edward Brook, who was a Massachusetts Senator. Brook a man who had created the Brook amendments. This amendment consisted of taking people who couldn’t pay rent and move them into the rental controlled apartments. This affected the state of the houses and the neighborhood. This is because the people who were now moving into these places were destructive.
That made the ‘good’ tenants move out if they could. Because of that it made the problems escalate in the 70s. Starr also mentions that people are not alike and that Brook was treating them as if they were. In the fact that some people were good tenants (paid their rent and didn’t destroy property) and some of them weren’t and did the opposite. Some of the problems which was incurring was peeing in the elevators and doing drugs on the roof. Those problems weren’t the only ones. There were financial problems as well. With this project it took a lot of the cities money.
To fix the financial problems that they had lost from relying on all people to be good tenants, Starr suggested for a planned shrinkage to come in effect. When planned shrinkage finally came in effect there were many jobs that were lost. The statistics in a newspaper article called 3,432 City Jobs Cut in a Month state: “Police 4,879…, Fire 1,926…, Sanitation 2,612…, Board of Education 11,116…, and Health and Hospital Corp[orations] 8,130. (Lombardi) With all of those cut-backs in two years and two months, the town of Brooklyn was becoming even more destructive.
The city had the idea that they were spending too much money on areas of the city where people were constantly dying. The population of the city was devastatingly decreasing. People were losing so many jobs that there was a depression going around. When a person loses their job there can be many things that a person will do. A person can be depressed and mope about in the house. Most will commit crimes to get what they want or need. Some people may steal food because they can’t afford any, with families back home. Other people can just get vengeful and destroy property.
A devastating thing was going on in the Bronx. It was part of the reason Roger Starr wanted to make a change and start the planned shrinkage process. It was the Bronx fires. With so many people dying as it is, these fires were of no help. Whoever didn’t stay in the area, tried to help themselves in their money situation to be able to move out. The city was a disaster because all of the money they took to fix the city was borrowed. That is why Roger Starr had come up with the plan for planned shrinkage.
This situation became a domino effect. First they thought that they could change the city by moving people around and away from the area, than fixing up that area. They also felt they had to get rid of jobs to save money in order to do this fixing up. By taking peoples jobs away from them it created more deaths and crime. Along with that came the fires. All because the city wanted to save as much money as they thought they could.
By taking away the cops and fire departments, the city started to crumble even more. If there were crimes already why would they take these jobs away from people, who are supposed to help the situations if there were no law enforcements. I would think that they should have brought more into the picture, not less. The crimes just escalated from taking away these peoples important jobs. If there were multiple fires, like there was, going around with less firemen how would they be able to stop them all from happening. People were getting hurt or even killed and with these job services disappearing in front of their eyes, how could they have faith that it would eventually stop.
Roger Starr believes that this planned shrinkage will keep happening. People will keep losing their jobs as well as people gaining jobs. He says in his interview with Robert Fitch that “stocks don’t just go up.” (Starr) There will be a drought in the employment rates but then it will pick up and it will go back and forth. They were losing the people who were under the classifications of “middle-class”. People were either rich or they were poor. It was not a happy time for the people of the poor category. For they were having to find new places to live with the jobs declining and having to save for a new place.
In a statement by Mayor Abraham D. Beame he mentions that the president puts stockholders above the eight million people in the city. People were dependent on their pensions, life savings, and securities. Instead of President Ford and the government giving those who needed help, actual help they got a lecture. There is no good from just a lecture these people wanted real help. And they needed it fast! The people were turning to destruction. The fires that were spreading all over the Bronx were more than likely all arson. They were destroying the city themselves, over how Mayor Beame was treating them.
Many people believed it was a racial thing. I don’t think anyone will ever know if it was or wasn’t. It was said to believe that Roger Starr only cared about the people who were rich and wealthier. The city thought they were just picking on people from the poor neighborhoods or just the non-white American people. To take their homes away from them and just move them to another place to live like they were moving boxes. They wanted help but with emotion as well. They treated the people of the city as if they were inanimate objects. The wealthier people were able to get up and leave, while Roger Starr and Mayor Beame decided to fix the city. The poorer people didn’t have anywhere to go, especially with the shrinkage of jobs. They couldn’t save up the money to get a new apartment. It was difficult for them as it was and this just made things worse.
In the movie Taxi Driver they portray how the city was like in the 70s. Back then, the city was filled with drugs, violence, sex, prostitution. The world was highly corrupt. The people wanted a change, just because there are people who do wrong doesn’t mean everyone does wrong. The good people shouldn’t have to suffer for what the wronged people do. The city needed some cleaning up and the moment of being laid off from jobs weren’t of any help. I don’t know how the man, Roger Starr, did it and cleaned the city up… but he did it.
Roger Starr along with Mayor Beame did eventually help save the city from complete destruction. Things were done, such as the fires and things were also thought, like the people thinking it was about race. Now I am not saying these things aren’t true. Although it was recorded the thoughts and opinions people had, along with what went on. All we really know is Roger Starr wanted to fix the city by planned shrinkage and to move the people out of the damaged areas and for them to move to another neighborhood. Starr just wanted to create a whole new town by re-construction so that everyone could live more peaceably.
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