Mr. Tony's Interview

According to Mr. Tony, who is the owner of the one-family house at 89-30 92^nd street. He has moved in Woodhaven, this neighborhood since 1992. He tells me that here have been change a lot; the school system, the streets, more new houses have built at the cores streets, the supplies’ price have increased a lot and less people handing out on the streets whatever at day or night time. He love this neighborhood because he like its quite and clean. And his major mode of transportation is driving but sometimes he will take the J train travel the city. The last thing he tells me is, he doesn’t know well about his neighbors since they are moving in and out too quickly. He don’t even have time to know about them and they have moving out already.

Chapter 15

Although “Slumming or Unslumming” is hard for me to tell, I agree with Jacobs, for the city rebuild project or those city planners, they all watch that a slum occupant with dominant eyes is condescending and not considering personal participation recover. through respecting people lived in slum, acknowledgning their history is in the area, and set up and live in the inherent hopes of those and to the slum of the area that improve them with the a cut above other people attitude, recovering can be finished. And city planners are mistaking to think the problem of slum is money, because people who living there they do not have money to improve their living, they don’t have money to spend on improving the sidewalks, the parks and so on. But they real problem for the slum is, people are moving in and out too quickly.

chapter 13

Yet, diversity is inherently required for city work in a constructive ways and offers the foundation for perpetuity of the city, but diversity can destroy itself. As the area becomes too popular, “outstanding success” forms others, it will attract people to move in. Population over growth; there is competition for the available space. The same as my neighborhood, since 1980s the school systems are an outstanding success. It attracts many incoming migrates, especially the African American and Spanish. Schools became over-crowded, fewer funds to spend on students. Competition for the available space, there are more than one family living in a one-family house, and there will be always be difficulty finding parking spaces. Living spending are above what people can force; supply and demand - a positive correlation between demands and supply prices. And now, people tend to move out. Its outstanding success has destroyed itself.

two sources

If You’re Thinking of Living in Woodhaven, Queens; Diversity in a Cohesive Community

Diana Shaman had given an overview looking at Woodhaven since before to 1998 change. Since people who lives in Woodhaven want to “make people aware that Woodhaven has a wonderful history besides being a great place to live”, they provide cheaper prices and rents; the houses are convenient for public transportation and shops - it’s convenient for shopping, travel to the city only take 45 minutes by train, which attracts newcomers. However, due to the increasing migration, more and more people living in Woodhaven are complaining; schools are increasingly overcrowded, lack of spaces for parking, streets narrows because of one-way traffic. On the other hand, the education systems are great - high percentage of sixth graders and junior high read and do math at or above grade levels. Some high schools like Frank K. Lane High School are providing some special programs; studies in law, medicine, advanced placement courses in English, Spanish language and literature, American history and calculus.

Shaman, Diana. Diversity in a Cohesive Community. Vol. 148. [New York, N.Y.]: The New York Times Company, 1998.

For Children

In Queens, so many international ways to fulfill your desires, culturally, spiritually and edibly.

Travel around Queens by train. There are so many restaurants in different cultures. In the Sunnyside section: 33d street, 40^th street, there is an overflow of ethnicities - Irish, Hispanic, Romanian, Middle Eastern, Korean and Turkish. Over the weekends, at 43-46 42d street, near the 40^th street station, the traditional and popular music is performed by Romanian, Russian or Jewish. Next stop, at 43-01 43d street, there are Korean restaurants. At 42-20 43d Avenue, there are Romanian-European-Middle-Eastern grocery stores. “The store, owned by an Armenian family from Egypt, specializes in Mediterranean food”.

Leimbach, Dulcie. For Children, Vol. C17. [New York, N.Y.]: The New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov 10, 1995; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2004).

Themes and supporting argument

Woodhaven, New York have been destroyed itself by its outstanding success from others.

1) Its outstanding success has attracting more and more people moving in, then population over grow.

2) Competition for the available space.

3) Become slum, people moving in and out too quickly, because of high price of living supplies.

The idea for research paper

In Woodhaven 89-24 92^nd street, not far away form the J train station. There is a quite and nice neighborhood; 1 or 2 family houses all around. Those houses face to face and side by side look nice and neat as books in bookshelf at the library. But somehow, the sidewalk is useless, the reputation is bad, the class mobility is low. There are sidewalks but nothing, there are many cars parking on it but people. It’s said, walking alone in this neighborhood is dangerous, and so people want to keep their doors lock. But one day, people would like to open their doors and have a party on the sidewalk, and after that, they become to usual, “lock the doors”.

Since 1950s, there are many whites living in this neighborhood, but when there is one immigrant, it changes a lot. Whites have been moving out of this neighborhood. This has a negative affect for the price and the rent of houses. And because of that, there are more and more immigrants moving in. Today, there are many different races living here in Woodhaven.

Immigration has a huge negative affect for this neighborhood, whatever in economic, social, education or living in this neighborhood.

Chapter 11&12 (The need for concentration and Some myths about diversity)

In chapter 11 (The need for concentration) Jacobs had been mention the wrong way of city planer and their disciples looked at “highdensityandovercrowding” as slums and the meaning of over crowding (more than one person living in a room). But, from her views, high population density does not mean over crowding such as slum and have high density does not mean that the city has been success. As she point out, some of the high density are successful, some are not; like Greenwich Village in Manhattan, North Beach-Telegraph in San Francisco and so on. And there are many cities have low density are slums as in New York, Oakland, and Detroit. However, the population density is not the whole point of diversity. The reason for people gathered in concentration is; the grater population density is, the grater diversity it has, the better opportunity it has.

In chapter 12 (Some myths about diversity). Diversity make city alive. It means that neighborhoods or cities should be mixture, should have differences, whatever it is, like old and new buildings. As she mentions at chapter 8, old and new buildings have mixture of use, they are an economic necessity, old buildings have low rents and new buildings represent high construction cost, have high rents. And those mixture neighborhoods tended to be more successful than those are not. However, mixture does not mean that they must be “bad” or “ugly”. Homogeneity is monotonous and bored. Thus diversity is needed.