拯救混合收入的紐約 Saving a Mixed-Income New York

The New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMARCH 11, 2016

紐約市的命運現在能夠決定嗎？紐約市長比爾‧白思豪認為可以。

Could it be that the fate of New York City is being decided right now? Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks so.

在星期三的示威遊行，他對退休人員和工會成員說：「在你們的幫助下，人們將回首2016年3月的這幾天，他們將會說，這是紐約市被拯救的一刻。這是我們阻止這個城市走向懸崖的時刻。」

At a rally on Wednesday, he told retirees and union members: “With your help, people are going to look back on these days in March of 2016, and they’re going to say that’s when an affordable city was saved. That’s when we stopped this city from going over the brink.”

他所說的懸崖是房屋租金與薪水的差距拉大，許多人害怕租金與薪水的差距拉大，會將城市分裂成二個陣營：富有的人和無家可歸的人。白思豪的解決方案這個月面臨考驗，他的計畫是用十年的時間，建立或保留20萬戶社會住宅。最近市議會要對市地重劃方案投票，這個方案將紐約東區的「布魯克林」劃分出大約200個區塊，紐約市政府允許開發商在這些重劃區蓋更高的建築，條件是要在那裏建數千戶的社會住宅出租。這是紐約市第一批全市15個重劃區，紐約市政府希望用增加住屋供應量的方式，提供足夠的住屋供應量，舒緩租金壓力。

The brink he means is the gaping divide between rents and incomes that many fear is splitting the city into two encampments: the rich and the homeless. Mr. de Blasio’s solution — a 10-year plan to build or preserve 200,000 affordable apartments — is facing a critical test this month. The City Council is nearing a vote on a proposal to rezone nearly 200 blocks of East New York, Brooklyn, allowing developers to put up taller buildings there on the condition that they also build thousands of new affordable apartments. It would be the first of 15 rezoningscitywide that the administration hopes will increase the housing supply enough to ease the pressure on rents.

這個城市用自己的方式建立住房平等，這個宏偉的計畫是非常重要的豪賭，它能夠同時點燃成長、增進鄰里、提升環境水準與保護房客。紐約市仍舊是混合各種收入的城市。

This grand plan is a hugely important gamble that the city can build its way to greater housing equality, that it can ignite growth, improve neighborhoods, tame gentrification and protect tenants, all at once. That New York can still be a mixed-income city.

要保持城市平衡是一大挑戰，這揭露出紐約市的繁榮來自於各種族群的混和。二篇最近在時代雜誌上的文章報導一些好消息：出乎意料地，商業界很高興與市長一起執行計畫，遊客塞爆街道。街道跟過去一樣安全，無法預期的設施持續出現，例如，超高速的公共Wi-Fi站。事實上，對城市混亂陰謀者來說，最近兩年是很可怕的，他們預測白思豪市長的管理將為紐約帶來犯罪與不理想的時代。

The challenge of keeping the city’s balance exposes the mixed blessing of prosperity. Two recent articles in The Times report the good news: The business world is unexpectedly happy with the mayor, and tourists arechoking the streets. The streets are as safe as ever, and unexpected amenities keep coming, like blazing-fast public Wi-Fi kiosks. The last two years, in fact, have been terrible for the urban-chaos conspiracists, who predicted the de Blasio mayoralty would be an era of crime and dystopia.

在富人裡面一直存在貧窮的人和無家可歸的人，會讓那些感到權力中心無法掌控的人，更加地焦慮。白思豪市長說，他發誓會用意志去駕馭的社會住宅案，社會住宅計畫是真正的房地產引擎，能夠取代胡作非為的方案，而且不會像紐約東區住宅那樣昂貴，讓窮人和老人都買不起，不過，他還是遭受左翼分子的批評。雖然新的社會住宅案將保留更大比例給最低收入階層，但是他們說那沒有太大的改變，白思豪市長只是密封黑人、拉丁裔和移民城市的厄運。

The persistence of poverty and homelessness amid the wealth can only feed the anxiety of those who fear that the center cannot hold. Mr. de Blasio has critics on the left who say the real estate engine he vows to harness will instead run amok and make neglected neighborhoods like East New York too expensive for the poor and the elderly. They say that without big changes, like setting aside a far greater share of new apartments for people on the lowest income rungs, Mr. de Blasio is sealing the doom of the black, Latino and immigrant city.

社會運動人士Bertha Lewis赤裸裸地控訴白思豪市長，讓紐約市更白人化。紐約東區社區管理委員會，對新計畫有疑慮，所以在十一月拒絕白思豪市長的計畫，布魯克林區區長過去也這麼做。

The activist Bertha Lewis has starkly accused the mayor of furthering the“whitening” of the city. Worries about displacement led the East New York community board to reject the mayor’s plan in November, as did the Brooklyn borough president.

雖然，紐約市執政當局說審計長Stringer讓社會住宅計畫倒退，但事實上這些開發地區會自然而然地中產階級化，因此，紐約市的審計長Scott Stringer，去年警告土地重劃區的使用計畫，將讓住在紐約東區的5萬人，有被替換掉的危險。白思豪市長對此現象的攻擊是壓制它最好的方式。

The city comptroller, Scott Stringer, warned last year that the rezoning plan would put 50,000 people at risk of displacement in East New York, though the administration said Mr. Stringer had it backward — that gentrification was happening on its own, and that the de Blasio attack was the best way to subdue it.

紐約東區社會住宅提案明確地交付給城市計畫委員會，並且被遞交到紐約市議會投票。白思豪市長準備好去辯論，浪費美好的時間，不提出一個計畫讓窮人與工人階級可以居住，什麼都不做是無法令人接受的。「我們知道多年來，人們被推離自己的社區，這個城市的政府沒有做任何事情。」白思豪市長在這個星期的示威運動說，「現在是讓公眾利益擺在第一位的時候了。」

The East New York proposal has easily cleared the City Planning Commission and is headed to the Council for a vote. Mr. de Blasio is right to argue that doing nothing, surfing these good times without a plan for housing the poor and working class, is unacceptable. “We know that for too many years people were pushed out of their neighborhoods, and the city government didn’t do anything about it,” he said at this week’s rally. “It’s time for the public’s interest to come first.”

那是有力的論點，這是市議會必須嚴肅面對白思豪市長的計畫的主要理由。這項計畫要在必要的地方調整，但是紐約市應堅持基本戰略，擴大城市景觀中的永久社會住宅，將租屋保護與社區改善整合在重劃區中。紐約市長努力建立一個共識，要及時的將紐約打造成適合人居住的地方。這是一場必須搏鬥的戰爭。

That’s a powerful argument, and it’s the main reason the City Council should treat Mr. de Blasio’s plan seriously. The plan should be adjusted where necessary — but the city should stick with the essential strategy of enlarging the permanently affordable cityscape by combining rezoning with tenant protections and community improvements. The mayor has tried hard to build a consensus that New York’s livability can be salvaged before it’s too late. It’s a battle that needs to be fought.