Research Essay

New York City in the 1970s was known as one of the most dangerous cities in America because of the rise of crime. The 1970s brought a new wave of excitement to the city with nightclubs and the rise in drugs in certain areas. This areas became outcasts to the nicer cities. These areas started to become worse and worse due to the idea that Roger Starr came up with. This plan was called “planned shrinkage” and it caused major problems for New York. This plan was very controversial and Roger was just as controversial. This plan basically stole money from the poor and gave it to the rich, a real anti-robin hood act. As more neighborhoods turned rotten, the crime level would rise. This almost ruined New York City’s reputation forever. The economy in the 1970s did not help the families that were affected by the “planned shrinkage” in the New York. By doing research from the Archives in LaGuardia, I found some interesting information about planned shrinkage and Roger Starr. I will explain what “planned shrinkage” is who Roger Starr is and how it almost ruined New York City forever.
“Planned shrinkage is a public policy, practiced most notably in the 1970s in New York City, of withdrawing essential city services (such as police patrols, garbage removal, street repairs, and fire services) from neighborhoods suffering from urban decay, crime, and poverty so that neighborhoods may be claimed by outside interests for new development. After the mid-20th-century boom in highways, suburbs, and urban dispersal, civic leaders felt that urban decline was a natural and inevitable process, and they sought to plan the manner in which cities would shrink in such a way that population loss would be greatest in the areas with the poorest non-white residents.” This policy was not accepted at all by society and the social outlook was grim. There was huge public outcry because of the people that were dying because of this. This was unnecessary deaths that were happening because they wanted to save money. This is what tainted New York City’s reputation and people started to think that we were evil people and tourists would be afraid to come over here.
On the economy side of “planned shrinkage“ actually is a little bit brighter because it actually helped the city create better cities but t the loss of people lives. This plan was used to clean up the areas that were dirty and that had high crime rate. This was used to get the minorities out of the cities and to get more “rich white” people in. It’s all about the money and this did get them a lot of money and helped other cities adapt the policy but they project was too big for New York City.
Roger Starr, an outspoken thinker on urban affairs who blended a lifetime of intellectual analysis with hands-on public service and whose often provocative vision of his native New York City influenced public policy debates for decades. He was one person that was not afraid to speak his mind and had no problem causing controversy. Aside from controversial, his beliefs were very passionate and he tired to help the economy as much as possible, no matter what it did to the people of New York.
In conclusion, no matter how controversial Roger Starr was, nothing was worse than his idea ”planned shrinkage”. I believe that this could’ve destroyed New York City forever. Making people move from place to place because of the way they lived in just wrong. I understand that it could help the economy a little bit but that is too big of a risk to take. If you want to make a new neighborhood, reducing the amount of police, EMT, and firefighters isn’t the solution. That will only cause more mayhem to the city. Crime would skyrocket in those areas and people will end of getting hurt. This plan cannot be justified no matter how much money can be saved by using this. Over time you might be able to reduce the amount of bad neighborhoods there are but that will only cause that others to get worse. People might say that it was appropriate for the time and I can agree with that statement on some terms. Because eventually it got New York back on stable ground New York City is not as dangerous as it used to be but the change in new York culture also played a big role in the clean-up. “Planned shrinkage” would not be able to work in today’s world because of how much New York is growing and the diversity is everywhere now. This will cut back on the amount of bad neighborhoods without any idea of planned shrinkage.