The Myth of Inclusion and the Question of "Poor Doors"

Progressive Council members have taken the word inclusionary out of context in the current housing debate, sentimentalizing a legal term of art as they seek to engineer a social structure more agreeable to their outlook.

The question of “poor doors,” or separate entrances for market-rate and “affordable”—i.e., subsidized— tenants in large new developments, erupted last summer when a number of Council members expressed shock and dismay that such segregation was permitted. Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, whose Upper West Side district contains a number of these separately entranced developments, explains (in a video interview with this magazine) their proliferation as the result of “a loophole that some of the developers are exploiting.”

The “loophole” was in fact plainly described in the 2009 law that the Council—including then- Councilman Bill de Blasio—voted for unanimously. But Rosenthal begs a greater question by asserting that these developments violate the spirit and intent of inclusionary zoning. “As the name of it is inclusionary housing,” says Rosenthal, “it is meant to increase the amount of inclusionary affordable housing, where you would have integrated buildings, with affordable housing tenants right next door to market-rate tenants.”

Inclusionary zoning, however, has nothing to do with “integrated buildings” or ensuring that subsidized and market-rate tenants are “right next door” to one another. As Councilwoman Rosenthal surely knows, inclusionary zoning, as it exists legally in New York, refers to areas of the city where developers can build extra floor space in exchange for agreeing to build, rehab or preserve affordable units within the same community district, or within a half-mile (10-block) radius.

Developers may choose to build affordable units in the same building as their market-rate units, but the law is absolutely clear that assigning neighbors on the basis of income is outside its purview.

It is ironic that politicians such as Helen Rosenthal acknowledge that getting a permanently subsidized “affordable” apartment is akin to “winning the lottery,” while at the same time bemoaning “legalized segregation.”

Rosenthal paints a tearful word-picture of two children who attend the same public school but are forced to “use different doors” to get to their apartments in the same building, “because one child’s family has more money than the other’s.” Aside from the irreducible fact that everyone goes home through a different door anyway, is housing policy to be determined on the basis of an imagined child’s hurt feelings? What happens when the poorer child visits the apartment of his or her richer friend and discovers that the bathroom fixtures are nicer, that the refrigerator is stocked with fancier treats, that the television gets more channels, that the family garages a car, that no one shares a bedroom, etc.? Short of mass collectivization, there is no way to ever shield Rosenthal’s strawchild from the heterogenous realities of urban life.

Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez seconds Rosenthal’s point, minus some bathos, when he states, “Our city has always been one of inclusion. We cannot let the income disparities that permeate throughout the five boroughs manifest themselves into a blatantly segregated apartment complex, especially one funded with city dollars.”

Aside from the fact that it isn’t quite true that 40 Riverside Boulevard (the building in question) was “funded with city dollars,” exactly which city is Rodriguez claiming to have “always been one of inclusion”?

Is there any characterization of New York City that is less apposite, that is more totally off the mark, than to describe it as historically “inclusive?” Since when? Ask John Jacob Astor—or Jacob Riis, for that matter—how inclusive their New Yorks were. New York City has always been known for the blatant distinction between its haves and its have-nots; for the ruthlessness with which it swallows up the poor and hapless; for the shameless and ostentatious display of wealth; for its pointed and often painful exclusivity.

It is fine to wish the city to be different than it is—but it is utterly ridiculous for Councilman Rodriguez to pretend that it has always in fact been as he wishes it to be.

But that is the problem with progressives and vanguardists generally: Leading from the front, they have only their visions to guide them. Brad Lander, the Council’s master theoretician, spoke recently to Brian Lehrer about inclusionary housing, and said that the point of the progressive housing policy isn’t so much about who goes through which door or gets to use the gym or roof deck. “What matters to me more than the separate entrances,” says Councilman Lander, “is that neighborhoods in New York City … are portals for opportunity, or portals for problems. We don’t like to talk about segregation, but we still have a very segregated metropolitan region.”

It used to be that the affordable housing debate was all about developing inventory: building units where low-income people could live comfortably. But now, as Lander indicates, affordable housing is about population transfer. Neighborhoods are defined as “portals” through which the residents can gain entry to higher social and professional spheres, thereby eliminating income inequality and other societal ills.

A study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development tested this “portal” hypothesis through a decades-long experiment called “Moving to Opportunity.” Thousands of low-income families were monitored after being moved out of very poor neighborhoods through a variety of modes of assistance. The results were mixed: There was a slight improvement in the mood and general health of the subjects, but little significant change in income or test score outcomes.

New York City is tightly packed with people, and there isn’t a lot of space for planners to play around with. And it still isn’t clear what makes one neighborhood essentially “better” than another: Good neighbors make the best neighborhoods, after all. Shuffling poor people into rich areas may gratify the well-meaning impulses of the city’s political elite, but the evidence is lacking that population exchange will ameliorate our social problems.

Seth Barron (@NYCCouncil Watch on Twitter) runs City Council Watch, an investigative website focusing on local New York City politics.