NYT/Sunday Styles to Poors: Be careful what you wish for. (Or: "Fuck your upward mobility, hoi polloi.")
I remember reading this in March and somehow didn’t get around to posting it until now. The (euphemistically titled) You Say Recession, I Say ‘Reservations!’ is about the hopes schadenfreude of
the city’s middle class, especially those in the creative class, who have felt sidelined as the city seemed to become a high-priced playground for Wall Street bankers, (for whom) the implosion of the brokerage house Bear Stearns raises a tantalizing possibility: participation in an economy they have been largely shut out of.
Surely, they can’t be suggesting that most people view investment bankers as overpaid, useless twats who have fucked our economy into a low-cut sock, can they? No. They’re suggesting that most people hate investment bankers because they can’t get into Kobe Club. Not so amazing.
But what is amazing is the pullquote from this article that appeared that day: it was right next to this line, and it was something along the lines of “New Yorkers eager to take advantage* of a recession should be careful what they wish for.” The line wasn’t even in the article. I need to find a scan of it. It was right next to this part - the rub, of course:
The trickle-down effect may allow people like Ms. Lyon to buy an apartment, but it could also make the city a far less desirable place to live. During the last prolonged slump on Wall Street, after the crash of the stock market in 1987, a combination of large job losses at banks, trouble in the credit markets and a glut of new commercial and residential real estate on the market (sound familiar?) battered the city . Office vacancies soared. Housing prices fell, with bad loans leaving some buildings worthless. Crime surged. And tourism plunged.
Funny enough: that’s a New York that everyone I know could really live with.
Then again, the NYT’s definition of crime could use some expansion. But in the end, all is well in Candy Land: foreign investors will cut the dirty ferals from moving in.
But, at least so far, New York real estate prices show few signs of declining. The weak American dollar is encouraging thousands of foreigners to buy what seem like bargain apartments. “The condo market is not negotiable because we have Europeans throwing so much money at it,” said Darren Sukenik, an executive vice president for luxury sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
*Emphasis mine.