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My community benefits from many vibrant parks and public spaces. The most notable are Central Park and Morningside Park, but there are also numerous well-designed and generally well-maintained playgrounds, schoolyards, and recreation areas. It's a high-density area with many local shops and a lively street life, and it's well served with multiple bus and subway lines. All in all the community fits closely with Jane Jacobs's image of a healthy urban neighborhood, and a range of lively public spaces helps bring together a diverse population of varied racial/ethnic and class backgrounds.
One great strength of this community is its socioeconomic diversity, which mirrors that of greater NYC in many important respects (based on data from the NYC Population FactFinder). In terms of race/ethnicity the Latino and Black populations are slightly higher and the White and Asian populations slightly lower than citywide, but the overall racial/ethnic mix is quite similar to that of NYC as a whole. Economically, the community encompasses residents from public housing to luxury housing coexisting in close proximity. Although NYC is remarkably diverse it is also highly segregated by race and class, and it's rare to find communities like mine that embody the great diversity of NYC!
The economics of the community mirror the diversity of NYC, spanning everything from public housing to luxury condos and low-wage service workers to highly paid professionals. The median household income is 10% below the citywide median and the poverty level is one-third higher than NYC, but there is also a greater percentage of high-income households due to higher proportions of workers in professions, education, social/health services, and the arts. Most of the housing stock was built before 1970 and more than 80% is rental. As in greater NYC nearly half of renters are officially 'rent burdened' (paying more than 30% of income for housing), which highlights a key economic concern.
The greatest concern of my community is maintaining its rich diversity against the forces of gentrification. Most importantly this requires greater protections for/investments in affordable housing and affordable commercial spaces to support vulnerable residents and local businesses. The area extending from Frederick Douglass Circle along Central Park West and North is a prime target for further gentrification, but because the community spans parts of the Upper West Side and Harlem it has previously been split into different City Council districts. Instead, it should be unified in a single district (preferably without a White majority) to protect its rare and fragile diversity!
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