To align your essay with the style of Made By History op-eds, it should combine historical analysis with contemporary relevance, while offering insights that are accessible and engaging to a general audience. Here’s a suggested structure to help guide your writing:
1. Introduction (150-200 words)
• Hook: Start with an engaging anecdote, fact, or question that highlights the urgency of the public housing crisis in New York today. This could be a recent news story, a striking statistic, or a personal observation about how public housing has evolved.
• Context: Briefly introduce the historical context of public housing in New York, mentioning its roots and initial successes.
• Thesis Statement: End the introduction with your thesis, setting up the argument about how disinvestment in public housing has perpetuated the crisis and what that means for New York City today.
2. Historical Overview (300-400 words)
• Early History of Public Housing in New York: Provide a concise historical background on the creation of public housing, explaining how it was initially designed to address housing shortages and improve conditions for low-income residents in the mid-20th century.
• Challenges and Decline: Highlight key moments when disinvestment began—fiscal crises, changing political climates, and the shift from public to private housing development in the 1970s and beyond.
• The Link Between Policy and Disinvestment: Tie in evidence from Freeman’s work about the economic struggles and policy decisions that led to underfunding and neglect of public housing .
3. The Present Crisis: Disinvestment and Its Consequences (400-500 words)
• Current State of Public Housing: Describe the current condition of public housing in New York, touching on the $40 billion repair backlog, overcrowding, and underfunding. Provide specific examples of the state of housing, including statistics or cases where residents are facing poor living conditions.
• Disinvestment in Action: Discuss how current policies (such as reliance on tax incentives for private development and the decline in public housing investment) have continued the cycle of disinvestment, referencing ideas from “The Trouble with Development” .
• Impact on Residents: Examine the social consequences of disinvestment, such as increased housing insecurity, gentrification, and displacement. Use Zukin’s insights on gentrification to show how public housing residents have been marginalized by development schemes favoring affluent newcomers .
4. The Political and Economic Context (300-400 words)
• Shift from Public to Private Investment: Explain how the historical shift from government-led urban renewal to privatized development has exacerbated the public housing crisis. Use evidence from Zukin’s Loft Living and The Trouble with Development to highlight the market-driven forces that have shaped New York’s urban landscape .
• Government Priorities: Discuss the city’s ongoing reliance on tax incentives and private developers to address housing issues, often at the expense of public housing. Show how this trend undermines efforts to rebuild and maintain public housing, reinforcing economic inequality.
• The Role of Political Will: Analyze how political leaders, both local and national, have approached public housing, often prioritizing other urban concerns (like crime or aesthetics) over the needs of public housing residents.
5. Reforming the System: A Path Forward (300-400 words)
• Policy Recommendations: Offer potential solutions to the public housing crisis, such as increased government funding for repairs, more stringent oversight of development incentives, and a shift toward community-led planning in public housing neighborhoods.
• Learning from History: Suggest how past mistakes—like reliance on private developers and ignoring the needs of marginalized communities—can inform better policy decisions today.
• Call to Action: End with a compelling statement about the need for systemic change, urging policymakers to prioritize long-term investment in public housing to ensure that it can serve as a sustainable and equitable solution for New York’s future.
6. Conclusion (150-200 words)
• Summary: Briefly recap the key points from the essay, reinforcing the argument that disinvestment in public housing is a root cause of the ongoing crisis.
• Closing Thought: End with a thought-provoking question or reflection on the broader implications of public housing in urban America. This could be related to the moral responsibility of the state, the social consequences of neglect, or the importance of equitable urban planning.
General Tips for a Made By History-style Op-Ed:
• Engage a broad audience: Avoid jargon or overly academic language. Your tone should be conversational but informed.
• Use evidence effectively: Integrate historical facts and evidence to support your argument, but don’t overwhelm the reader with excessive detail. Each piece of evidence should be tied to the central theme of disinvestment.
• Focus on analysis, not just description: Show how the historical trends you discuss are connected to current problems and provide insights on the consequences of these patterns.
With this structure, your essay will maintain a clear, focused narrative, while addressing both the historical context and present-day implications of New York’s public housing disinvestment issue.