Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Tough times for trustafarians
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:04 PM
Sunday's New York Times has a hilarious, infuriating (hilariously infuriating? infuriatingly hilarious?) about how the recession is affecting the parental-supported "creative class" in Brooklyn:
For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.
“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.
Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.
“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”
Then there's This Guy:
Eric Gross, 26, a construction worker, was going to buy, with help from his father, a $600,000 one-bedroom condo with city views at Northside Piers, a luxury building, he said.But his father, who works in the auto industry, said he had to reduce his contribution. “He’s pulling back the lifeline,” Mr. Gross said.
So Mr. Gross is scaling back, shopping for a $300,000 apartment....
What do you think? Does New Orleans embrace the trustafarian class? Despite the rising cost of everything since the storm, we're still cheap down here -- just not dirt-cheap. And we certainly have enough artistic types, but the notion of a self-satisfied "creative class" just doesn't seem to have taken root here ... at least, not yet.
Are we in danger of turning into the next Brooklyn or Portland -- a destination for people in their 20s whose parents buy them half-million-dollar condos?
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
If the condos across the street from my house are any indication, I'd say we're already there.
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Hey, somebody has to buy all the condos in this town. And NOLA assimilation almost always wins.
You don't necessarily need parental support to make it in NOLA, but it does help if your income originates from somewhere else.
Are we in danger of turning into the next Brooklyn or Portland — a destination for people in their 20s whose parents buy them half-million-dollar condos? YES most emphatically yes this is exactly what's happening. The tragedy is that NOLA was one of the few places in the world where one wasn't necessarily required to have a serious ambitious day job in order to supplement a... let's say relaxed lifestyle. The problem with the current generation of hipster is that they buy into the idea that what THEY are doing is somehow important enough for subsidization but are dismissive of any non-"creative" persons who may also have a taste for a bit of the good life.... but somehow haven't "earned" the right to it.
New Orleans will never be Portland or Brooklyn, because we will never have decent city services.
Bentley: precisely. A plague of Marigny hipsters and faux-niners have infested the area.
I just wish the Marigny/Bywater trustfunders would complete their memoirs, knock up their girlfriends or write their history of the blues and get the hell out of town. They are killing us. What do you mean this town is still cheap?!? Rents have QUADRUPLED in the last ten years. This is KILLING me. Secondly, they are not a "creative class," except in their own fantasies - they're two bit hacks with zero life experience.
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