Forest Hills diary: The crisis of low-income housing

by Mario Cuomo

Forest Hills The Crisis of Low-Income Housing

Genres: History

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994. Cuomo became nationally known for his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention and the subsequent speculation over the next decade that he might run for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States.

Reviews

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you might guess, this book is Mario Cuomo's diary over a few months in which he worked on low-income housing in Forest Hills (a middle-class area in Queens). In 1972, the city of New York proposed to build three 24-story towers full of low-income housing in Forest Hills; the neighborhood feared that this would lead to crime and "white flight." Cuomo was hired to mediate; he proposed that the project be made significantly smaller, and that many of the tenants would be elderly (and thus less threatening to neighbors). His suggestions were adopted, leading to a happy ending, insofar as Forest Hills is still a desirable area. (I note, however, that the projects were at the area's northern edge near poorer neighborhoods, rather than in the heart of Forest Hills. I am not sure the book emphasizes this as much as I would have liked).

There are a few quotes I especially liked:
1. In describing citizens' willingness to believe silly rumors, Cuomo writes that they "concluded that politicians are inveterate liars and, therefore, one can safely believe as a fact anything that contradicts a 'political statement.:"
2. In response to the argument that the infrastructure could not handle hundreds of new residents, he writes "practically no part of the city is really adequately equipped. It would follow that no part oof the city can accept any new project".
These statements are as true today as they were in 1972.