Jessica Doyle

A list of things designated by the term "Ajax" that do not irritate me:
the 1910s French car
the horse in the Australian Racing Hall of Fame
the Canadian town

A list of things designated by the term "Ajax" that occasionally irritate me:
the cleanser, especially when it gets in my eyes
the petulant Greek warrior
the Amsterdam soccer team

A list of things designated by the term "Ajax" that leave me tearing my hear out, stomping my feet, and generally behaving like a spoiled brat mid-tantrum, or like Gargamel after a particularly Smurfy day of defeat and humiliation:
the Web development technique

"Casanova" may not be a spectacular song, as R&B songs go, but it was in heavy rotation when I first discovered what music videos were, and it was visually striking enough that I watched it over and over. To this day it's one of those songs I sing along to without hesitation. The '80s artifice that makes up the background dates the song, but the vocals are very clear and sweet.

It is truly sad that Gerald Levert died so young.

One of the reasons I wanted to get back to blogging again was the recent New York money issue, which had all sorts of anecdotal confirmation that it is very hard to live well in New York City, in part because there will always be someone living better than you. And then, of course, if you make $10 an hour before taxes, it is hard to live at all; and the standard heartless answer -- go move somewhere where $10 an hour buys you a lot more, and the taxes are lower -- is harder to apply in this case, since the man profiled wants to stay close to his children. But at least we all have the privilege of making fun of the nameless grad student who spends $80 for concert tickets, $9.75 on an issue of Mixmag, and $23 to see Shortbus while his parents pick up his rent and his gym membership.

Various economists could point you to various inefficiencies which, if solved, would make living in NYC cheaper. But it will never be cheap, because the privileges of life in New York -- the kinds of amenities people have in mind when they talk about what makes cities interesting or increases urban quality of life -- will never come cheap. Providing services to several million people squeezed onto a small island is not cheap. Supporting the arts is not cheap. Central Park and Prospect Park are not cheap, in the sense that if you were to tear them down you could create a lot more lower-priced housing. Urban transportation is not cheap -- according to the MTA's 2005 Annual Report (it's downloadable from the MTA's site), 31% of its income came from state and regional taxes, as opposed to 41% from fares and another 12% from tolls. There may be a self-sufficient urban transport system out there, but I don't know it.

I have several friends who live in New York or Boston and would not in a million years trade places with me, who has to drive to take MARTA to a comparatively arid and unattractive downtown. The reward I get for living in a more sprawling city with less quality of life is greater financial security. To do what I do -- be a full-time graduate student while avoiding student loans -- would be considerably harder in New York or Boston. But the last time I was in New York I got to see Hou Hsiao-hsien's Three Times in a theater; I don't think even Midtown Art Cinema ran Three Times this year.

I don't think one can upend the direct correlation between greater city attractiveness and greater city expense. (If nothing else, the more attractive the city, the greater the demand to live in it.) Therefore the question of how to make life easier for below-average-income city residents will remain no matter what changes are made to the quality of life in a city. Even amenities which are free to access (such as parks) are not free, since the city, and therefore the city's citizens, have to pay for maintenance, and there are the opportunity costs inherent in having chosen to use the land for that purpose and no other.

The potential danger is that as cities become more expensive (and attractive), below-average-income residents will be pushed farther and farther away, into the inner-ring suburbs. While there is a lot of talk about preserving mixed-income housing in the cities, my suspicion is that, given the choice, your generic city official would rather have an attractive, expensive city than an unattractive, relatively cheap one.

So this used to be jessicaharbour.com. And then almost a month ago I went and got married, and am in the process of changing my name -- yesterday marked the fastest trip through a Social Security office, ever.

I continue to be a lucky woman.

Between now and November 30th I have quite a few things on my to-do list, among them redesigning my site so that it looks a bit less CSS-impaired and a bit more professional. Maybe at some point I will even throw together a CV so you can ooh and aah. In the meantime, you can go over to the Chequer-Board and share in Pejman's expected indignation that I am blogging over here and not there. Or to The Economist's new blogs, Democracy in America and Free Exchange; I can attest that getting into arguments with the writers can be lots of fun.