Blogging the 'Vanishing' of New York City

Tim Teeman goes behind the scenes with Jeremiah Moss (actually a pseudonym, reports Teeman), who runs the popular and incendiary blog Vanishing New York. (Planetizen has shared the work of Vanishing New York before, when Moss argued that the High Line is an example of the ill effects of hyper gentrification.)

Here's how Teeman describes the project of the blog: "Moss is cataloging the disappearance of small stores and local restaurants from New York’s streets and neighborhoods as rent hikes force them out and chain coffee shops and big, shiny, glass condos and office spaces replace them."

Where blogs with pro-development politics, like New York YIMBY or Curbed, embrace many of the ongoing changes in urban areas like New York City, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York argues that recent trends of New York's urban experience are actually more in line with the trends of that "dirty word"—suburban.

Moss is quoted directly on that point in the article: "Suddenly a suburbanized Middle America was taking over what had been a long-standing pocket of eccentricity and bohemianism….That thing I left the suburbs to get away from is now at our gates.

Throughout the post, Teeman pushes back on Moss's politics, providing a compelling point-counterpoint.