Its rental value is depressed by its shabby neighbors. Moreover, there is not reward in lifting the faces of houses lost in the shadows of tall buildings, imprisoned behind the barriers of an elevated structure, or declassed by the presence of low grade tenements. Many owners in the other residential blocks have discouraged from even trying renovation. The results have been picturesque but abortive as a means of diverting the economic consequences of old age. The most significant fact for all our street's residential blocks is that development has ceased.
Renovation is at a standstill.
No new construction has been projected since the depression. The market for high rental apartments in our street is already saturated. Land value are too high to make new low rent projects feasible. For three quarters of a century modernity struggled to transform our street, only finally to give up trying. There would always be an eerie from which the Survey Graphic could swoop down on perplexing social problems.