The New York Times had an article about an exciting luxury building being built that will be sandwiched between the East Side Highway on one side and several large housing projects on the other – and everyone's just fine with that!

More than a half-dozen developers have already planted their stakes near public housing in places including Red Hook in Brooklyn, the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Mott Haven in the South Bronx. In the hopes of securing cheaper land in a city where lots at any price are growing scarce, they are ignoring taboos against living near public housing and venturing into areas once considered unprepossessing and even dangerous.

Once considered dangerous.  Now considered...quite safe!

“They were isolated in the past, and a lot of that had to do with the perception of crime,” said Keith Rubenstein, the managing principal of Somerset Partners, a development firm. “That perception became more pronounced because there was so little interaction with these developments.”

That is “an outdated way of thinking,” said Mr. Rubenstein, who is planning a pair of market-rate developments by public housing developments in Mott Haven, a neighborhood where more than 14,000 people call public housing home.

There is no crime, only perceptions and outdated thinking!  By the way, do you think Mr. Rubenstein himself lives across the street from a housing project, or do you think he is a victim of his own outdated thinking?

Public housing is certainly not crime-free. Certain complexes have slightly higher crime rates than their neighborhoods as a whole, police data shows.

Only slightly higher!  Barely measurable!  It's probably like one extra jaywalker a month.  Who would even notice?

“People who are living in lower-income housing are not necessarily people who are committing crimes," said Charles R. Bendit, the co-chief executive of Taconic Investment Partners, a development firm

Here's a link to the crimes not necessarily being committed in and around housing projects.  And another one.  And another one.  But remember, these are all merely perceptions mixed in with a few statistics.

Among the first luxury buildings to breach the public housing no-go zone was the Caledonia, a condo-rental hybrid in Manhattan... separated by a narrow alley from the Fulton Houses, an 11-building complex with almost 2,200 residents.

Occasionally, there are tensions between the two groups. Caledonia residents have complained about Fulton Houses residents not picking up after their dogs and about loud music emanating from cars. 

You see?  If the worst problem people in luxury housing have is their neighbors listen to Mozart and Bach in their cars, then all is fine.  Probably the fact that the residents of housing projects play music at all indicates that many of them probably are students at music schools like Juilliard, and the reason they are on the streets at all is that they are spending all evening studying their music.  Don't you think it would be a great cultural experience to slowly walk by them every evening in the dark with your arms full of groceries?

Only in a place like New York could you find fancy condominiums right next to housing projects full of interesting people with great rap sheets who are undoubtedly loads of fun.  Can you imagine anywhere else liberals would rather live?

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.