I think high rents probably have to do with a lot of people (some of them wealthy, or have wealthy parents) wanting to live in a small area and maybe it would be more cost-effective to provide...
I think high rents probably have to do with a lot of people (some of them wealthy, or have wealthy parents) wanting to live in a small area and maybe it would be more cost-effective to provide moving assistance for people who want to move somewhere cheaper? This seems like a cycle-of-life sort of thing; after retiring you don’t need to worry about commutes anymore.
Not at all detracting from your other points, but I wonder if this is something of a familiarity issue. You're American, and so more familiar with American problems and so they seem larger and...
If America truly is the greatest country in the world (I'd argue against that) then why does our "greatest" city feel so much worse for normal ass people than the greatest cities of "lesser" industrialized countries like France, Japan, South Korea, Spain, etc.
Not at all detracting from your other points, but I wonder if this is something of a familiarity issue. You're American, and so more familiar with American problems and so they seem larger and more frequent and worse. As a French speaker I can tell you that Paris very much has similar problems, for instance. Anything other sources would be in French probably, but people are constantly complaining about how unaffordable Paris is, how little future they have, etc. I mean there's a reason the French have repeatedly taken to the streets in the last decade and the French government is collapsing.
Killing demand is how cities die. Many of those "old retirees" are people that made the city great in their younger days, and they're likely essential community members. Why squabble over the...
Killing demand is how cities die. Many of those "old retirees" are people that made the city great in their younger days, and they're likely essential community members.
Why squabble over the limited housing supply when we could focus on abundance for everyone?
"Abundance for everyone" necessarily means reducing the cost of housing. If prices are still too high then we haven't reached "abundance" yet. The way we measure progress towards achieving...
"Abundance for everyone" necessarily means reducing the cost of housing. If prices are still too high then we haven't reached "abundance" yet. The way we measure progress towards achieving abundance is by seeing what prices are doing.
If housing prices in New York City actually start declining then that's a good start on solving housing affordability. It's still a very long way from the city "dying." Maybe someday that will be a problem, but I don't think it will be any time soon.
Housing prices are based on both supply and demand. Increasing supply is great. Reducing demand: also great, if it means some people found a good place to live somewhere else.
NYC hasn't built enough housing for decades, so it's not surprising rents keep growing. Too many people focus on "empty apartments" and "rent control" when those are tiny bandaids on a bleeding...
NYC hasn't built enough housing for decades, so it's not surprising rents keep growing. Too many people focus on "empty apartments" and "rent control" when those are tiny bandaids on a bleeding artery.
Really vibrant cities provide unbeatable educational/research institutions, professional connections, and an economic ladder to climb for people of talent and ambition. With some luck thrown in,...
Really vibrant cities provide unbeatable educational/research institutions, professional connections, and an economic ladder to climb for people of talent and ambition. With some luck thrown in, but the number of opportunities for fortunate connections is higher with density.
The old line about "if you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere" remains true, especially in the industries where New York City remains a global hub - banking, finance, real estate, communications, and marketing. Healthcare, tech, higher education, arts - all these professions gather prestige just from having a New York City pedigree. Even in a low-income service industry like cooking, a starred New York City restaurant on your resumé opens postings everywhere. Moving to cheaper places forfeits those opportunities.
And of course banking, finance, etc. are industries which concentrate income inequality - GINI for New York City is comparable to Zambia, with a poverty rate over 18%.
Maybe retirees can leave, but a retired New York City service worker with no savings after a lifetime of high rents has nowhere to go.
And yet, a social security check, or whatever other subsidies they might have, would likely go further in lots of places? I think “having nowhere to go” is part of the issue, though. Although in...
And yet, a social security check, or whatever other subsidies they might have, would likely go further in lots of places?
I think “having nowhere to go” is part of the issue, though. Although in theory you could move to lots of places, if there were some common destinations where New Yorkers often move to after retiring then maybe it would be less like something you have to figure out in your own?
But another issue, for some people, is of course being rooted in a community. Will you find community that you like where you’re moving to? That uncertainty makes it harder to move.
Imagine they built a satellite retirement community in New Jersey or Delaware or something, connected by a train line, and made it really welcoming?
It's a standing joke that New Yorkers retire to Florida, but I do think that it's a thing that happens because there's an existing knowledge pipeline from people who have done it before. Much like...
It's a standing joke that New Yorkers retire to Florida, but I do think that it's a thing that happens because there's an existing knowledge pipeline from people who have done it before. Much like with any other migration, when there are older friends and family who've made that trip and can share information about how to manage it, it becomes easier for future groups to make the same change.
As someone that spent most of their life in Florida, the NY -> FL pipeline is a real thing. The issue is that FL used to be a very cheap place to retire to, like crazy cheap. It simply isn't the...
As someone that spent most of their life in Florida, the NY -> FL pipeline is a real thing. The issue is that FL used to be a very cheap place to retire to, like crazy cheap. It simply isn't the case anymore. Successful, comparatively wealthy New Yorkers can surely still retire there, or nearly anywhere else, but housing prices rose higher there than most other places, especially in the decade and a half. Between that and the crazy increases in home owners insurance (mine went from $1.2k a year to $19k over the span of 11 years in the same unmodified home), I think Florida is cooked. The local economies are heavily dependent on new people coming in.
As an aside, it always felt unfair to me when I was younger that because I grew up there, I'd never be able to sell my house and move elsewhere like people from up north could do when moving to Florida. It simply wasn't economically viable. Then with the dramatic increase in housing prices, I was able to do so and "escape" Florida.
Likewise on GTFO Florida when housing prices and insurance went up (climate change is real, not that you could convince the real estate builders and marketers) and politics went right-wing, and...
Likewise on GTFO Florida when housing prices and insurance went up (climate change is real, not that you could convince the real estate builders and marketers) and politics went right-wing, and the experience with the NYC/Montreal to Florida pipeline. It's not just retirees, it's second home owners who split their year between locations to avoid winter.
Florida is definitely cooked. I know a couple of civil engineers there, and they can barely keep salt water out of the drinking water table right now, let alone with further hurricane flooding and sea level rise.
Expanding a New York City program to help struggling tenants pay rent seemed like an obvious campaign promise for Zohran Mamdani, who staked his insurgent candidacy last year on making life more affordable in the five boroughs.
Now, confronting a grim fiscal picture in his second month as mayor, Mr. Mamdani no longer intends to back the growth of the $1 billion-plus initiative known as CityFHEPS, despite a plan passed by the City Council and upheld in court.
[...]
During a recent news conference, as the mayor lamented a looming budget deficit that on Wednesday he pegged at $7 billion over two years, he suggested the program’s full expansion may be too expensive.
[...]
CityFHEPS is one of the largest rental assistance programs in the nation and works similarly to the Section 8 housing voucher program. Renters contribute 30 percent of their income to rent, with the city covering the rest.
As the city’s affordable housing shortage has worsened, its cost has grown substantially, from about $25 million in 2019 to more than $1.2 billion in 2025.
Most of that increase took place before the Council passed its expansion into law in 2023. The legislation made people eligible for vouchers if they had received written demands from their landlords for rent owed and raised the income level for voucher eligibility.
“This program is growing at an unsustainable clip,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, which has raised concerns about the program’s cost for years.
Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, said he would not enforce most of the bills passed by the Council, citing worries about their cost. When Legal Aid, representing tenants, brought a lawsuit to compel Mr. Adams to implement the laws, he fought back.
As a candidate, Mr. Mamdani admonished Mr. Adams for the pushback. “What a ridiculous waste of time during a housing crisis,” Mr. Mamdani said in a social media post last July, when he was the Democratic nominee for mayor.
“Zohran will drop lawsuits against CityFHEPs and ensure expansion proceeds as scheduled and per city law,” his campaign website read.
[...]
By moving to settle the lawsuit, Mr. Mamdani is signaling he will not comply with the bills the Council passed into law to widen the program.
City officials are projecting that even without the expansion, the program will cost nearly $2.4 billion more than Mr. Adams budgeted for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and the next one.
Hard to argue too much with that. Even if you support the program or something like it, the cost to the city has increased by 4700% in 6 years. (And that's if you use the 1.2B figure, not the...
As the city’s affordable housing shortage has worsened, its cost has grown substantially, from about $25 million in 2019 to more than $1.2 billion in 2025.
This program is growing at an unsustainable clip,” said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog,
Hard to argue too much with that. Even if you support the program or something like it, the cost to the city has increased by 4700% in 6 years. (And that's if you use the 1.2B figure, not the additional 2.4B!)
1.2B is about 1% of the city's overall budget. That's not a lot in one sense, but it is also a lot to be basically paying rent on people's behalf. The real challenge, IMO, is that subsidizing rent like that makes the affordable housing crisis worse over time. That wouldn't really be true at the original several million dollars scope, but when we're talking billions in rent being injected by the city..
Subsidies don't fix shortages, they just push up the price of what's available. That's been the story of low-to-middle income urban housing costs and availability, ever since the stoppage of...
Subsidies don't fix shortages, they just push up the price of what's available. That's been the story of low-to-middle income urban housing costs and availability, ever since the stoppage of government investment in public housing during the 1970's. Why would the private market ever build low-margin housing on expensive property, when luxury housing is so much more profitable?
There's an equally important story about Mamdani's silence on investment in public housing. It's early days. Populists don't run on details, particularly about where the money's going to come from, and New York City is in the unenviable position of having to fight the state of New York for revenues.
Yeah, exactly. To be fair to the market, it's a little more complicated than that; building any additional housing (luxury or no) helps. Any increase in units is positive. But generally speaking...
Subsidies don't fix shortages, they just push up the price of what's available. That's been the story of low-to-middle income urban housing costs and availability, ever since the stoppage of government investment in public housing during the 1970's. Why would the private market build low-margin housing on expensive property, when luxury housing is so much more profitable?
Yeah, exactly. To be fair to the market, it's a little more complicated than that; building any additional housing (luxury or no) helps. Any increase in units is positive. But generally speaking subsidizing rents is about the worst of all worlds. (You're not creating new units and pushing prices up, not down).
There's an equally important story about Mamdani's silence on investment in public housing.
Reading that link, $80 billion in backlogged repairs! That almost seems impossible.
Yes, $80 billion is "tear it down and rebuild new" cost territory (keeping in mind that most of those buildings are 60+ years old, and full of asbestos). Except that's not going to happen based on...
Yes, $80 billion is "tear it down and rebuild new" cost territory (keeping in mind that most of those buildings are 60+ years old, and full of asbestos). Except that's not going to happen based on the entrenched anti-socialist politics of not building publicly-owned housing, and especially without somewhere for those tenants to move to.
Housing works like hermit crab shells. Developers always want to market their new buildings as "luxury" even when they're not. Over time, those "luxury" buildings become the workforce housing of...
Why would the private market ever build low-margin housing on expensive property, when luxury housing is so much more profitable?
Housing works like hermit crab shells. Developers always want to market their new buildings as "luxury" even when they're not. Over time, those "luxury" buildings become the workforce housing of the masses, and the cycle continues.
This same pattern even plays out in socialist countries which use lottery methods to distribute housing. Even when the new development is subsidized, it's likely to have higher demand. It takes time.
I think high rents probably have to do with a lot of people (some of them wealthy, or have wealthy parents) wanting to live in a small area and maybe it would be more cost-effective to provide moving assistance for people who want to move somewhere cheaper? This seems like a cycle-of-life sort of thing; after retiring you don’t need to worry about commutes anymore.
Not at all detracting from your other points, but I wonder if this is something of a familiarity issue. You're American, and so more familiar with American problems and so they seem larger and more frequent and worse. As a French speaker I can tell you that Paris very much has similar problems, for instance. Anything other sources would be in French probably, but people are constantly complaining about how unaffordable Paris is, how little future they have, etc. I mean there's a reason the French have repeatedly taken to the streets in the last decade and the French government is collapsing.
France has insane height limits, and Paris will remain strangled till they accept that the city needs to grow up, not just out.
Right, and I’m saying that it would probably make sense for NYC to encourage this. It’s often not a bad thing.
Killing demand is how cities die. Many of those "old retirees" are people that made the city great in their younger days, and they're likely essential community members.
Why squabble over the limited housing supply when we could focus on abundance for everyone?
"Abundance for everyone" necessarily means reducing the cost of housing. If prices are still too high then we haven't reached "abundance" yet. The way we measure progress towards achieving abundance is by seeing what prices are doing.
If housing prices in New York City actually start declining then that's a good start on solving housing affordability. It's still a very long way from the city "dying." Maybe someday that will be a problem, but I don't think it will be any time soon.
Housing prices are based on both supply and demand. Increasing supply is great. Reducing demand: also great, if it means some people found a good place to live somewhere else.
NYC hasn't built enough housing for decades, so it's not surprising rents keep growing. Too many people focus on "empty apartments" and "rent control" when those are tiny bandaids on a bleeding artery.
Really vibrant cities provide unbeatable educational/research institutions, professional connections, and an economic ladder to climb for people of talent and ambition. With some luck thrown in, but the number of opportunities for fortunate connections is higher with density.
The old line about "if you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere" remains true, especially in the industries where New York City remains a global hub - banking, finance, real estate, communications, and marketing. Healthcare, tech, higher education, arts - all these professions gather prestige just from having a New York City pedigree. Even in a low-income service industry like cooking, a starred New York City restaurant on your resumé opens postings everywhere. Moving to cheaper places forfeits those opportunities.
And of course banking, finance, etc. are industries which concentrate income inequality - GINI for New York City is comparable to Zambia, with a poverty rate over 18%.
Maybe retirees can leave, but a retired New York City service worker with no savings after a lifetime of high rents has nowhere to go.
And yet, a social security check, or whatever other subsidies they might have, would likely go further in lots of places?
I think “having nowhere to go” is part of the issue, though. Although in theory you could move to lots of places, if there were some common destinations where New Yorkers often move to after retiring then maybe it would be less like something you have to figure out in your own?
But another issue, for some people, is of course being rooted in a community. Will you find community that you like where you’re moving to? That uncertainty makes it harder to move.
Imagine they built a satellite retirement community in New Jersey or Delaware or something, connected by a train line, and made it really welcoming?
It's a standing joke that New Yorkers retire to Florida, but I do think that it's a thing that happens because there's an existing knowledge pipeline from people who have done it before. Much like with any other migration, when there are older friends and family who've made that trip and can share information about how to manage it, it becomes easier for future groups to make the same change.
Yeah, I remember a joke about retiring to Miami Beach, but it was a very old one and I wasn't sure it was still a thing.
As someone that spent most of their life in Florida, the NY -> FL pipeline is a real thing. The issue is that FL used to be a very cheap place to retire to, like crazy cheap. It simply isn't the case anymore. Successful, comparatively wealthy New Yorkers can surely still retire there, or nearly anywhere else, but housing prices rose higher there than most other places, especially in the decade and a half. Between that and the crazy increases in home owners insurance (mine went from $1.2k a year to $19k over the span of 11 years in the same unmodified home), I think Florida is cooked. The local economies are heavily dependent on new people coming in.
As an aside, it always felt unfair to me when I was younger that because I grew up there, I'd never be able to sell my house and move elsewhere like people from up north could do when moving to Florida. It simply wasn't economically viable. Then with the dramatic increase in housing prices, I was able to do so and "escape" Florida.
Likewise on GTFO Florida when housing prices and insurance went up (climate change is real, not that you could convince the real estate builders and marketers) and politics went right-wing, and the experience with the NYC/Montreal to Florida pipeline. It's not just retirees, it's second home owners who split their year between locations to avoid winter.
Florida is definitely cooked. I know a couple of civil engineers there, and they can barely keep salt water out of the drinking water table right now, let alone with further hurricane flooding and sea level rise.
https://archive.is/iaquE
From the article:
[...]
[...]
[...]
Hard to argue too much with that. Even if you support the program or something like it, the cost to the city has increased by 4700% in 6 years. (And that's if you use the 1.2B figure, not the additional 2.4B!)
1.2B is about 1% of the city's overall budget. That's not a lot in one sense, but it is also a lot to be basically paying rent on people's behalf. The real challenge, IMO, is that subsidizing rent like that makes the affordable housing crisis worse over time. That wouldn't really be true at the original several million dollars scope, but when we're talking billions in rent being injected by the city..
Subsidies don't fix shortages, they just push up the price of what's available. That's been the story of low-to-middle income urban housing costs and availability, ever since the stoppage of government investment in public housing during the 1970's. Why would the private market ever build low-margin housing on expensive property, when luxury housing is so much more profitable?
There's an equally important story about Mamdani's silence on investment in public housing. It's early days. Populists don't run on details, particularly about where the money's going to come from, and New York City is in the unenviable position of having to fight the state of New York for revenues.
Yeah, exactly. To be fair to the market, it's a little more complicated than that; building any additional housing (luxury or no) helps. Any increase in units is positive. But generally speaking subsidizing rents is about the worst of all worlds. (You're not creating new units and pushing prices up, not down).
Reading that link, $80 billion in backlogged repairs! That almost seems impossible.
Yes, $80 billion is "tear it down and rebuild new" cost territory (keeping in mind that most of those buildings are 60+ years old, and full of asbestos). Except that's not going to happen based on the entrenched anti-socialist politics of not building publicly-owned housing, and especially without somewhere for those tenants to move to.
Housing works like hermit crab shells. Developers always want to market their new buildings as "luxury" even when they're not. Over time, those "luxury" buildings become the workforce housing of the masses, and the cycle continues.
This same pattern even plays out in socialist countries which use lottery methods to distribute housing. Even when the new development is subsidized, it's likely to have higher demand. It takes time.