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by jermaustin1 2839 days ago
> if your desire is to live there perpetually for years

You mean like 99% of people? When you work in the city, grew up in the city, have met almost everyone you know in the city, to then be forced out of the city because people want to rent their apartments out for 3-10 days at a time instead of 1-3 years means that people who need the stability of a permanent address now have to either shell out much more cash than a land lord can get (illegally) on airbnb, or move out of the city and abandon the thing they have known their entire lives.

I'm not saying I have a good solution to it, other than the typical protectionist idea of tax the things that are destroying us, but at least that way there is money in the treasury to try and save a portion of the people affected by it.

3 comments

But the solution is simple: build more apartments. There's no reason there shouldn't be enough housing for way, way more people other than that it's the policy of local government and the preference of many voters.
This is a solution in places like queens, brooklyn and statan island, but manhattan is quite nearly fully developed, and without displacing people to build new high-rises (which kind of exacerbates the issue), there isn't much that can be done.
build more apartments. There's no reason there shouldn't be enough housing for way, way more people other than that it's the policy of local government and the preference of many voters.

Where, exactly? Central Park?

> 99% of people

You are saying that 99% of people live in the same residence for years?

I'd love to see a source on this.

Between transient people, houseless people, digital nomads, business travelers, jetsetters, RVers, and all sorts of other people who don't live in one place all year, I have no doubt that the various modes of nomadism, taken together, account for far, far higher than 1%.

Heck, in NYC alone, I'll wager that less than 70% of today's population has lived in the same domicile for the past 2 years. There's no way it's 99%.

> When you work in the city, grew up in the city, have met almost everyone you know in the city

I made clear in my post that people in those circumstances might have a different experience. But is this the only audience NYC is designed to serve? People who grew up in the city? What about those of us in the Hudson Valley? Do we not deserve any of the economic benefits of the city (for which we pay in many ways, not least of which our watershed) just because we were born 50-150 miles away?

I think it's about time that real opportunities to live in the city for a few weeks out of the year become available to other NYers and not just the super rich.

I didn't grow up in NYC, but I consider it my city too. I know the best open mics, the places where I can order authentic Mexican or Puerto Rican food en espaƱol, the incubators and co-working spaces, the subway system, etc.

Just because you grew up there doesn't give you exclusive ownership of the culture of NYC.

There should be a new word for this type of gentrification.
People refusing to stay in the locality and socioeconomic conditions of their birth place, and instead exploring the world and learning about its people, is gentrification now?

The amount of NYC-born privilege being waved around in this thread is astounding.

I have paid, in many ways, for NYC my whole life. It's my city too, even though I wasn't born there. I identify with its culture. I know its geography and social norms. I play its open mics to enthusiastic audiences of a size that I simply can't reach upstate.

Why do you think that people who are born in NYC are entitled to these things to the exclusion of the rest of us?

I'd say that isn't the gentrification, but the fact that a wealth individual can "redevelop" a neighborhood, raising the rents of many less fortunate people who have lived there their entire lives.

Rent Stab/Control exists for a reason, had those generations of people not been there, NYC wouldn't be what it is today. But when the entire neighborhood becomes too expensive because of landlords preferring to run hotels, and the only apartment stock that is affordable is the failing NYCHA properties, then I would consider this a gentrification.

Why are you getting so defensive? I agree with you, but that doesn't mean it's not a type of gentrification.

>Why do you think that people who are born in NYC are entitled to these things to the exclusion of the rest of us?

Did I say that? Just because I noted it was gentrification doesn't mean you can treat me like a straw-man punching bag.

If we have to make the choice I think it is reasonable to privilege the concerns of people who live in a place year-round over those visiting for a week.
Let's say a 400 square mile area of land can only accommodate 10 million people, but that 2 billion would prefer to live there if they could, because it is one of the nicest localities in the world.

Why have 10 million lucky individuals get year round access to it, rather than giving 1 billion people 3-4 days each to visit it?

Because the alternative is not a city but a city-sized theme park.
Maybe the most desirable locations on Earth should be theme parks that a billion people can visit, rather than gated mega-communities for ten million wealthy/lucky long-term residents.

Maybe one day the typical life will consist of visiting a different theme-park-like city every few days, and people will identify with their planet rather than a few hundred square miles that's designated as their city of residence.