[hypeit]

> The problem is that it’s essentially illegal to build new hotels in NYC.

I really wouldn't classify this as a problem. It's completely possible today to book a hotel room in NY at all manner of price points. The prices are not noticeably different than anytime in the past few years.

There is a ton of hotel inventory in NYC. If I was a resident, I wouldn't even want more hotels built because the city is already full to the brim with tourists and lacking space for affordable residential property.

[JumpCrisscross]

> lacking space for affordable residential property

We are not space constrained. Like in California, housing shortage is a policy choice by New York’s voters. (In this case, we chose to shift some of the burden onto tourists versus property owners.)

[hypeit]

> We are not space constrained.

I'm sorry but New York is famously space constrained. There is no new Manhattan land showing up any time soon.

[JumpCrisscross]

> New York is famously space constrained

Facts over fame.

New York City’s population density, 11,200/sq. km [1], doesn’t even make the top-100 list globally [2]. There are a handful of blocks in Midtown, the Wesr Side and downtown that approach anything close to densities where our ability to build constrains us.

> There is no new Manhattan land showing up any time soon

I have a flat next to a surface-level parking lot in central Manhattan! We have a ton of infill potential before even asking about the two- and three-story buildings that make up most of our residential structures.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_Cit...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_pop...

[hypeit]

> Facts over fame.

You said NY was not space constrained. It's a fact that it is space constrained. Maybe you could squeeze out a bit of density but it is most definitely space constrained.

[mtalantikite]

I think you're both sort of right? NYC is dense for a US city, but not really so for a global city. We're sort of space constrained on an island like Manhattan -- since it's an island -- but much of the outer boroughs are 3 story buildings (with of course exceptions in places like downtown brooklyn, williamsburg, LIC, etc.) There are places in Manhattan we could build more high rise condos, but it's probably easier to focus on the outer boroughs. No one is going to bulldoze brownstone brooklyn, but if we even built more like Paris, which has a population density of almost 2x NYC without skyscraper condos, there certainly would be a huge amount of extra capacity.

I'm not a big fan of what happened to my neighborhood (Williamsburg) with all the giant condo buildings that have gone up over the past decade or so, but people do need places to live and we probably should be growing denser across the entire city. There's definitely a lot of space left, just not a lot of will to change things.