It isn't that which is the issue. It is the fact greenwich village has been at the same height since even before Don Draper's time. You see, the suburban enclaves of long island and upstate and new jersey and the comparatively more built up areas of manhattan do have the exact same issue with regards to housing, and that is there is little room in the zoned capacity to legally add any more housing.
In 1961, NYC adopted a zoning plan that saw zoned capacity reduced by 80%. These sort of changes to zoning happened around the country in the 1960s and 70s in response to red lining being made illegal. If you can't prevent black people from living near you by law, maybe you could instead prevent anyone from living near you and guarantee a supply side crisis such that the wealthiest individuals in the economy are who can afford to be your neighbors, and in 1961 surely they won't be black. You should look up the median income differences between a white nycer and a black nycer today, it is shocking. Median household wealth for whites just within the scope of new york state, not even at city resolution, is nearly 15x higher (1).
Today, 80 years later, we have kept the racist-by-transitive-property laws on the books all over the country. And as such, cities remain highly segregated by both race and class. Civil right era in terms of housing was essentially a failure to achieve any change from this status quo.
With historic landmarks or districts you can generally transfer unused development capacity to other sites. Grand Central famously was spared from demolition but its unused zoning rights have been transferred elsewhere.
Sure but they are still a finite resource. Once you've transferred those rights to a super tall luxury condo building, you can't readily transform that into affordable middle class and lower income housing.
One issue with using hollywood accounting for zoning is failing to consider the context of the site, especially in terms of infrastructure and job access, in favor of historical protections. All that subway capacity and walkability to so many jobs in greenwich village for example is being squandered by punting potential upzoning elsewhere.
Do you live here? I do, and I’m astounded by the number of 1- to 3-story buildings and surface parking lots (!) dotted throughout Manhattan, especially outside of the skyscraper clusters in midtown and downtown.
There is an unbelievable shortage of housing that is solvable only by increasing supply and building upwards. It’s not even single-family homes; why are there any one-story buildings in the lower east side?
is that really what people want? The fact that people say why not have 50 story concrete blocks everywhere to get more people feels like exact thing that would destroy what makes living in the city nice... Tenement housing sucked, why add thousands of people to crammed parts of city. We should be incentivizing sprawl and better transportation.
I am a New Yorker, people want more housing but there is still NIMBYism because they want to preserve the charm, and I'm mostly only talking about manhattan. While people are not fans of the low density luxury skyscrapers popping up in places, I've not seen people who currently live in the place think we should add massive housing blocs carte blanche. Sure there few scattered places for a few projects but not like advocating to tear down to build bigger. That mentality comes from people who are definitely not new yorkers or live in fringes.
I currently live in Manhattan, have lived here for years, and I support relaxing zoning at least to the point where most Manhattan neighborhoods can ~double their building heights. YIMBYs are everywhere. Not everyone can be fortunate enough to get a stabilized unit (like me) or to have bought decades ago when prices were low.
> add massive housing blocs carte blanche
IMO this is dichotomous thinking that is actually brought on by zoning rules.
It is very difficult and very expensive to get construction approved, so the only projects that make sense to fund are towers full of units, which can attract more rent and therefore higher returns per lot, justifying the risk and expense of permitting.
If you just deleted zoning restrictions carte blanche and made it much easier to build (an automatic "Yes" if you meet basic criteria), then a lot of sagging and old 1-3 story buildings which are everywhere in Manhattan would get naturally replaced with six- to eight-story buildings. This is the natural evolution of a built environment.
The amount of additional housing and commercial space that comes online from this is huge, and there's no need to dot the city itself or even Brooklyn/Queens with commie blocks
> Would paving over all of Central Park to fill the area with residential skyscrapers be a good idea?
As a moderately wealthy former New Yorker? I say no. If we put it to a referendum? I’d give it even odds. If the referendum were for developing part of Central Park into public housing? I’d guess it would pass.
Relaxing the zoning requirements that unnaturally force huge swaths of the city to be under-built would fix this without sprawling housing into existing greenspace.
You are missing the point. Of course people want to live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. People also want a vacation home at the beach or in the mountains thats private and beautiful and easy to get to. Except if we built giant monstrosities and condos in the hamptons and make all ski homes tenement housing it will be much less desirable to go to them. No ones asking to make more apartments and housing in rust belt cities.
This. We don’t have a housing problem. We have a “I want to live here problem.” And if we could snap our fingers and everybody in the world who wanted to live in NY could, it would be the same second nobody would want to live in NY.
It just does not scale like people think. And that is why the price has to go up, and that is the forcing factor for max capacity of any given parcel of land.
The fact is we all can’t live in the same city. And people need to do what we did in the past. And that is move to new locations that are cheaper.
Every hot spot today once was a crappy place, it was over time that it became the desirable place. That is just how it works. You got to move and live where you can afford.
Every city has a max amount of occupancy, and density. It’s so silly to even think about this on the individual level. I can find 1BN people who want to live in NY today if told today they could have a place today for $500 a month but 1BN other people are also joining would instantly turn down the offer.
It has a huge amount of areas that are underdeveloped relative to demand. Many areas with height restrictions that block basically all new developments. For example West Village is one of the most in demand zip codes in the entire world caps new builds around 80 feet. East village caps housing @ mid rise so new grads who live there spend half their income on housing.
In 1961, NYC adopted a zoning plan that saw zoned capacity reduced by 80%. These sort of changes to zoning happened around the country in the 1960s and 70s in response to red lining being made illegal. If you can't prevent black people from living near you by law, maybe you could instead prevent anyone from living near you and guarantee a supply side crisis such that the wealthiest individuals in the economy are who can afford to be your neighbors, and in 1961 surely they won't be black. You should look up the median income differences between a white nycer and a black nycer today, it is shocking. Median household wealth for whites just within the scope of new york state, not even at city resolution, is nearly 15x higher (1).
Today, 80 years later, we have kept the racist-by-transitive-property laws on the books all over the country. And as such, cities remain highly segregated by both race and class. Civil right era in terms of housing was essentially a failure to achieve any change from this status quo.
1. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-racial-wealth-gap-in...