Morons are running NYC

This article about the sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village being sold really gets me mad.

No, I'm not mad that it's being sold.

I'm mad about all the incessant whining in the article about the demise of affordable housing. No more affordable housing. Working class being kicked out. Where will they live? Whine whine whine.

Stupid morons, if you want housing in Manhattan to be affordable, MORE HOUSING UNITS HAVE TO BE CONSTRUCTED. But then the morons whine, builders only build luxury housing, builders only build luxury housing, whine whine whine. Well this is what happens when you don't let the builders build new luxury housing. Old non-luxury housing gets converted to luxury housing.

Comments

[Kathleen Marie]

Now this really makes me worried. I have a son moving to NYC in a month who who will be attending AADA and needs an apartment. He is willing to share an apartment.

I am not whinning, just stating fact. Sometimes you scare me.

[Peter]

High land and construction costs mean that luxury housing is the only type of housing that can be built in Manhattan absent huge subsidies. To which I say, So what? No one has a right to live in such an expensive place. The fact that many people who want to live in Manhattan instead have to settle for the outer boroughs, or (gasp!) the suburbs, ranks very low on the list of life's tragedies.

[Half Sigma]

"I am not whinning"

My complaint is with people who whine about the problem, but refuse to acknowledge the only possible solution is to allow massive construction of new apartments in Manhattan south of Harlem--more than a hundred thousand units--such that there exists a place to live for everyone who wants to live there.

[superdestroyer]

HS,

Will the infrastructure support the additional couple of 100,000 people. It is just not building the apartments but running the utilities for them. Where you plan to put the school? How are these people going to move around?

One of the reasons cities like rich people is that they are not as hard on the infrastructure than poor people are.

If you keep building small apartments without any thought to impacts you end up with Tokyo.

[Half Sigma]

Housing projects can be torn down, residents moved to new housing projects in the Bronx, and then the area can be replaced with middle class and luxury housing instead.

[R. Alex]

Superdestroyer,

What is the problem with the Tokyo model? Do they have infrastructure problems like brownouts and whatnot?

[David Alexander]

Had the residents in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village owned their residences, they wouldn't have to worry about increasing rents and possible evictions...

As for the issue of affordable housing, everybody has a right to housing and good transport, but not a right to cheap housing on prime real estate. For some reason, the prevalence of long-term rentals via rent control in New York City has created this system where long term residents act as if they were "owners" and demand the same rights as if they were owners, yet refuse to see that they're just simply tenants.

The fact that many people who want to live in Manhattan instead have to settle for the outer boroughs, or (gasp!) the suburbs, ranks very low on the list of life's tragedies.

New York City has this bizzare blindness where people call Queens the countryside, Yonkers is upstate, and Jersey is "dragons be there". It's probably the worst factor in this city, and it's probably why NYC barely creeps by in terms of a global city.

[The Engineer]

>>New York City has this bizzare blindness where people call Queens the countryside, Yonkers is upstate, and Jersey is "dragons be there". It's probably the worst factor in this city, and it's probably why NYC barely creeps by in terms of a global city.

Yeah! For such a "cosmopolital" place, New Yorkers are very provincial. They know nothing of places that are often quite close, like Jersey. Or, how things like garbage disposals work (which are banned).

[Peter]

New York City has this bizzare blindness where people call Queens the countryside, Yonkers is upstate, and Jersey is "dragons be there". It's probably the worst factor in this city, and it's probably why NYC barely creeps by in terms of a global city.

I wouldn't say that provincialism of this sort is the worst factor in the city, Typical New York Incompetence has that place of (dis)honor, but it's certainly bad enough.

[dearieme]

'tain't unique, though. In London "south of the river" is social death.

[The Superfluous Man]

Perhaps Hong Kong is the better model (but to my dismay I recently read that they have height restrictions on buildings).

[SFG]

"Stupid morons, if you want housing in Manhattan to be affordable"

They don't want it to be affordable. They want NYC to be full of rich people who will pay lots of taxes and demand no services.

Never attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by malice.

[David Alexander]

Yeah! For such a "cosmopolital" place, New Yorkers are very provincial. They know nothing of places that are often quite close, like Jersey. Or, how things like garbage disposals work (which are banned).

Or PVC pipe. God forbid we use the cheaper and easier to use pipe...

[SFG]

"New York City has this bizzare blindness where people call Queens the countryside, Yonkers is upstate, and Jersey is "dragons be there". It's probably the worst factor in this city, and it's probably why NYC barely creeps by in terms of a global city"

It's more of a status thing. You can't get a job and live in Manhattan without a prestigious degree or connections, so to live and work there you must be high-status.

[michael vassar]

You know, almost no-one routinely thinks in economic terms. It isn't as if Republicans or the Wall Street Journal were routinely any less moronic in their thinking about economics, or even specifically about the cost of living. Almost everyone is moronic with respect to economics. Don't single out the Times.

[Eric L.]

Superfluous: Wouldn't call HK a good model. The Heritage Foundation may say the economy is the freest in the world, but it's true only for tradable goods, not for housing. HK's land system is controlled by anti-competitive oligopolies and arguably causes far more deadweight loss than rent controls in New York. Basic discussion:
http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/mus-goodstadt-poon.html

But the old height restriction of 15 floors was only in one district, aimed at the perfectly reasonable goal of preventing airplanes landing at the old airport (smack in the middle of the urban core) from crashing into people's living rooms during typhoons. The restrictions ended when the new airport out in the sticks opened up back in July '98.