Re:California lawmakers have tried for 50 years to fix the s...
by mancerayder on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @01:23PM
(#16009968)
In NYC we have something of the opposite problem. California folks are always asking, why not upzone. Sometimes they say that in reference to the NYC much-publicized housing issues too.
The problem is that the infrastructure around it needs massive improvements to scale.
A suburban density increase is a good thing, because the denser housing leads to denser income flow to local governments, which go to things like water/sewer, road, and other improvements that need to be paid for. Economies of scale mean that suburbs are terribly inefficient.
An increase of density in NYC has had the opposite result. It's false to claim that there's no housing being built - there's plenty of it, and it's dense, and often times 20+% of it is legally affordable (rent stabilized due to developer tax breaks). Yet more people keep moving here. The issue is that one of the main infrastructure bottlenecks never kept up and it has become one of the topmost, if not the topmost quality of life issue in NYC: the public transport system.
It's all well and good to build density, but the municipalities need to move lockstep with housing increase. Unfortunately, I think that the decentralized nature of American political life makes this quite difficult. How can one of dozens or hundreds of city agencies keep tabs on one of dozens or hundreds of various other factors.
The problem is that the infrastructure around it needs massive improvements to scale.
A suburban density increase is a good thing, because the denser housing leads to denser income flow to local governments, which go to things like water/sewer, road, and other improvements that need to be paid for. Economies of scale mean that suburbs are terribly inefficient.
An increase of density in NYC has had the opposite result. It's false to claim that there's no housing being built - there's plenty of it, and it's dense, and often times 20+% of it is legally affordable (rent stabilized due to developer tax breaks). Yet more people keep moving here. The issue is that one of the main infrastructure bottlenecks never kept up and it has become one of the topmost, if not the topmost quality of life issue in NYC: the public transport system.
It's all well and good to build density, but the municipalities need to move lockstep with housing increase. Unfortunately, I think that the decentralized nature of American political life makes this quite difficult. How can one of dozens or hundreds of city agencies keep tabs on one of dozens or hundreds of various other factors.