While it legalized residential towers in DUMBO and other areas that have since gentrified, that also meant that the amount of redevelopable lots shrank. This increased the value of the remaining developable lots and made it harder for small developers to compete to get the remaining lots.
I can't find these links because they're from years ago and Google isn't great about looking up older links, but because of these policies the small-scale (<10 unit) developments did not recover their previous figures after the Great Recession, when traditionally that is how a good chunk of new housing gets built. (They also tend to be more affordable, because building a small building has a lower capital cost than building a large one and so more people can compete.)
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As far as the square footage concern goes, I think that's valid, but I think the distinction is that the housing that people would find "unacceptable" in the US is also illegal. This raises the bar on what the minimum you need to rent any space is, and increasingly we are seeing ever larger segments of the population struggling to meet that bar. At some point we're going to have to ask if we dislike SROs so much we would rather have people on the streets.
While it legalized residential towers in DUMBO and other areas that have since gentrified, that also meant that the amount of redevelopable lots shrank. This increased the value of the remaining developable lots and made it harder for small developers to compete to get the remaining lots.
I can't find these links because they're from years ago and Google isn't great about looking up older links, but because of these policies the small-scale (<10 unit) developments did not recover their previous figures after the Great Recession, when traditionally that is how a good chunk of new housing gets built. (They also tend to be more affordable, because building a small building has a lower capital cost than building a large one and so more people can compete.)
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As far as the square footage concern goes, I think that's valid, but I think the distinction is that the housing that people would find "unacceptable" in the US is also illegal. This raises the bar on what the minimum you need to rent any space is, and increasingly we are seeing ever larger segments of the population struggling to meet that bar. At some point we're going to have to ask if we dislike SROs so much we would rather have people on the streets.