Rent control is <40,000 units citywide. Rent control is not the problem. Floor-Area Ratio zoning and parking requirements are. Both are keeping more dense housing from being built which is keeping rents up.

Who do you expect to do for service workers? Honestly. Do you expect those people to live in squalid conditions 20 to a room like we did 100 years ago?

Are you aware that that rents even within a 2hr commute distance do not decline enough to be affordable (except in a declining number of bad neighborhoods)? You can live on the Metro North/Amtrak routes as far up as Poughkeepsie and still pay $1200-$1600/mo for a studio/1br. Commuting is also expensive on its own with monthly passes often costing ~$400/mo. Plus having to have a car and car insurance in those areas on top of that.

Where do want to put people who do low-wage jobs that can't be automated? What's your plan?

there are a shitload of rent stabilized apartments though ...

http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/rentstab.html#d...

"Rents Stabilization FAQ

See also Rent Control FAQ's

Is there a difference between RENT CONTROL and RENT STABILIZATION? What exactly is rent stabilization? Can my landlord evict me and use my stabilized apartment for his family, and how many apartments in the building can he take? What happens when the rent for my stabilized apartment rises above $2,500? How can I find out if my apartment is stabilized? Can the management company sell my stabilized apartment? Similar buildings in my neighborhood are stabilized - why isn't mine? Should my landlord inform me that my unit is stabilized? Disclaimer: By providing answers to frequently asked questions, the staff of the Rent Guidelines Board attempts to clarify the often complex programs and regulations governing landlord tenant relations in NYC. However, the information provided herein does not represent official policies or opinions of the City of New York or the Rent Guidelines Board nor should this information be used to substitute for advice of legal counsel.

Is there a difference between RENT CONTROL and RENT STABILIZATION?

Some of the people who email us say "rent controlled" but actually MEAN rent stabilized -- they do not know the difference.

Why is it so hard to be accurate? There is a difference between rent control and rent stabilization, as only about 38,000 rent controlled units exist vs. about one million stabilized units, and rent control has a different set of regulations than rent stabilization.

The term "rent regulated" encompasses both rent controlled and rent stabilized units. By the way, the Rent Guidelines Board has the responsibility for setting rent adjustments for rent stabilized apartments. We have no jurisdiction over rent controlled apartments, which is the responsibility of the NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). "

Rent Stabilization isn't all it's cracked up to be. Everyone I know in Rent Stabilized apartments has dealt with large rent increases with some regularity.

Even so, rent regulation is _not_ the problem. It's primarily the parking requirement and secondarily the zoning issues. All the co-op and condo owners who dominate most fo the neighborhoods affected WANT it to be this way because it keeps the price of their homes up.

They can only legally increase your rent 2% every year or 4% every two years, and they HAVE to renew your lease by law unless you really fuck up (giving you the option of both a 1 and 2 year lease). The apartment only becomes unstabilized if your income is exceeds $250K or your rent exceeds $2500/month. The only possible way you would ever see a large rent increase (that I know of) if you lived in a rent stabilized apartment in NYC is if the owner of the building dumped a shitload of money into the building (there is an actual formula that depends on the number of apts, I believe), and then since the building is a lot nicer they actually increase your rent to market rates.

I agree with your second statement

The amount changes every year. It is voted upon by the rent regulation board. Last year these were the numbers. For a one-year renewal lease commencing on or after October 1, 2011 and on or before September 30, 2012: 3.75% For a two-year renewal lease commencing on or after October 1, 2011 and on or before September 30, 2012: 7.25%

Heh. My mom has paid $5760 in increased rent since 1989 for new mailboxes and windows. $20/mo. Her and every other rent regulated tenant in the building. $15,360 for a new interior for the elevator. $80/mo since 1997. Her and every other rent regulated tenant in the building.

Capital improvements really hurt rent regulated tenants long-term.

Uh, you can get perfectly nice 1 bedroom apartments in Mt. Vernon for $800/month, and that's a 30-minute metro north ride from midtown manhattan. I used to live in New Rochelle, which is a 35 minute ride from Midtown. The high-rises right next to the train station are pretty expensive ($1500 for a studio), but there is a ton of affordable housing within a 15 minute walk. It's a town of mostly working-class hispanic immigrants.

Do you own a car?

How difficult is it to live where you do without a car?

I was mostly speaking about the areas near the train station that you mentioned yeah. Those prices are pretty high for the commute time that you end up having. A 15 minute walk is okay but any longer than that might be very difficult for some people.

The apartments right by the train stations are artificially expensive. They're designed to take advantage of the fact that white commuters don't want to risk living in a building with low income minorities. The surrounding housing is half the price, and the area is quite safe.

Nearly all of the Westchester suburbs are extremely walkable. All of the essential stuff is on the train line. The wife and I would load up the baby and take the train to Portchester, where there was a Costco, Marshalls, etc. I did have a car, which I drove maybe once a month (the upscale mall in White Plains was nowhere near public transit).

A 35 minute commute is not bad at all. Lots of rich people all over the country have hour+ commutes from the suburbs. Heck, my commute from New Rochelle was a lot more enjoyable (straight shot into GCT) than my commute from the UWS (transfer at Times Square, ugh). You can't point to 35 minute commutes as a reason to make space for low-income housing in the city proper.

I haven't been back there recently enough to know if MN is 24 hours but I recall travel being limited to certain times and this is especially true on the LIRR. Especially late at night, the train is filled with annoying rowdy drunks. That's more than enough reason for me not to want to live out there. It's like being deprived of all of the social benefits of living in/around NYC.

I mean, I totally get what you're saying, but I didn't find much benefit to living out there. I don't have a family though.

Metro North is not 24 hours, but it's only closed for 3 hours between 2:30 am and 5:30 am. And trains from NR run every 15 minutes at rush hour. The Metro North has way fewer sketchy people on average than the Subway. Lots of bankers heading back to Greenwich.

In any case, you're arguing a different point now. Housing prices in many Westchester towns are very reasonable and commutes are too. No reason for rent control to allow low-income people to live in the city proper.

It definitely seems like the MN-lines have the nicer folks. late night LIRR rides are 10x worse than any subway line.

Barring handicaps, I think a 15-30 minute walk is reasonable for most people, particularly the sort of people who might be looking to live in a car-lite city. 30 minutes at a leisurely pace is only 2 miles, I do that twice a day and I live and work in the same city (I also have a car, but clogging the streets and the air with it every day just to go 2 miles seems practically criminal to me). For somebody living outside the city, that is pretty good.

Now granted, their commute is going to be longer since that 15-30 minutes is in addition to the rest of their commute, not the entirety of it, but you can't live outside the city you are working in and expect snappy commutes.

What if you're over 40? Lower income often means poor health. Let's try not to approach this problem from our typically young working healthy professional perspective. Most of us are making more money than the people we're really talking about here.

Also, can you really live in these areas and shop without a car? I find the answer to that question to rarely be yes.

People over 40 are perfectly capable of using their legs. If they used them more often, instead of hopping in the car every time they needed to go a mile or two, maybe they would remain healthy longer. Cities typically have transportation programs meant for the elderly and disabled, if other public transit is unable to service them.

I shop with my car maybe once a month, tops, and that is mostly just because I like to buy dozens of liters of seltzer water.

That 40k number is flat out wrong.

"But even in Manhattan, nearly half of all rental apartments are rent-stabilized."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/realestate/rent-stabilized...

Without getting in the middle of this, I'd just point out that you're both right -- roughly 38k rent controlled units, about one million rent stabilized units. Apparently there's a difference! http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/rentstab.html#d...

We're talking about two different things here. I'm talking specifically about rent control.

I know what I'm talking about, I live(d) in a rent controlled apartment since birth.

But that's not what the OP was talking about. He was surely using the phrase "rent control" in its colloquial sense.

I'd be interested in articles on ideas for dense and affordable urban housing which side steps the blight/crime aspects. Does anyone know if there is work going on in that space like the MIT small house[1] competitions?

[1] http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/1k-house-prototype-0915.h...

I think mixing density and low-income people is by itself a recipe for disaster. It makes more sense to have good commuter rail into the surrounding suburbs.

That is the interesting test is it not? Why is it that 'high income' people can live in a high rise apartment building but 'low income' people cannot? I am aware of the various 'projects' where we've seen violence, drug use, and property destruction. I am wondering is if it is even possible to create such a facility?

Could you, for example, create an elevator system that took you from ground floor to your apartment, and only if you keyed in the right code? And would that be sufficient to allow people to live without being negatively harmed by their neighbours?

Curious and I don't know if anyone has looked into this in a controlled way, hence the question.

Such an elevator system might allow the formation of tight-knit safe and trusting communities on each floor, but I suspect that the common areas (lobby, and the elevator itself) would rapidly become as trashed as your stereotypical subway station.

My off-the-wall hypothesis is that poverty breeds crime, and crime breeds decay which itself breeds more crime (see: broken windows theory). Small tight-knit communities seem to, in some situations^ at least, put the brakes on this process. The tighter the community the more of a support net individuals have and the more obligation they feel towards their surroundings.

^ A counter-example that comes to mind are your stereotypical trailer parks and near-ghost-town mining towns across the rust-belt. A poor neighborhood that isn't dense isn't necessarily a wonderful place.

This is exactly what Toronto is trying to do by subsidizing housing in metropolitan area.

People maybe inclined to argue against subsidizing more expensive housing in downtown areas, but the cost of commuting from lower income outer areas actually increases pollution, and traffic costs. It also breaks the poverty cycle by preventing geographic and possibly cultural segregation of the lower income families.

Toronto has a really interesting problem to solve. 1/6 of the entire population of Canada lives in the GTA. That's simply stunning to me, especially since having spent a great deal of time up there, it doesn't feel that dense to me.

Honestly though, Toronto needs housing in the downtown areas. I haven't been there in 7-8 years but other than tourists and shopping, the streets around the business districts felt pretty dead/lifeless. It made the area very boring after 4pm. Having some residents in those areas would really improve the city quite a bit.

The problem is that the GTA sports some of the worst urban planning on the continent. The simple fact is that while Downtown Toronto is wonderful, there just isn't enough Downtown Toronto to go around and you quickly get into inefficient sprawl. And then it's an ocean of Mississaugaism for 50km in every direction.

It's gotten bad enough that poor artsy Torontonians have started moving here to Hamilton. They're so desperate for dense vibrant city living they can actually afford that they come here.

I like Hamilton, despite the industrial smells. Heh. I spent quite a lot of time around there and Burlington and I much prefer that side of the GTA to the eastern side.

The GO train commute isn't that bad...90 minutes at the most and it's pretty direct.

It's a 45 minute drive from Hamilton to Toronto if the traffic is perfect (like 3am). Over an hour on a train that only runs to the Hunter St terminal a couple of times per day is absurd. Most of the time the train ends at Aldershot instead of Hamilton anyways, a suburb of Burlington that only exists to let the GO Transit flip Hamiltonians the bird. The combined traffic and transit woes of the GTA are thoroughly ridiculous.

Hamilton is Ontario's leading producer of unrealized potential, an honor I expect to keep for many, many years. I love this city, but it's not an easy city to love.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've always felt like Burlington's wealth came from being a suburb of Hamilton rather than of being a suburb of Toronto.

All of the super wealthy trust fund kids I knew there had parents who ran companies in Hamilton and NOT in T.O.

I agree. I spent 6 months living in Toronto and trying to find an affordable place to live downtown was difficult (I ended up about 30mins north of downtown).

> What's he want, more rent control?

That's one option.

> To put "the 1%" 'up against a wall'?

That kind of hyperbole is unwarranted given the very reasonable tone of the article.

> What is this article other than a whiny complaint, pandering to the envious masses?

I'd call it an astute observation by a creative, intelligent person about the city in which lives.

A hyperbolic call to action is more useful than no call to action at all. This sort of article really rubs me the wrong way, I apologize for my overly abrasive tone.

I think he wants the 1% to leave because they're not artists but their presence drives up prices. There's only space for one of them in that town...

Kind of like no one can afford to live in SV unless they're in tech and/or are rich.

Price out the producing class, production leaves the area.

If it wasn't the rich, it would be the "yuppies" out-bidding the grunge and punk. One scape-goat or another, when really all it boils down to is that they don't have enough money to live wherever they want to. Welcome to reality. I can't afford to live on the beach in Malibu, is that a social injustice too?