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It isn't a coincidence that commuting time and price of a sq-ft of space are negatively correlated. I guarantee you if someone built a 5 min connection from downtown to Staten Island, the real-estate on SI would very quickly be developed to the exact same state as all the other places that are 5 min from downtown. The thing you want (affordable, spacious, fast transit) simply can't exist.

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They can if the supply greatly increases. That's among the reasons why a project longer the Triboro brings so much opportunity. Decentralizing New York real estate would drastically improve affordability.

Then more people will see that New York provides better bang for the buck (economic opportunities per rent dollar), which will cause population to increase by migration, which will increase demand, which will eventually get us back to where we started.

I'm not saying this proposal is bad. I quite like it. But let's not get the causation backwards. Urban poor aren't poor because of bad access to transit. Urban poor have bad access to transit because they are poor. Building transit ultimately changes the real estate value along the line, temporarily makes everyone's rent cheaper, and permanently increases the population of the city.

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