>But the proliferation of these buildings is provoking a backlash amid a broader debate about affordable housing, megaprojects for the ultrarich and the city’s identity. Now, officials are seeking to rein in developers by proposing rules that would apply unusually large mechanical spaces toward a building’s height limit.
> [NYC's housing shortage] is caused by the erosion of the New Yorkers' purchasing power due to stagnant wages and the increase in average rent in the city despite robust tenant protection.[1][2]
The article lists a half dozen other contributing factors, none of which are building height restrictions. Yes the wiki article is incomplete, but I think my point is demonstrated.
It sounds like part of the problem is that the space in these buildings isn’t allowed to be rented out.
It's really quite straightforward. Which part of the argument do you think is incorrect, and why?
2. It's not always profitable or practical to tear down a building. Tearing down a 3-flat and replacing it with a 4-flat, for example, would not be economically feasible even if it were allowed. Replacing a 3-flat with a 12-story building, on the other hand, would result in a much more productive use of the land, but it's typically not possible to upzone a parcel to that extent.
I think it is clear that zoning is a primary cause of NYC's housing problems, but I just don't see any evidence that height restrictions make up much of the problem (remember, the upthread claim I took issue with is "height limits are the only reason there's a shortage of housing").
Anecdotally, a lot of buildings for sale (in Brooklyn, at least) list both the number of apartments and the max it is zoned for. This is relevant because it isn't actually that expensive the reno a 3-apartment into a 4-apartment (no need to tear it down), so zoning ends up being the primary roadblock for people who want to do that.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...
This is definitely not true. I don't understand where this assumption came from and I cannot logically follow it through. Certainly 1) not 100% of building heights are livable space, and certainly 2) you cannot just extend one dimension of life (building height) and then assume that you will have created some economically usable housing.
> If there were twice as much housing, there wouldn't be a shortage
Again I don't understand this at all. The shortage isn't about the amount of available housing at all, it's about people's ability to live there too. And if you're just doubling the building heights, you haven't talked about wages or ability to live there etc.
> It's really quite straightforward
What? None of this is straightforward! This stuff is super complicated! There's no need to be so condescending and rude about it.
> Which part of the argument do you think is incorrect, and why?
All of it. I've explained above.
How is the housing shortage not about the amount of available housing? Wages don’t need to increase if housing prices fall as a result of an increase in supply. If the problem isn’t a shortage in housing, it wouldn’t be a housing shortage.
I also don’t agree with the commenter you were replying to; it’s a naive assumption that height limits are responsible for less construction. More likely, it’s hard to purchase properties, tear them down, and rebuild higher. This would be solved at least partially by what we call a “land value tax,” which incentivizes economically efficient use of the land [1].
The name of the problem itself oversimplifies the problem space. There are lots of scenarios playing out today where there is ample housing and still a housing shortage. A major problem is that often the houses available do not match the ability of the renters to pay. So you can have lots of expensive houses being vacant, and lots of renters with nowhere to live, and have a housing shortage.
> Wages don’t need to increase if housing prices fall as a result of an increase in supply.
What? Yes they do! Wages are already too low to support a normal housing market, due to long-term wage suppression of the middle over many decades. Wages definitely need to rise for this problem to fix.
Do you have a source for this? Sounds far-fetched. I can't imagine many landlords wanting to rent but unwilling to lower their price.
Yes it is. That's literally all there is to it. A housing shortage by definition means that there's not enough housing to satisfy the demand.
> it's about people's ability to live there too
People can't afford to live there because the shortage of housing has caused the price of housing to go up.
> This stuff is super complicated!
It's not complicated at all. Onerous zoning and land use laws have made it impossible for developers to build to the level of density necessary to support NYC's rapidly growing population.
No, it isn't, and no, it isn't. This stuff is a lot more complicated that you think it is.
> A housing shortage by definition means that there's not enough housing to satisfy the demand
That's not true. You need to mention that there are different prices that people are able to pay, and with wage stagnation being such a big issue for the middle class, you need enough housing to satisfy the demand _at each economic level_.
You can't just make a bunch of rich people houses, have them sit empty while there are homeless outside, and say you've solved the shortage because there's "enough housing!!" to satisfy demand.
> It's not complicated at all.
Yes, it is. You are being condescending, rude, and you are also wrong to boot.
> Onerous zoning and land use laws have made it impossible for developers to build to the level of density necessary to support NYC's rapidly growing population.
I do not agree with this at all. My fingers are tired and I have debate this point endlessly here. I'll be short: Wages are too artificially low for this to make any sense.
It's supply and demand. More available housing means lower prices.
Does it? I don't understand this, at all.
More available housing would also create more demand, no? More people online will see the lower prices and move to Manhattan, immediately increasing the price again, no? The situation is complicated. You can't just say "supply and demand" and think you've solved NYC's problems in housing.
ECON textbooks teaching students that every person is a financially rational actor and that supply + demand plays out real nice in the real world is supper dangerous. My econ textbook was wrong in a lot of ways and it's upsetting to see continuing oversimplification and massive condescension for these antiquated and not-real-world-tested perspectives on how to solve complicated urban problems.
By that logic, I could build a massive apartment tower in the middle of nowhere and people would flock to live there. China tried that - it didn't work.
https://www.businessinsider.com/these-chinese-cities-are-gho...
Housing is a market just like anything else. In any market, if the price gets too high, competitors jump in to create more supply to meet the demand. If apples were $100 a piece, everyone would grow apple trees in their backyard and make a fortune until the prices came back down to a reasonable level.
So why aren't developers pumping out cheap apartment buildings left and right? Why aren't they buying empty parcels of land and putting up massive towers? Because they can't. Because local zoning laws won't allow them to.
This is an extraordinary claim.