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Making New York City More Affordable
+ Brandon Fuller
Why is housing in New York City so expensive? The answer is simple: there isn’t enough of it. Though demand remains strong, the city’s land-use policies make it unnecessarily difficult to build new units. Historically welcoming to newcomers, New York is in danger of becoming a boutique city, as low- and middle-income families find themselves increasingly priced out of the housing market.
My latest piece at City Journal explores policies that the next mayor could pursue to make housing more affordable in New York. The piece discusses micro-units, developing NYCHA land, accessory dwelling units, and innovative legal proposals from NYU's Roderick Hills and George Mason's David Schleicher (David will be leading an upcoming brown bag discussion here at Stern). I closed the piece by suggesting that New York City's housing policy choices have national implications. Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag's work on internal migration suggests that the slowing of regional income convergence in the U.S. is due in part to land-use regulations that make productive cities like New York prohibitively expensive. As such, land use reforms that make cities like New York friendlier to low and middle income families can help to mitigate national inequality.