The conservative case for denser cities

[bedstuy]

I think everyone who has thought about the issue agrees with you in principle.  We need way more free market thinking and creative chaos in land use.  Basically, the difficult part is ramming through a development agenda (Getting much of NYC upzoned was one of Bloomberg's greatest achievements).  Everyone wants a piece of the action. 

I'm always reminded of this paradox.  In NYC every good leftist wants every new development to include affordable housing.  People even say that 20% isn't enough of a set aside in a project.  But, if you build affordable housing, you can't use union labor.  It's too expensive to build affordable housing if you pay the construction workers $92 a hour.  But, no good leftist wants to use non-union scabs, so... The solution is that we just have less development and prices go up.  There are net fewer affordable housing units because everyone wants to get a cut of anything new.

The other big problem is NIMBYism.  People just fear change.  Old people in these neighborhoods don't want to see new buildings because they remind them of their age and impending death. 

I will caution you on your use of "conservative" though.  Conservative doesn't mean free market.  Conservatives generally idolize exurban cookie cutter tract homes where everyone can have tons of cars, children and cheap consumer crap.  You sound like one of the people Michelle Bachmann warned us about:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[bedstuy]

I think everyone who has thought about the issue agrees with you in principle.  We need way more free market thinking and creative chaos in land use.  Basically, the difficult part is ramming through a development agenda (Getting much of NYC upzoned was one of Bloomberg's greatest achievements).  Everyone wants a piece of the action.

Ah, but see here at my school, you have an "anti-gentrification campaign". I mean, just, ugh.

Hey, I'm with you there.  I'm a white guy who lives in a historically black neighborhood, I'm at the forefront of gentrification.  I hate those self-righteous liberals who want to treat half of NYC like some type of Indian reservation for poor black people.  These notions of "gentrification=bad" would just look like sour grapes and old, bitter people griping about younger people if the issue didn't trigger the leftist "Spidey-sense" for anything that can be analogized to colonialism/racism/whites taking from browns.

[bedstuy]

The problem with gentrification has nothing to do with demography and everything to do with its conversion of areas useful to the construction of heavy industry into playgrounds for an unproductive, valueless middle class.

I was referring to gentrification as it happens in contemporary America, not in fascist cloud cuckoo land.

[bedstuy]

I think everyone who has thought about the issue agrees with you in principle.  We need way more free market thinking and creative chaos in land use.  Basically, the difficult part is ramming through a development agenda (Getting much of NYC upzoned was one of Bloomberg's greatest achievements).  Everyone wants a piece of the action.

Ah, but see here at my school, you have an "anti-gentrification campaign". I mean, just, ugh.

Hey, I'm with you there.  I'm a white guy who lives in a historically black neighborhood, I'm at the forefront of gentrification.  I hate those self-righteous liberals who want to treat half of NYC like some type of Indian reservation for poor black people.  These notions of "gentrification=bad" would just look like sour grapes and old, bitter people griping about younger people if the issue didn't trigger the leftist "Spidey-sense" for anything that can be analogized to colonialism/racism/whites taking from browns.

It makes me so mad. These people are basically calling for the maintenance of racially segregated ghettos. How this is supposed to improve their lot, I don't know, but I mean, it's just baffling how these people think.

https://www.facebook.com/coalitionagainstgentrification

I think the harsh reality is that if you're poor, you should think about moving to a more affordable part of the country.  Nobody just deserves to live in the most desirable real estate in America because it's their birthright. 

[bedstuy]

I think everyone who has thought about the issue agrees with you in principle.  We need way more free market thinking and creative chaos in land use.  Basically, the difficult part is ramming through a development agenda (Getting much of NYC upzoned was one of Bloomberg's greatest achievements).  Everyone wants a piece of the action.

Ah, but see here at my school, you have an "anti-gentrification campaign". I mean, just, ugh.

Hey, I'm with you there.  I'm a white guy who lives in a historically black neighborhood, I'm at the forefront of gentrification.  I hate those self-righteous liberals who want to treat half of NYC like some type of Indian reservation for poor black people.  These notions of "gentrification=bad" would just look like sour grapes and old, bitter people griping about younger people if the issue didn't trigger the leftist "Spidey-sense" for anything that can be analogized to colonialism/racism/whites taking from browns.

It makes me so mad. These people are basically calling for the maintenance of racially segregated ghettos. How this is supposed to improve their lot, I don't know, but I mean, it's just baffling how these people think.

https://www.facebook.com/coalitionagainstgentrification

I think the harsh reality is that if you're poor, you should think about moving to a more affordable part of the country.  Nobody just deserves to live in the most desirable real estate in America because it's their birthright. 

This. Thank you. I don't know why people seem to think housing projects belong right next to Lincoln Center or in the middle of Chelsea. Like I always say, it's not like I have a right to live on the Upper East Side.

A couple of my relatives live in an upscale neighborhood in Manhattan, in city subsidized housing.  Two people, 4 bedroom apartment, less than $600 a month in rent.  That sort of thing needs to end, it's totally unfair.

 

[bedstuy]

I think the harsh reality is that if you're poor, you should think about moving to a more affordable part of the country.  Nobody just deserves to live in the most desirable real estate in America because it's their birthright. 

I wouldn't actually say that- better to say that we should radically increase housing supply so that there's room for the gentrifiers and for the poor people, living side-by-side.  That would be the welfare-maximizing move, rather than either preserving ghettoes or making people move to Atlanta and Houston, which is actually a pretty sh*tty thing to do, both to the people in question (along both financial and social axes), as well as to the environment as a whole.  (Remember that's my real horse in this race.)

I think NYC obviously needs to have poor people for their labor so it's silly to consider the idea that they're all going to leave.  The question is whether our planning needs to freeze the current wealth patterns in place today.  In reality, poor people are going to move to the Bronx, Queens, New Jersey and deep Brooklyn.  Harlem near Columbia and Central Park is just valuable for its location and will eventually become mostly middle class young people and rich people.

This. Thank you. I don't know why people seem to think housing projects belong right next to Lincoln Center or in the middle of Chelsea. Like I always say, it's not like I have a right to live on the Upper East Side.

Well, housing projects in general are a bad idea.  Having buildings set aside some percentage of their units as "affordable", or giving folks housing vouchers, is a better idea and there's no reason those units can't be in "better" neighborhoods.  Obviously some areas will always be richer and more desirable than others on average, but there's tremendous value in it not being completely monolithic and walled-off, in either direction.

It's a question of marginal cost though.  A housing unit in Chelsea is far, far more expensive than a housing unit in Castle Hill or Sunset Park.  So, there's a real choice between more units and units in the most desirable areas of the city.

[bedstuy]

I think the harsh reality is that if you're poor, you should think about moving to a more affordable part of the country.  Nobody just deserves to live in the most desirable real estate in America because it's their birthright.  

I wouldn't actually say that- better to say that we should radically increase housing supply so that there's room for the gentrifiers and for the poor people, living side-by-side.  That would be the welfare-maximizing move, rather than either preserving ghettoes or making people move to Atlanta and Houston, which is actually a pretty sh*tty thing to do, both to the people in question (along both financial and social axes), as well as to the environment as a whole.  (Remember that's my real horse in this race.)

I think NYC obviously needs to have poor people for their labor so it's silly to consider the idea that they're all going to leave.  The question is whether our planning needs to freeze the current wealth patterns in place today.  In reality, poor people are going to move to the Bronx, Queens, New Jersey and deep Brooklyn.  Harlem near Columbia and Central Park is just valuable for its location and will eventually become mostly middle class young people and rich people.

Pushing poor people out to the suburbs (or places like eastern Queens that might as well be suburbs), out beyond the effective reach of public transit, is not actually a satisfactory outcome.  In fact, insofar as it provides a breeding ground for hinterland-populist "environmentalism = elitist" thought, it is pretty much the worst outcome possible in some lights.

The case for radically denser cities is precisely that you accommodate reinvestment and gentrification, and the very real benefits they do provide to the planet and to the city's solvency and quality-of-life, without doing that.

It's interesting.  NYC was once a more affordable place to live in terms of housing, likely because of the higher density.  Today, we have much bigger apartments and more single people in the city, and thus less density.  If we had the density and transit investment of that era, we would return to sanity in our housing prices most likely.

And, I agree that we ought to have plenty of low income housing in transit distance.  That would include improving transit to the places where the land values are currently lower, but within an easy commute to Manhattan.  Improving transit from the Bronx, Queens and New Jersey would help a ton.  It should be waaay easier to commute from Union City and Jersey City.  

I would also look at trying to develop more of a spread out business core.  There's no reason we need to have so much office space crowded in Fidi and Midtown.  There ought to be much more advertising and media in Williamsburg and Downtown Brooklyn.  There ought to be more office development in LIC.

What bedstuy is arguing is exactly the same as what urban "developers" in the 1940s and 50s argued in concentrating poor blacks in inner city areas in the first place. The market desirability of the suburbs had to be maintained only by keeping them out of them.

That's ridiculous. 

[bedstuy]

We need to develop large scale affordable housing areas around express transit nodes for easy access in and out of the city. But I don't see why we need to cut out commerce from those areas, rather we need to throw in large-scale housing in the mix. I keep on saying "large scale" because that's the only way reasonably priced housing could be conceivably be profitable without subsidization nowadays. But there are still large swathes of Manhattan than can be upzoned and built-up.

Also, I'm a small-minded Manhattanite, but more subways are always a good idea. You will probably eat me alive for saying this, but we should have built the Westway- not only would it have freed the West Side from unsightly traffic, but it would have created a lot of new land.

I think everyone besides striped bass thinks we should have buried the Westside highway. 

[bedstuy]

The only reason that didn't get built:  The EIS didn't take into account the impact on bass in the Hudson River.  It would have been fine if they said, "This project will kill all the bass, but it's worth it given the air quality improvement."

[bedstuy]

Let me explain myself, I think NYC has a certain class of poor people who are entirely stuck in poverty.  They have housing through NYCHA, Section 8 or Mitchell Lama HPD subsidized programs, and can barely make ends meet that way.  But, they live in communities where poverty is so endemic that they'll never get jobs making much more than minimum wage because they can't get more than a high school education.  Of course, they theoretically could get a government or union job, but those are often based on nepotism or connections.  So, for that class of people, I think New York City is not the best place to live.  They're so far away from the next step on the ladder, where they're paying their own rent, that they're locked in a condition of poverty.  If you lived in a city where you could pay for an apartment and food, getting ahead would be easier. 

[bedstuy]

We need to smash the cycle of poverty, but charlatans who are professional race-baiters (e.g. Al Sharpton) aren't going to be helping in that regard, now are they? That's another issue entirely, but there's no reason for that uplifting- if and when it happens- to happen on the Upper East Side or right behind Lincoln Center.

Why shouldn't it happen there, at least for some people?  It's unhealthy for places to be a monoculture of everyone having the same appearance, jobs, tax bracket, etc.- it stunts understanding and empathy.

I agree with that in principle, but the fact is that those neighborhoods are some of the fanciest in the United States.  They're too far gone in terms of getting a good mix of incomes.  It's also just a cost issue.  It could be a matter of getting 3X or 4X the number of units per $X if you build in places like Bushwick or Crown Heights. 

[bedstuy]

Let me explain myself, I think NYC has a certain class of poor people who are entirely stuck in poverty.  They have housing through NYCHA, Section 8 or Mitchell Lama HPD subsidized programs, and can barely make ends meet that way.  But, they live in communities where poverty is so endemic that they'll never get jobs making much more than minimum wage because they can't get more than a high school education.  Of course, they theoretically could get a government or union job, but those are often based on nepotism or connections.  So, for that class of people, I think New York City is not the best place to live.  They're so far away from the next step on the ladder, where they're paying their own rent, that they're locked in a condition of poverty.  If you lived in a city where you could pay for an apartment and food, getting ahead would be easier. 

The issue is that what you are arguing is not entirely based on economic concerns. The Chinatowns in both NYC and SF are very poor, and located in prime locations, yet no one would dream of relocating them to the Bronx or Oakland, or building some development on top of it, or complain that it blocks their view of Lincoln Center, in spite of their overcrowding and poverty (and organized crime). That is true even for other impoverished first-generation immigrant communities in neighborhoods that aren't as colorful.

Chinatown in NYC is being gentrified, actually.  And, I never said, only black people.  I said, the class of people who are living on public housing assistance to live in NYC and have problems of endemic poverty.  That's not really a huge issue in Chinatown.

There's also the same pattern where people are moving from Chinatown to Flushing, Queens and Bensonhurst/Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

[bedstuy]

We need to smash the cycle of poverty, but charlatans who are professional race-baiters (e.g. Al Sharpton) aren't going to be helping in that regard, now are they? That's another issue entirely, but there's no reason for that uplifting- if and when it happens- to happen on the Upper East Side or right behind Lincoln Center.

Why shouldn't it happen there, at least for some people?  It's unhealthy for places to be a monoculture of everyone having the same appearance, jobs, tax bracket, etc.- it stunts understanding and empathy.

I agree with that in principle, but the fact is that those neighborhoods are some of the fanciest in the United States.  They're too far gone in terms of getting a good mix of incomes.  It's also just a cost issue.  It could be a matter of getting 3X or 4X the number of units per $X if you build in places like Bushwick or Crown Heights.  

I think the social costs of that monoculture are sufficiently severe that we should be doing things like having affordable housing set-asides, Mitchell-Lama, vouchers, etc. even in tony neighborhoods like Chelsea and the UES.  Even if all you can afford to make is a token effort at inclusiveness, and I do agree that the bulk of working-class housing is going to have to end up elsewhere... a token effort is better than nothing.  

And, just an aside, as crazy as it sounds many parts of the UES are relatively affordable by Manhattan standards, actually, especially closer to the river, and are relatively affordable because they are built so densely.  I mean, folks are fleeing the East Village to go live in affordable faraway Yorktown, is what's happening.

As for Chinatown, that's a complicated story.  There is gentrification there, but there's also been plenty of expansion of the Chinese population there as well over the past few decades (as it has now well and truly swallowed up every last remnant of what used to be Little Italy).  And from my perspective I'd also say that Chinatown is somewhat unique in that it's already super-dense, and it's super-dense even by NYC standards.  It's not like you're reinvesting into an area that's been hollowed-out, or building six stories where there were one-to-three- you're already at that six-story standard, with pretty cramped quarters besides.  

Yeah, the UES is relatively affordable for a basic apartment, it just has some serious volume at the upper end.

Chinatown is a special case.  Everyone there just violates the housing codes and live in close quarters. But, that's more affordable if you live in big family units.  Hasids and Asians are just culturally geared towards that sort of lifestyle.  Black people aren't going to have these multi-generational big families living in one apartment.  It's much more often single people or a mother or grandmother with children, so housing is automatically more expensive.

[bedstuy]

Treasure Island and West Oakland are some good places for lots of new apartment buildings.

I understand things are headed in the right direction over there, but I still wouldn't call West Oakland a "good" place for lots of new apartment buildings. Most people with any sort of alternative wouldn't even consider living there. Legal issues notwithstanding, from my point of view, most of the Presidio is an enormous waste of space in a city that is starved for real estate. If I were emperor, that's where I'd start in creating new housing for San Francisco.

Well, we need to keep parks. Should we replace Central Park by housing?

No, but we should look into this visionary proposal.

...

To be serious for a moment, Jane Jacobs was actually kind of scornful of parks (or at least skeptical of their universal acclaim), as she thought they interrupted the urban fabric, and served as underused boundaries and poorly-lit havens for crime and unsavory characters.  And some parks are probably sufficiently poorly designed, maintained, or sited such they may as well be empty lots and could be used better in other ways.   But she was also writing at a time when urban crime was on the rise, and it's likely that some of the problems she identified were a product of her time rather than universal.  In any case, developing parkland is going to be considered a bridge too far by just about everybody, and I am not going to be the person to take a brave stand against trees.

We should really just build over our big cemeteries like Greenwood and The Evergreens. 

[bedstuy]

These would make great micro-studio apartments!

[bedstuy]

Let me explain myself, I think NYC has a certain class of poor people who are entirely stuck in poverty.

Most poor people are 'entirely stuck' in poverty. This is the classic problem with poverty in general. It is no better outside NYC or outside cities in general. Rural poverty is pretty awful. Suburban poverty - which is mostly what you seem to be advocating - is genuinely grim. Poverty cycles and the classic 'poverty trap' are certainly not unique to big cities and operate in all places where there is poverty.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

How does dumping them elsewhere solve the problem? The specific difficulties of being poor in NYC would just be replaced by the specific difficulties of being poor Somewhere Else. You don't solve a city's social problems by deportation. Besides, it is their city too.

You're putting words in my mouth and calling me racist which I don't appreciate.

Let's say you're a indigent uneducated person in Chelsea in Manhattan.  The cheapest apartment you could get is $2700 a month and you make $1000 a month working part time.  On top of that, the general cost of living is high in your neighborhood and amenities are geared towards the upper 1%.  It's your contention that it's in your best interest to stay living in that neighborhood at all costs.  I would say there are economic realities that make it beneficial to move somewhere with a lower cost of living. 

The fact is that making a living off of a low income job is far easier elsewhere in the country.  There are plenty of major cities where you can find an apartment for $500 a month.  That type  of cost of living is more livable for people at the low end of incomes.  I don't see how that's a racist or ridiculous assertion. 

[bedstuy]

I think this discussion is way too abstract.

Personally, I think the ideal urban/suburban neighborhood setup is mixed-use, mixed-income and generally higher density than where US density patterns are today.  The question is: how do you get there in any particular urban area and what policies do you use? 

If we're talking about mandating that Scarsdale has X number of low income housing, I think that's ridiculous.  If we're talking about building gross, way below market slum buildings like the NYCHA projects, I think that's ridiculous.  If we're talking about mandating that luxury developments in pricey neighborhoods in Manhattan give a few lucky people cheap apartments, I generally don't like that idea. 

The basic reason I don't like that policy:  It's basically redistribution by urban planning.  I don't trust that using redistribution as a metric for planning will be efficient.  I would rather redistribute wealth through taxation because taxation is just the cleanest way to accomplish redistribution in any situation.

[bedstuy]

I think this discussion is way too abstract.

Personally, I think the ideal urban/suburban neighborhood setup is mixed-use, mixed-income and generally higher density than where US density patterns are today.  The question is: how do you get there in any particular urban area and what policies do you use? 

If we're talking about mandating that Scarsdale has X number of low income housing, I think that's ridiculous.  If we're talking about building gross, way below market slum buildings like the NYCHA projects, I think that's ridiculous.  If we're talking about mandating that luxury developments in pricey neighborhoods in Manhattan give a few lucky people cheap apartments, I generally don't like that idea. 

The basic reason I don't like that policy:  It's basically redistribution by urban planning.  I don't trust that using redistribution as a metric for planning will be efficient.  I would rather redistribute wealth through taxation because taxation is just the cleanest way to accomplish redistribution in any situation.

Yes, that is the question, I agree.  And it's all well and good to criticize specific approaches- and god knows I don't think more NYCHA slums are the answer to anything- but you gotta provide an alternative.  I think your criticism misses the forest for the trees somewhat, actually: I do agree that mandated affordable housing in places like Scarsdale and Chelsea is a lottery, and not any sort of solid large-scale basis for redistribution like taxation would be... but that's not entirely their point.  The benefits of mandates like that are almost more in the realm of trying to foster that mixed-income, denser built pattern that you agree is ideal, so they are more "on point" than it seems at first. 

Are they the absolute best approaches we could theoretically use?  Probably not.  But getting rid of them without coming up with a solid alternative first is a bad idea.

There's all sorts of good policy alternatives.  Just responsible zoning that isn't poor-phobic and doesn't fetishize the big single family home would be a great start.  If you invest in transit and zone higher density, you create economies of scale that make things more affordable.  Also, reforming the tax code at the state and national level would be great.  We still have cretins like Cuomo stealing from the MTA to pay for tax cuts for the suburbs.  If we stop subsidizing suburbs, that's going to make urban areas more attractive for lower income people.