Yep, I agree.

> So you think it’s okay that transplants move into a neighborhood and consciously not acknowledge their neighbors or even try to get to know anyone from the community? >

People should generally try to get to know their neighbors, of course. But that shouldn't be a precursor to getting to live somewhere. People need a place to live. The same comments you make about "transplants" not acknowledging their neighbors is the same one that white suburbanites make when minorities, immigrants or low-income people move into their neighborhoods. It's bullshit.

Was it white people that killed this housing development in Harlem??

The facts remain. The white population in NY has declined every decade. The hispanic and Asian population has increased. Ergo, if you want to claim someone is driving out black New Yorkers, then you need to actually look at the populations that are growing.

But putting blame on anyone for moving in and out is stupid and backward as fuck.

> Now how many of those new neighbors speak to the people in the community? Won’t even make eye contact with you…

"Now how many of those new neighbors speak to the people in the community? Won’t even make eye contact with you…"

You realize that white suburbanites make the exact same comment when minorities or low income folks move in to their neighborhoods? It's bullshit then, it's bullshit now. This is America, we share this place together.

No, the poster had a bullshit point, which was "we don't more of those kind of people around."

>no duh! It’s called gentrification. Now how many of those new neighbors speak to the people in the community? Won’t even make eye contact with you…

You sound just like the racist neighbors I had that complained about my immigrant parents coming to their neighborhood.

The white population has declined every decade, including this last one. A few neighborhoods have seen some more white people moving in (which, given all the complaints about white flight and our supposed positive approach to desegration, shouldn't be a bad thing) and a bunch of neighborhoods have seen the white population decrease (and people of other races move in). That's normal.

It's not white gentrifiers that are driving black New Yorkers out. It's Hispanics ones.

I'm thinking of mixed residential/commercial/food, not a contained happy hour places. Though I agree that Stone Street is a nice place, though much quieter than it used to be pre-pandemic.

The area around Fulton St / Pace University and Wall is pretty active. Also the area between WTC and Chambers ( though some call that Tribeca) where there's a lot of residents and tourists.

Evertyhing south of that though, dead. It's a lot better in the summer.

Okay, let's take tax breaks off the table. Do you think some zoning restrictions can go away? Perhaps the requirement that every bedroom have a window? Maybe loosen some plumbing regulations. Are these things we can concede on if it reduces the cost of conversions? Or are we going to cling to everything.

$28M is a rounding error. Though I'm sure if they handed them out to New Yorkers many would gladly take them.

They won't do it if the economic value isnt' there. We should examine where there are opportunities to reduce the costs of making these conversions happen, especially if there's no tangible impact from reducing the regulations.

Renovating the units is at least in part expensive due to zoning regulations, per the article. We should look for opportunities to remove these obstacles where they make sense. This reduces the cost of reno.

Bringing more apartments into the supply has a rent reducing effect.

Financial district was significantly cheaper than most of Manhattan up until a few years ago, despite the expense of renovating apartments down there.

I would probably want to learn the thoughts and motivations of a business that has a significant impact on my life, especially since this vertical is my number cost of living expense.

It's okay to learn something, and take facts and thoughts into consideration. I promise you, it's fine.

> I think the long-term goal is to make midtown less shitty by having it become more residential, somewhat similar to the financial district.

The goal is really to build houses where there is capacity to do so. 25 year olds don't have a problem catching a cab or taking the bus/subway to go wherever they want to go. I'm sure many of them would jump on the opportunity to live somewhere with more space or lower rents and still be close to all of Manhattan's amenities. When i was 25 years old the distance of places wasn't really much of an obstacle to me.

I'm sure 20 years ago a lot of people though Financial District sucks and that no one would want to live there either. Since then, the population has exploded from 20K to 60K.

People will live there if there is affordability. The same thing happened with Fidi, which consistently had lower rents and housing prices than the rest of lower Manhattan.

As a city, we have "no sympathy, no sorry"-ed ourselves into the nations highest rents and housing costs. Deleterious zero sum thinking. Annoying.

I agree. I don't think anyone should get a pass, or if there are warning they should be distributed equally. There are no "right people" . ..just lawbreakers the laws should be applied fairly.

> Hopefully everyone is taking note of how this is playing out. Any time law enforcement is asked to enforce the law, it never goes after the right people, only the soft targets not in possession of a PBA card.

Who are the "right" people? Are there better and worse law evaders?

The last few times I've flown into LGA the lines have been ridiculously long, so Uber/Lyft are definitely preferred. Even with the walk to the garage the traffic flow is just much faster.

> they could be used for classroom and education, medical uses like doctor and dentist offices, health purposes like fitness and dance studios,

The number of students in New York continues to shrink. The number of commuters in New York has shrunk as well which means the demand for doctors and dentists (people swinging by during lunch or after work) shrinks. Fitness and Dance studios . . . I guess so.

Overall there is not that much demand for commercial space now. I hear your point on the expenses of conversion, but what's wrong with dorm style housing?

There are a lot of people that already live in defacto dorm style housing anyway. Would it be that bad of an idea to offer something that is specifically tailored for that? I agree with you that commercial-to-residential conversions aren't the magic solution, but there is no one magic solution. I think these sort of conversions play a role. Dormitory style housing should be available in NY.

LMAO. It's not giant real estate corporations controlling the supply. Its local homeowners. There was one neighborhood activist group that fought to preserve a parking lot.

>they can keep it low and prices high simply by sitting on units and not putting them on the market, and then use those vacancies to claim losses. it's a win-win for them to keep rents high even while building more units.

This is also bullshit. Look up vacancy rates in New York.

Also, why do people think that landlords are playing this convoluted long con of keeping units off the market for long periods of time, earning zero rental income, in the hopes of earning more rental income sometime int he distant future? How does that work?

The development of the Financial District happened organically. Residential space opened up, people moved downtown, then restaurants opened, then retail and nightlife, and it created a virtuous cycle.

There is no reason why people wouldn't move to the Penn Station area. The reason people don't live there now is because there is nowhere to live.

Would it be that bad to convert a bunch of offices into dorms style residences with shared bathrooms, kitchens etc? These aren't ideal living conditions, but IMO it would accomplish a lot on the housing front - it would offer young people fresh out of college/high school the opportunity to live in New York at relatively low rent, reduce the strain on housing for older people.

Because of our inability to build new housing in this city, 25 year olds crowding in 4 at a time into 2 bedroom apartments is really taking a toll on affordability for older people that might want more space, want to grow families, have families, etc.

What the fuck does this even mean. You need a news source to understand how consumer spending drives the economy of this city? You can't just use simple logic?

What does the existence of billionaires have to do with the general economy of the city? Do you think the number of billionaires in a city impacts spending at the local bodega, local restaurants, local drugstores? Do you think billionaires are just a magic source of money for everything the city wants to accomplish?