We are at the phase of US decline where we rename shit forever instead of doing any actual systemic change. What we need… is more public bathrooms, but he’s, let’s rename everything for no reason just because of the word comfort. This is so infuriatingly dumb.

The US is a third world country.

Indeed rain is very much wet

This guy honestly doesn’t do himself a single favor in this piece. What kind of moron complains about how hard it is for them personally when they’re making $150k??? Yes - there are cataclysmic issues with NYC real estate pricing due to a small number of rich assholes, but this piece does nothing to help tell that story.

150k in NYC is not even enough to afford to buy (I realize this) and that's a HUGE problem... and barely enough to save enough if you have a family... not denying this... its just a bad article.

Best NYC post in a while lol

That super weird as he has an architect who made the plans. Basically, he’ll get an inspector from the city, they’ll come by and say these two things need fixing, he’ll fix them, they’ll send a new guy, different shit, repeat forever.

He has one…

I have a friend who bought in Forest Hills and its been a year and a half and still hasn't got his plans approved by the city for renovations... truly a wild amount of corruption everywhere.

"As THE CITY has reported, the cost of installing what are known as “comfort stations” in city parks ballooned before the pandemic — from an average cost of $1.3 million in 2011 to $3.6 million as of 2018. "

What the actual fuck... The biggest issue in NYC is everything costs millions of dollars for literally no reason.

No your taxes go to Mayor Swagger’s entourage

Leaches dying is good.

In no place in what I wrote did I imply in any way building luxury buildings.

It needs a coherent simple story - and it doesn’t help that New York democrats are largely neolibs who don’t think this is a problem…

A lot has been said about it but I’d agree that nothing meaningful has been done. Getting from where we are to a better place is super tricky and no one has thoughtfully plotted out a path.

For example… people who bought a long time ago are living in nice Brownstones who if we raised taxes (as we should) would have to immediately move out as they can’t afford to pay. So should we immediately adjust taxes up and down…. Do we do change over a decade etc? There are a lot of complex questions that have to be thought about with a focus on what the middle class need… and Ofcourse none of that is happening.

NYC has some particularly bad issues around property taxes —— https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-new-york-property-tax-benefits-rich/ that actually are totally different than the rest of the country.

Yeah the taxation question is really complicated as to how we get from where we are to where we want to be… no denying.

You’ll get no argument from me as to who they benefit…

Sadly cashew apples are not that tasty imho

There’s definitely a nuanced approach that thoughtfully thinks about keeping some historic buildings around… while massively taxing their owners for the cost to the city - and HEAVILY focused on ensuring we are constantly building a large inventory of multi family homes that are non rentals, but actually affordable to buy.

This is how historic districts work.

This is not a good reason to throw trash on the street. Plenty of cities doesn’t have trash containers every block and people just learn how to not be assholes.

Yes, NYC has a terrible approach to trash containers and we need a system that has closed containers that can handle the load of trash we have in this city … but the even bigger issue is that we have awful trash culture - we generate a stupid amount of excess waste, and plenty of people in this city just litter for no reason.

Hot take here but the people that are destroying the middle class are not making between 100k and 500k… the people who are destroying the middle class are making millions. As much as I find it laughable that people making 300k are complaining about how hard it is… raising multiple kids in NYC is stupidly expensive at almost all income levels. We should be reforming the tax code, and getting good legislation through so that basics are affordable for all of us. The real enemy is the .01%, not the 1%. They are far closer to us than they are to billionaires and we need to remember that.

no because the issue with cars being late has to do with tracks and signals which in exactly zero ways are getting improved by this

Yes that too

This money should 100% come out of police pension money. If they can’t do their jobs… they don’t get to collect a giant pension. Fuck the police.

I was going to copy those exact paragraphs into here too... what the act fuck