#housingpolicy

As winter approaches and temperatures dip below freezing, New York City's public housing population – roughly the size of Boston – continue to face the uncertainty of how the city will fund the Housing Authority's $30+ billion in needed repairs, including heating, elevators, lead, pests, and mold. (The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) offers housing for lower-income New Yorkers – the average rent is currently $533 a month with a waitlist of over 180,000 families.) In a recent Gotham Gazette op-ed, Professor Nicholas Bloom advocates for transferring air rights from NYCHA developments for cash, as proposed by @Regionalplan. With a simple zoning amendment, NYCHA could raise up to $8 billion for repairs by selling off-air rights. Previously the city has tried to fund NYCHA's deficit by leasing public housing land to private developers (infill development) which has been politically unsuccessful. Bloom explains that transferring development rights would allow NYCHA to defer these attempts at infill development, preserving some of the city's last open spaces. But this solution does not address the low density of NYCHA superblocks which contain more than 75% open space. Bloom points to recent rezonings, such as East Midtown, that have allowed air rights transfers for commercial development: "It is hard, moreover, to have much empathy for city residents and their elected officials resistant to finding alternative funding sources for NYCHA. It is true that Mayor de Blasio has committed unprecedented local funds to NYCHA, but the City of New York has found much more additional money for generous labor contracts, ferries, new jails, and bike paths, while allowing NYCHA residents to face another winter with very old boilers." Should open space on public housing developments be preserved or developed? Or should the city transfer those development rights for cash? Whatever the solution, it is time for the city to get serious about renovating and preserving the city's public housing stock. #nycha #publichousing #nychagram @nychagram #publicpolicy #urbanplanning #housingpolicy #affordablehousing #infilldevelopment #nychainfill #queensbridgehouses #brooklyn (at Robert Fulton Houses) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5oGUCsnaeb/?igshid=6nmu196buye1

We found this displacement letter template in the back of a Slum Clearance report from 1953. By the late 1960s, an estimated 29,464 families had been displaced by urban renewal projects in New York City, 41% of which were families of color. As this illustrates, often families would recieve a letter that their home was in the way of a new housing development, expressway or civic building and given months or sometimes weeks to leave. Despite promises of rehousing, families, especially those of color, were unable to move into the new developments and often pushed out of the neighborhood. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, the largest housing development in Manhattan, did not even allow black families when it opened in 1947. Urban renewal also caused a mass exodus of white families out of the city to the suburbs known as white flight. #UrbanRenewal #NegroRemoval #gentrification #fha #robertmoses #slumclearance #urbanism #nychistory #pennsouth #washingtonsquarevillage #publichousing #nycha #mitchelllama #housingpolicy #lowereastside #chelsea #brooklyn #thebronx #nycurbanism (at Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsZBhE9l3M1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2908ub33n4og

#MapMondays! 1932 map of Brooklyn and Queens color-coded to show the value of single-family homes and corresponding rental rates, as well as the location of "Foreign or Colored" residents. The map gives insight into the vivid segregation of New York City in during this time period that has had lasting effects to this day. The map is from City Markets, A Study of Thirty-Five Cities by The Curtis Publishing Company. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #mapmonday #cartography #infomap #urbanpolicy #nychistory #urbanplanning #urbanism #housingpolicy #queensny #brooklyn #gowanus #parkslope #prospectheights #cobblehill #dumbo #brooklynheights #bayridge #coneyisland #fortgreene #williamsburg #clintonhill #map (at Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqGJ6utF_fE/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ekqfykmxw8lg

## Why the American Dream of Homeownership Is Becoming a Relic The latest release from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies paints an unambiguous picture: what once was an exceptional post‑war prosperity is now the norm—housing affordability has slipped from a fleeting advantage to a pervasive shortfall for the majority of Americans. Decades of rising home prices, stagnant wages, and policy inertia have turned what scholars warned about half a century ago into a structural defect in the nation’s housing system. ### Key Takeaways - **Affordability has shifted from anomaly to baseline:** Recent data show that a growing share of households now spend more than 30 % of income on housing, a threshold traditionally used to signal unaffordability. - **Historical warnings proved prescient:** Researchers in the 1970s warned that only the wealthiest could keep pace with home‑price inflation; the current report confirms that prediction has materialized across income brackets. - **Supply constraints intensify the crisis:** Limited new construction, zoning restrictions, and a shortage of affordable rental units have compounded price pressures. - **Income growth lags behind price growth:** Median household incomes have risen modestly, while home values have increased at a rate several times higher, eroding purchasing power. - **Policy inertia is a core driver:** Federal, state, and local policies have failed to address the systemic mismatch between demand and supply, allowing the affordability gap to widen. - **Long‑term economic implications:** Persistent unaffordability threatens labor mobility, widens wealth inequality, and could dampen overall economic growth. - **Potential pathways forward:** The report outlines interventions such as expanding affordable housing subsidies, reforming zoning laws, and incentivizing higher‑density development. - **Regional disparities matter:** While the crisis is national, coastal metros face the steepest affordability gaps, whereas some inland markets still retain modest price dynamics. - **Demographic pressure:** Millennials and Gen Z are entering the housing market later and with heavier debt burdens, further stressing affordability. - **Urgency for coordinated action:** The authors stress that without decisive, multi‑level policy action, the affordability deficit will become entrenched, reshaping the fabric of American homeownership. [Read Full Article](https://news.ababil360.com/harvard-housing-report-shows-housing-affordability-crisis-was-never-a-guarantee/) #HousingAffordability #HarvardHousingStudy #HomePriceCrisis #HousingPolicy #EconomicInequality #AffordableHousing #UrbanPlanning #RealEstateTrends #WealthGap #newsababil360