Squatting

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I hardly have a romanticized view of New York in the 70s and 80s, having lived here all my life, and seen exactly how bad things got in those years.

And I’m not a “guy who moved to Westchester.” WTF? I still live here. I’ve lived here all my life.

In the 70s and 80s we dealt with crime and collapsing infrastructure. Now, we’re dealing with the fact that middle-class families, like mine, simply cannot afford space for families. I don’t know how to make it work so that I can stay in NYC, with my three children. The cost of shelter is out of of control.

No, I’m not. That’s bullshit. Landlords who warehouse housing stock and allow it to be used by heroin dealers while they sit on it until they can get a premium rent or sale price have simply gone into partnership with those heroin dealers, and ought to be sitting in prison alongside them.

22

No, I didn’t mean you. Maybe about ten years ago, I used to hear from people a few years older than myself about how NYC was “going downhill” and pining about the glorious days of yore when you used to be able to blaze up a joint in restaurants or whatever. Of course, they had long since left wonderful New York for places like Westchester, Long Island or NJ.

I guess. How did the landlords know that rents would increase?

23

I don’t know anything about NYC housing, but I’d guess it’s the same as anywhere - rents start increasing and so so sales prices, so landlords keep hold of their properties?

Plus rents and sales prices in neighbouring areas increase, and you know that means people will need to move outwards.

24

Because New York rents, and purchase prices, *always *increase in the long term. There may be short-term fluctuations in prices, but they always go up. That’s why New York didn’t suffer a collapse in prices in 2008. Sure, prices went down a bit, but they bounced back. Investing money in NYC real estate is simply not risky. Ever.

New York is, after all, a city built on islands (except for the Bronx, but the land border between the Bronx and the rest of mainland US is pretty fixed). There’s no more land. This isn’t Las Vegas. We can’t just build another subdivision out in the desert.

And NYC is home to Wall Street and all its ancillary businesses. People keep coming to New York, whether it’s to make a fortune on Wall Street or make it on Broadway.

And enough people keep coming, and keep making enough money, that the market for high-end housing is strong. So any developer who has a dollar to invest invests that dollar in high-priced housing, be it rental housing or condos (full disclosure – I own, with my wife, a condo in Brooklyn) rather than middle-class or working-class housing. The days when Fred Trump or Sam Lefrak made fortunes building affordable housing are long over.

And rent stabilization (NYC’s rent regulation program) is on its way out. Fewer and fewer apartments are covered by the program every day.

This is not sustainable. It can’t last. We’re already living in a city where essential city workers can’t afford to live. Let alone the bottom of the working class.

It’s pathological. And it can’t last.

And, by the way, I’ll never, ever, vote for Mike Bloomberg. He played a significant part in turning this city into what many called the “luxury city.” I mean, that’s just one reason I won’t vote for him – there are plenty of others – but it’s an important one.