A Fourth of July Extra
Housing growth, a guide for cities.
By Ronald Clewer
July 04, 2024
The following is a direct reprint from the folks at the NYU Furman Center from their LinkedIn post today. While intended for NY City, the 6 principles apply to every city struggling with housing inventory challenges. All principles are important, but the last three speak most to me. How about you? Tell me your thoughts.
LinkedIn Post
“NYU Furman Center faculty directors Vicki Been and Ingrid Gould Ellen offer six principles to guide policymakers as they try to create a housing strategy that will continue to welcome a diversity of new residents and to help them climb the economic ladder via Vital City https://buff.ly/4coAwWa
The first principle is flexibility. The cities that will thrive in the future are those that can reinvent themselves in the face of remote work and other unforeseen challenges to come.
The second principle is openness to growth and change. Leaders should focus on making it easier to build more, and more varied, housing overall and investing heavily in means-tested, subsidized housing that can ensure some level of diversity even in the face of rapid appreciation.
The third key principle is generality. The task of providing more housing —and more affordable housing— can’t fall to just a few neighborhoods, as it is now. Efficiency, fairness and political viability depend upon every community district doing its part to provide more housing.
The fourth principle is equity. We must end exclusionary and unfair land use policies, reduce the city’s high levels of segregation and boost homeownership among households of color.
A fifth principle is targeting the neediest. We need to focus on the lowest-income households (in part because they won’t directly benefit as much as others from new building).
The final key principle is thoughtful cost control. The City needs a comprehensive and sustained all-hands-on-deck strategy to reduce the costs of developing and operating residential buildings and stretch tax dollars further. Housing affordability is key to a vibrant and sustainable future for New York. While the roots of some of the challenges are national, and even global, there is much the City can do. While the city has changed in myriad ways over the decades and centuries, one constant has been its wonderfully open doors.”