Land use politics in New York is profoundly aberrational. Bad schools and City income tax drive out of the City electorate exactly the middle class family voters who so dominate land use politics in most communities ? which leaves behind a struggle between the rich (who ordinarily don?t have to be concerned with zoning, since they live on multi-acre spreads anywhere but in Manhattan), the poor and their ?advocates? (who are granted no hearing whatever in most communities), and the BoBos who can?t really afford to live in New York but who sacrifice inordinately to do so and hence have a big stake in the outcome (BoBos are a tiny minority in any other communities.)

If the typical upper-middle-class family had the dominant role in the City that they do in the suburbs, you?d see a different ? and, I think, much better ? outcome to much housing politics. There?d be plenty of high rises with spacious apartments, because your ?typical? family likes space and doesn?t care about roof lines or other traditional aesthetic stuff. There?d be no bizarre misallocation of resources such as the housing projects on 8th Avenue in Chelsea or in the 60?s on the Upper West Side, crowding thousands of people without the education or acculturation necessary to succeed in midtown jobs, at great cost to the taxpayers, in space that could accommodate thousands of upper middle class families paying market rates.

Actually, those neighborhoods were slums when those buildings went up, and there were plenty of manufacturing jobs nearby.

Things have changed some.

I'm trying to figure out if this proposal is in the context of the "sliver" buildings that began popping up in Manhattan during the past several years. I don't think that any rant that discusses this solely in terms of "affordable housing" without at least bothering to mention the possible reasons why such zoning may be desirable - or what that particular zoning is attempting to achieve - is very credible.

If the predominant neighborhood height in the area is 5-6 stories, and someone wants to squeeze in a 45 story sliver - wouldn't that raise all sorts of questions about the need for additional, and very costly, fire equipment for the local fire station, for example?

There's also the rent control issue. In my building alone, there are at least a dozen little old ladies/couples who have been living in 1-3 bedroom apartments since the early 1960s, and currently pay less than $500 a month for them, despite the fact that there are families who actually need that space who would be willing and able to rent it for much more. Having people renting apartments they often don't need (or rather, don't need as much space as they're renting) at well below market drives up prices in the rest of the market because, after taking into account the heinous NYC building codes, residential space is always going to be in somewhat short supply. I'm sympathetic to people living on fixed incomes, but they shouldn't be able to rent their Upper West Side apartments for nothing when there are other people willing to pay what the space is worth.

Of course, I'm also somewhat biased because my evil landlord is using the fact that he makes very little off of some apartments in my building as an excuse not to make necessary and legally required repairs (e.g.; as replacing the elevator that breaks down about once a week, leaving those of us who live on the 15th floor SOL, and leaving the guy in a wheelchair in the penthouse completely housebound; fixing my front door so that it actually closes and I don't have to fear for my safety when I'm home alone at night; and repairing the intercom system that breaks once a month or so). I understand that my landlord is just a jerk, and we're pursuing legal action, but at the same time, it pisses me off that he has that excuse, and frankly, I think he'd be more likely to make the repairs if he didn't know that half of his tenants were never going to pay for themselves and won't move unless he makes life truly miserable for them.

But I digress. The economics of rent control are still just backwards, and the practice needs to be ended if there's any hope of curbing outrageous housing prices in NYC.

I don't think that low-income housing can be the only goal. While the New York Times' portrayal of white professionals protesting high rise housing is somewhat unflattering, those people are not without a case. Nobody wants their neighborhood to end up looking like the Upper East Side.

I thought this guy had it about right (from the article): "If every place had contextual zoning, we would never have the Empire State Building or the Guggenheim, which are two of the most uncontextual buildings that there could possibly be," said Andrew Dolkart, an associate professor of historic preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. "Neighborhoods change, and somehow there has to be a balance between these things."

I don't live in NYC, but for visitors one of the its joys is architectural diversity -- the sheer madcap, "busting at the seams" jumble of cityscape. It's not tidy, contrived, or overly planned. It's New F---ing York, baby!

Anyway, the operative word here is "balance". Which I think involves compromise. Wouldn't that be worth trying for a change.

1. Lots of very very rich people live in Manhattan.
2. NYC has had a "housing shortage" for at least 50-60 years and historically such shortage has absolutely nothing to do with zoning.