I understand where you're coming from with this piece, but the thing that completely bulldozes all of your objections is prices. Without more housing -- in the form of apartment buildings and ADUs and all this other stuff -- increasing demand will meet fixed supply and the resulting price increases will crush you. Your children will not be able to stay in Bay Ridge and their children will barely be able to visit.
The key to all of this is to step back and think not just about your neighborhood but the region as a whole. If every single neighborhood succeeds in blocking these reforms, rent in the region will continue to explode. If every neighborhood is able to back of a bit and accept some apartment buildings, some bike lanes, some ADUs, some mixed-use structures, then we can make things better for everyone.
So you would say that you are very confident that if Bay Ridge accepts the proposed changes, prices will not substantially increase and the neighborhood will not substantially change? How confident of this would you say you are?
I'm extremely confident that without more housing, prices will be much higher. But I don't know how much more will be sufficient to keep them at current levels.
The illusion that we can keep these neighborhoods frozen in amber, with no real change, is a fantasy. There are only two choices: we can block all these reforms and keep the built environment the same, but then these places will become an exclusive playground of the rich. Or, if we build more housing, these places won't be as sleepy, but they'll continue to be affordable places that ordinary people can call home.
This is a thoughtful exchange. I acknowledge that there is a world in which targeted pro-development policies, including zoning changes, could deliver incremental but meaningful benefits to the city, maybe even to the community itself. I just don't believe we live in that world at the moment.
There is a certain hubris associated with believing that the policy tools in hand, including the studies that underlie them, will lead to the results desired at the levels required. This is especially apparent when some of the proposed policies - like backyard cottages - are so obviously ill-conceived. One recent analog is that many people didn't want congestion pricing because they didn't trust the government with the money. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/congestion-pricing-a-good-idea-died?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The purpose of the original essay was to highlight that the politicians and bureaucrats making the policies do not actually care about the people who live there now - they just see a broad economic problem, which they have identified as a crisis, and believe they can solve them using certain tools. What's more, the tools they want to use are too broad (significant relaxation of long-standing zoning restrictions) and ultimately rely on the market to cooperate for them to work (here, the market means developers unchained). This approach does not care whether those tools will lead to a significant degradation of life in the community or whether existing residents stay or go; in fact, let's be honest, the people pushing for these policies hope they go, as those residents are the only thing standing in the way of their ability to remake the city the way they want.
This is not about people being resistant to ANY change or about wanting the community to remain or become a rich enclave (this is still a middle class neighborhood). This is about the people who live there not trusting the current group of politicians and bureaucrats to change it for them.
Put another way, what are the chances that the current proposals will meaningfully address the city-wide issue or otherwise help the people in Bay Ridge?
I've noticed that the powers-that-be tend to want to remake already-charming areas over and over. Perhaps understandably - it is easier than doing the harder thing.
I should add that the sort of market urbanists who ply their trade in my former city, were just working from a map with lots of blank spaces - blank because they didn't wish to live in those places. They often derided the environmental priorities of the old Boomer activists of another day while essentially recreating their lives in the same streets/environs they had preferred as well. And they were fond of demonizing the car-driving people who lived in those distant areas, while demonstrating at all times a cringe-y worship of immigrants and the "wishes of those not yet here" over the wishes of the "tiresome old people who are able to make it to meetings and hearings because of their privilege". They didn't seem to realize that the sprawl and the immigrants were essentially one and the same.
Idiot boomer scrawl
I was thinking about changing the name of this Substack. That would be perfect!
IBS? :)
I understand where you're coming from with this piece, but the thing that completely bulldozes all of your objections is prices. Without more housing -- in the form of apartment buildings and ADUs and all this other stuff -- increasing demand will meet fixed supply and the resulting price increases will crush you. Your children will not be able to stay in Bay Ridge and their children will barely be able to visit.
The key to all of this is to step back and think not just about your neighborhood but the region as a whole. If every single neighborhood succeeds in blocking these reforms, rent in the region will continue to explode. If every neighborhood is able to back of a bit and accept some apartment buildings, some bike lanes, some ADUs, some mixed-use structures, then we can make things better for everyone.
So you would say that you are very confident that if Bay Ridge accepts the proposed changes, prices will not substantially increase and the neighborhood will not substantially change? How confident of this would you say you are?
I'm extremely confident that without more housing, prices will be much higher. But I don't know how much more will be sufficient to keep them at current levels.
The illusion that we can keep these neighborhoods frozen in amber, with no real change, is a fantasy. There are only two choices: we can block all these reforms and keep the built environment the same, but then these places will become an exclusive playground of the rich. Or, if we build more housing, these places won't be as sleepy, but they'll continue to be affordable places that ordinary people can call home.
This is a thoughtful exchange. I acknowledge that there is a world in which targeted pro-development policies, including zoning changes, could deliver incremental but meaningful benefits to the city, maybe even to the community itself. I just don't believe we live in that world at the moment.
There is a certain hubris associated with believing that the policy tools in hand, including the studies that underlie them, will lead to the results desired at the levels required. This is especially apparent when some of the proposed policies - like backyard cottages - are so obviously ill-conceived. One recent analog is that many people didn't want congestion pricing because they didn't trust the government with the money. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/congestion-pricing-a-good-idea-died?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The purpose of the original essay was to highlight that the politicians and bureaucrats making the policies do not actually care about the people who live there now - they just see a broad economic problem, which they have identified as a crisis, and believe they can solve them using certain tools. What's more, the tools they want to use are too broad (significant relaxation of long-standing zoning restrictions) and ultimately rely on the market to cooperate for them to work (here, the market means developers unchained). This approach does not care whether those tools will lead to a significant degradation of life in the community or whether existing residents stay or go; in fact, let's be honest, the people pushing for these policies hope they go, as those residents are the only thing standing in the way of their ability to remake the city the way they want.
This is not about people being resistant to ANY change or about wanting the community to remain or become a rich enclave (this is still a middle class neighborhood). This is about the people who live there not trusting the current group of politicians and bureaucrats to change it for them.
Put another way, what are the chances that the current proposals will meaningfully address the city-wide issue or otherwise help the people in Bay Ridge?
https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExaGdzZ2o2OWt3MHZ2ZWd2bGxlbTVramI1MW5sZGNvZHZ5eGVhemowOCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/ZMIWTPCiQdwsTXVrWb/giphy.gif
I've noticed that the powers-that-be tend to want to remake already-charming areas over and over. Perhaps understandably - it is easier than doing the harder thing.
I should add that the sort of market urbanists who ply their trade in my former city, were just working from a map with lots of blank spaces - blank because they didn't wish to live in those places. They often derided the environmental priorities of the old Boomer activists of another day while essentially recreating their lives in the same streets/environs they had preferred as well. And they were fond of demonizing the car-driving people who lived in those distant areas, while demonstrating at all times a cringe-y worship of immigrants and the "wishes of those not yet here" over the wishes of the "tiresome old people who are able to make it to meetings and hearings because of their privilege". They didn't seem to realize that the sprawl and the immigrants were essentially one and the same.