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Gotham Gazette
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The Topic
Housing refers to all dwellings in NYC - from luxury condos with views of the Park to battered in-rem apartments in the South Bronx - and the laws and policy disputes that they produce.
The Context
The percentage of vacant and available housing stock in NYC has never exceeded 4.01%. This extraordinary housing scarcity makes for the highest rents in the US. Unlike citizens of most big American cities, where slightly over half of units are owner-occupied, more than two-thirds of New Yorkers are renters. And - bucking the national trend again - more than two-thirds of New York apartments are rent-regulated in some way. The housing crunch shows no sign of easing up, as new construction is impeded by the highest building costs in the nation. Of the little new construction that does occur in NYC, the vast majority takes advantage of some government subsidy or exemption. Also to note: the city within a city that is New York's 170,000 units of public housing - by far the largest amount of public housing anywhere in America.

Best Books About Housing

Sort books by: Author | Title | Publisher | Year

THE TENANT MOVEMENT IN NEW YORK CITY, 1904-1984
Ronald Lawson and Mark Naison
(Rutgers University Press, 1986. 289 pp.)

A great resource on the evolution of tenant life – from the landlord as czar period, to post-war crises and the arrival of rent regulation, to tenant power movements. Covers noteworthy tenant activity, as well as landlord and government responses. more info...

 
 

A History of Housing in New York City
by Richard Plunz (Columbia University Press, 1990. 422 pp.)

Plunz, an architect and historian from Columbia University, shows how New York City’s housing mix and housing problems came to be, tracing development from 1850 to 1990. The book includes over 300 illustrations and plenty of tales of both greed and good intentions. more info...

Housing and Community Development in New York City: Facing the Future
by Michael H. Schill (editor) (State University of New York Press, 1999. 277 pp.)

Schill collected and edited the assessments of leading experts on New York City’s current housing and community development problems and policy. This book examines governmental responses to the city’s greatest housing woes – including homelessness and abandonment -- discussing the failures and highlighting the successes. more info...

 

Scarcity By Design: The Legacy of New York City's Housing Policies
by Peter D. Salins, Gerard C.S. Mildner (Harvard University Press, 1992. 168 pp.)

Peter Salins of the Manhattan Institute argues that many governmental policies including zoning and rent regulation helped create the city’s affordable housing crisis. more info...

» Suggest a Housing book.

Interested in other books about NYC? Visit our NYC Books section.

[Suggest a Housing book]