Under the headline "Why It's So Hard to Find an Affordable Apartment in New York," the New York Times mainly lays the blame on, of all people, Mayor Bloomberg. "Between 2003 and 2007, the Bloomberg administration rezoned nearly one-fifth of the city, according to a 2010 study by the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. But nearly 90 percent of the lots analyzed in the study had their capacity reduced or only modestly increased," the Times writes. Strangely, the Times doesn't say what happened to the other ten percent of the lots, or break down, in the 90 percent, what portion had their capacity reduced and what portion had their capacity increased. Nor does the Times much grapple with the problem that it could also be hard to find an "affordable" apartment in New York even back in the 2003 to 2007 period, before the Bloomberg-era rezoning on which the Times blames the problem.
Not mentioned at all in the Times article: the effects of landmark historic districts that freeze vast portions of the city in place, obstructing dynamism and making new construction difficult. Also not mentioned at all in the Times article: rent control and stabilization laws that for years deterred landlords from improving properties and gave tenants no reason to downsize their space even when their family size decreased. Those rent stabilization laws favored existing longtime tenants over new arrivals to the city.
Also not mentioned—the effects of wealthy people living in unfree countries with weak property rights and corrupt legal systems, like Russia and China—buying New York apartments to get some of their assets outside the reach of the dictatorships. Or the dictators themselves using New York real estate to shelter their ill-gotten gains.
What could have been a good opportunity for the Times to explain to readers the concepts of supply, demand, government regulation, freedom, property rights, and the rule of law instead came out as a clumsy attack on Mayor Bloomberg. How many years after his mayoralty ended will the Times still be blaming him for New York's problems?
And let it be remembered, too, that while costly apartments are a problem for New York newcomers, the alternative—New York housing prices plummeting—is not exactly a sign of the city's health, either. If you are a New York homeowner or landlord, increasing housing costs are good for you, and a sign that the city's economy is booming enough that people want to be there. That's not all bad, by any means.