I enjoyed reading what Braconi had to say about new york’s housing policy as well as other things mentioned relating to that topic. But, there was one thing I wanted to focus more on and these are the three reasons he gives as to why there is a high amount of housing disinvestment in New York. The reasons he provides are that the city owned a lot of the housing, the improvements the city places on it’s housing developing projects and the city’s system of rent regulation. In general, I was wondering if those reasons have an effect on the current housing situation in New York or if they no longer apply.
After further research it would seem that the first reason provided by Braconi may or may not still apply. The reason for this is because since Braconi presented this work homeownership has gone up and in fact reached it’s highest amount in history. Braconi published this book in 1999, according to the New York Times (and the us census) in the year 2000 the percentage of people who owned their own homes was 30% (years before that it was 28%) and 5 years later in 2005 the percentage of homeowners went up to 33.2%. Therefore, one can see a trend in rising homeownership by the person as opposed to the state. Furthermore, regarding the time period he’s writing about, the percentage of owners was about 19% if not less. Therefore, one can see how there is a significant change in the percentage of people who owned homes and this reason wouldn’t have the same effect as it once did.
The second reason Braconi mentions is the idea that the City constantly has improvements on it’s housing projects. This idea in my opinion still applies to today. For example, take the exhibit in the Museum of the History of New York, the exhibit shows a new type of one person apartment. Maybe the tour guide at the museum should go into real estate because she was really selling the house showing how even though it’s small there is a lot of room and also adding that they plan on adding a type of community within the building where there will be a lobby/plaza as well as other places for the residents to mingle. This is a more current example of how the city is providing exceptional housing projects. It would not surprise me at all if when these buildings are released to the public that a lot of people would flock to these buildings.
The third reason provided is the city’s rent regulations and according to recent trends in rent, in Brooklyn rent is increasing over the past 13 months regarding both one bedroom apartments and two bedroom apartments. Regarding the rest of New York City the average rate of rent can range between 1000 and 5000, keep in mind this is just the average and prices could in fact be higher. Furthermore, the more you want out of the apartment/housing, the more you should be expecting to pay more. For example, if you want to add a doorman, you should be expecting to pay an extra 12% minimum and that’s just in Manhattan in Queens it can go up to 43% extra. So, it is clear that these prices might deter people from buying and just as Braconi mentioned, it can drive these people to public housing.
After doing some basic research about the three reasons provided by Braconi regarding modern times it is clear that there is kind of a timeless truth to what he’s saying. The same reasons which he published in this book in 1999 still apply nowadays. However, one must not forget there may be other reasons not mentioned here for why someone would want to use public housing, but one shouldn’t overlook the truth in the words of Braconi.
