When people can simply get away with not paying rent, what sort of sucker would pay rent?
Rent collections are down in New York
421–430 of 594 posts
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#422For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…
Tax property values. We could talk about the merits of Georgeism but honestly let's set that aside - conventional property taxes are sufficient here. Most of Manhattan apparently has cough ), they're a tiny fractional "decommodification" of property as asset, because the money collected from the owners is spent on the residents. Most of this money passes through directly into higher rents, and we shouldn't care about…
Tax more
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The solution is pretty simple: build and unreasonable amount of housing. And entirely new cities. So it is not simple. "Just build more" always comes up in those discussions, and while it does help (and has been proven to help), it is not the definite answer for the housing issues. Build a new city from the ground up with a bunch of cheap modern housing, walkable and all modern goodies and ... nobody will move. Peo…
Actually we already had a solution to this, normalized remote work. If I can work remote for Citadel from a 6 bedroom house in North Dakota it’s a choice to rent a studio apartment in Manhattan. Not to mention the massive environmental benefits of taking cars off the streets. If you have mobility issues, working remote is a game changer. For those who need to use wheelchairs it’s miles easier to work from home. The n…
Instead of just building houses I'd consider building social networks - of the physical kind - which have shops, entertainment, and co-working spaces within walking distance.
Not everyone loves the isolation of WFH, so you could replace "jobs" in the old factory sense, now long gone, with co-working spaces which include a social element but are basically still remote work.
The big issue with the US housing market isn't the distribution of housing, it's the distribution of work and support infra of all kinds, including social support.
Because Systems Thinking isn't much of a thing in the US you get these partial solutions when what's needed are integrated solutions that consider all of the moving parts and try to fit them together in a workable way.
The US is very good at extracting and concentrating wealth, but not so good at systems-first distributed investment.
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tax property values. We could talk about the merits of Georgeism but honestly let's set that aside - conventional property taxes are sufficient here. Most of Manhattan apparently has cough ), they're a tiny fractional "decommodification" of property as asset, because the money collected from the owners is spent on the residents. Most of this money passes through directly into higher rents, and we shouldn't care about…
Tax more
Ever heard of the tale of the goose that laid golden eggs?
Imagine progressively feeding the goose less, so as to have a greater profit margin on the golden eggs it laid. No particular percentage of feed reduction seemed too harmful, until one day it died unexpectedly.
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#425For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…
> We've tried free housing before - it suffered tragedy of the commons. Not paying means no ownership means subjugation to the worst actions of the worst members of society.
I tried free housing for the first 18 years of my life and it worked out fine
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tax property values. We could talk about the merits of Georgeism but honestly let's set that aside - conventional property taxes are sufficient here. Most of Manhattan apparently has cough ), they're a tiny fractional "decommodification" of property as asset, because the money collected from the owners is spent on the residents. Most of this money passes through directly into higher rents, and we shouldn't care about…
> Most of Manhattan apparently has While NYC has never lacked for rot and corruption, those really aren't needed - or even particularly useful - for something like this. As soon as you've got any sort of law / regulation / status quo that benefits a class of well-to-do people, there will be intense pressure to maintain that situation. Vs. the opposition - honest reformers, idealists, the poor, whoever - even if they'…
> just never seem to have the zeal / focus / attention span / whatever to correct the problem
Mainly because, bluntly, the people who have the most zeal, attention span, talent, and focus... aren't in the group.
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question that many do not want to think about. We (as a society (referring to all Western Liberalism, not just the US)) are so thoroughly convinced that Liberal Democracy is the End of History, and it's the 'flawed but best,' as many say, but refuse to imagine something better. It's puzzling that a system that is supposed to reward creativity and genius like capitalism limits it's inhabitants in their imagination…
What would you like us to imagine? So far everything that we've tried at scale other than liberal democracy and capitalism has inevitably led to war, famine, and genocide. Western liberalism appears to be the only system that empirically works. Some would claim that "socialism with Chinese characteristics" works better, but if you look below the surface prosperity in first-tier cities the actual economic situation is…
As I said in my original comment, I don’t have an answer. I refuse to believe though that the only options that exist are the ones already tried. Do you really think in the couple thousand years of history, we’ve exhausted every viable option when liberal democracy is only an incredibly recent invention?
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#428For those looking for the actual data. It's from 2024 - says nothing about the current situation. * ~37K affordable housing units (baseline) across ~400 projects * 89% rent collection rate (down from 90.6% in 2023) * That's 600 units that went 'delinquent' in 2024 - assuming a $24K 'base' rent (just a guess) that's $15M in lost rent. * Deeply troubled projects (that can't survive without this rent) are at 11% - seems…
> We've tried free housing before - it suffered tragedy of the commons. Not paying means no ownership means subjugation to the worst actions of the worst members of society. I tried free housing for the first 18 years of my life and it worked out fine
Why aren’t you still there?
Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question that many do not want to think about. We (as a society (referring to all Western Liberalism, not just the US)) are so thoroughly convinced that Liberal Democracy is the End of History, and it's the 'flawed but best,' as many say, but refuse to imagine something better. It's puzzling that a system that is supposed to reward creativity and genius like capitalism limits it's inhabitants in their imagination…
It's not Liberal Democracy that is the problem but a society where all of the slack has been optimized out, every extraction maximized, every infraction forever a scarlet letter on an individual, zero stability but constant crisis inflicted on individuals. There is no room in modern day America for people in the margins. Society needs to make a place for them and a path out of constant crisis, or the homeless problem…
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Re: Rent collections are down in New York
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democracy isn't freedom. It's quite easily possible for a democracy to be non-free (many current examples) or for a non-democracy to be free (not as many).
We're really splitting hairs, for no purpose other than to avoid the point. You'd better start standing up for freedom instead of toying with oppressors. Nobody will do it for you.
Btw you’re replying to different people